Bell to cut CapEx by over C$1B in 2024-2025

Bell announced its intention to reduce capital expenditures by over C$1B in 2024-25, including a minimum of C$500M to C$600M in 2024, money the company had planned to invest in bringing high-speed fibre Internet to hundreds of thousands of additional homes and businesses in rural, suburban and urban communities. This reduction is in addition to Bell decreasing its 2023 capital expenditure budget by C$100M in anticipation of the CRTC decision to unrelentingly pursue wholesale access at the expense of critical network investment. Bell’s fibre network is now available to over seven million homes and businesses. Prior to the CRTC’s decision, Bell’s near-term plan was to build high-speed fibre to nine million locations by the end of 2025. Bell will now re-consider pending builds in all communities where it had planned to expand, and will reduce its 2025 build target from nine million to 8.3M locations.