CRTC Makes It Easier to Leave Rogers, Bell and Telus Wireless Home Internet

Leaving a wireless home Internet plan has been messier than it needs to be. Wireline switches have long let your new provider cancel the old one for you. Wireless home Internet often left you calling the carrier you were trying to ditch.

A new CRTC decision from September 4 is meant to fix that. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved an industry playbook so when you switch, the new provider can send a standard cancel request for Internet sold by a wireless company, the same way wireline transfers have worked since 2011.

Under the new rules, providers use a clearer cancel request for those wireless-sold Internet products and keep an older path only where it still fits. Each service gets a unique ID, usually an asset number or a phone number, tied to your account. That way a household with phones, a tablet and a fixed wireless line does not lose the wrong service when only one piece is supposed to go.

Those IDs have to show up somewhere customers and support staff can actually find them. Wireless providers that sell standalone Internet now have until September 4, 2027 to put them on bills or in the account portal, which is the part you will notice the next time you try to leave.

It is quieter than the fight over activation and switching fees and the case pressing Rogers, Bell and Telus on device and SIM charges. This one is the back-office piece: making sure the cancel request lands the first time, instead of bouncing until someone gives up and stays put.