BCE Inc.

• Date founded: 1880
• Industry: Telecommunications; multimedia
• Corporate Headquarters: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Type: Public

Overview

BCE Inc., or Bell Canada Enterprises, is a Canadian telecommunications and multimedia company that provides various communication services to residential and business customers. The company was originally founded in 1880, shortly after the invention of the telephone. Since that time, the company has grown substantially to become the largest communications company in Canada. Through its three main business arms—Bell Wireless, Bell Wireline, and Bell Media—BCE provides phone, wireless, and Internet service throughout the nation. It also owns Canada’s most-watched television network and several radio stations. BCE has a significant investment stake in several professional sports franchises in Montreal and Toronto. In 2023, the company reported 45,132 employees, more than 8,000 retail locations across Canada, and reported operating revenues of $24,673 million Canadian dollars.

History

American inventor Alexander Graham Bell is credited with inventing the first telephone in the 1870s. He received a patent in the United States for his invention in 1876 and founded the Bell Telephone Company a year later. Within a few years, telephone service was expanding rapidly across the United States and into Canada. In 1880, the Canadian Parliament created the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, granting it the rights to construct telephone lines under a licensing agreement with the American Bell Telephone Company. The company also began manufacturing telephone equipment in 1881. That business would later separate and eventually become known as the Nortel Networks Corporation.

By the early twentieth century, Bell Telephone of Canada had more than two hundred thousand subscribers across the nation. In 1916, the company made history when it placed the first transcontinental phone call across Canada, connecting the company offices in Montreal and Vancouver. During the 1920s, several smaller telephone companies were formed in Canada’s western provinces. Some smaller phone companies had been operating in the Atlantic provinces since the late nineteenth century. While this competition shrank Bell’s coverage area, the company remained the dominant telephone operator throughout the nation. These smaller companies needed to utilize Bell’s lines to provide service, prompting the formation of numerous business alliances with Bell throughout the twentieth century.

The Bell Telephone Company of Canada eventually acquired a controlling interest in more than eighty smaller phone companies, known as the Bell Group of Canada. In 1968, the parent company’s name was officially changed to Bell Canada. Government deregulation in the early 1980s allowed the company to reorganize, creating Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. as a new parent company for Bell Canada and its many subsidiaries. The company was rebranded as BCE Inc. in 1988.

As deregulation opened up the telephone and long-distance markets to increased competition in the 1990s, BCE decided to add to its portfolio by moving into mass media and the emerging Internet market. In 2000, BCE joined with the media giant Thomson Corporation and the holding firm Woodbridge Co. Ltd. to purchase the Globe and Mail newspaper, the CTV Television Network, and a web search and content provider. These businesses were combined under the name Bell Globemedia. By the early 2000s, BCE’s businesses were divided into four main arms: Bell Canada; Bell Globemedia; BCE Ventures, which provided information technology services; and BCE Emergis, an e-commerce provider. However, by 2008, BCE had sold off its interests in Emergis and Globemedia and closed its Ventures unit to focus on its core telecommunications business. In 2011, BCE reacquired its former mass media holdings—by then named CTVglobemedia—and sold off its stake in the Globe and Mail to the Woodbridge Company. The company has continued to grow by acquiring other companies. In 2024, the company strengthened its tech services for business-to-business transactions by acquiring Statejm, CloudKettle, and FX Innovation. These acquisitions are reported to have fueled a 10 percent increase in revenue in the Business Solutions sector of the company.

Impact

As of 2024, BCE Inc. split operations between two segments—Bell Communication and Technology Service (CTS) and Bell Media. Bell CTS was one of Canada’s largest wireless networks, providing voice and data communications for both residential and business customers throughout the country. In addition to operating several high-speed wireless networks, the company sells mobile phones and other equipment at physical store locations across Canada. This includes Bell-branded stores and sales at The Source, a Canadian-based consumer electronics and cell phone retail chain. The Source was formerly known as Radio Shack Canada and was later owned by Circuit City. Bell Wireless also sells products and services through several third-party dealers. Bell CTS also provides Internet access, Internet television, satellite television, Internet protocol television (IPTV), cloud-based services, local- and long-distance telephone, and other communications services. The company’s extensive fiber-optic network provides Internet and television services to more than 10 million homes and businesses in 2022 in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, and the Atlantic Provinces; its satellite television services are available nationwide. Bell Wireline also provides some telecommunications services to the Northwestern Territories and partners with local companies to provide some services to Alberta and British Columbia. Bell Wireline products and services are also sold at Bell outlets The Source locations. In 2023 the company reported a 5.4 percent increase in residential internet revenue, a 5.5 percent increase in consumer wireless revenue, and a total increase of 27 percent of digital media revenue from the previous year.

BCE’s Bell Media segment oversees the company’s television and radio holdings and its digital media and Internet content providers. Chief among these is the CTV Television Network, which, as of 2023, had been Canada’s highest-rated and largest privately owned network for 22 consecutive years. In addition to CTV, Bell Media also owned its sister network, CTV Two; the sports network, TSN; several local television affiliates; twenty-seven specialty channels; and several premium pay channels. In total, CTV and CTV Two were estimated to reach about 23 million viewers per week in 2018 and reached a total of 183.5 million viewers in 2020. Bell Media was also Canada’s largest radio broadcaster, operating 109 stations in 58 markets nationwide. The company’s digital media arm operated hundreds of websites, approximately 30 apps, and the streaming service, CraveTV.

BCE Inc. was also an investment partner in the ownership of several professional Canadian sports franchises. This includes a stake in the Montreal Canadiens, one of Canada’s most famous National Hockey League (NHL) teams. As of 2025, the Canadiens played their home games at the Bell Centre. BCE Inc. owned a 37.5 percent inequity interest in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, a Toronto company that owns four major professional sports teams for some years before selling it in 2024.

Bibliography

"BCE Overview." BCE, www.bce.ca/about-bce/bce-overview. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025. 

"BCE Reports 2023 Q4 and Full-year Results, Announces 2024 Financial Targets and 3.1% Annual Dividend Increase To $3.99 Per Share." BCE, 8 Feb. 2024, www.bce.ca/news-and-media/releases/show/bce-reports-2023-q4-and-full-year-results-announces-2024-financial-targets-and-3-1-annual-dividend-increase-to-3-99-per-share. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025. 

"Bell Acquires Tech Services Companies Statejm and CloudKettle Inc., Strengthening Managed Cybersecurity and Salesforce Capabilities for Enterprises Francais." Cision, 9 July 2024, www.newswire.ca/news-releases/bell-acquires-tech-services-companies-stratejm-and-cloudkettle-inc-strengthening-managed-cybersecurity-and-salesforce-capabilities-for-enterprises-878815157.html. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025. 

“Bell Media Inc.” Canadian Communications Foundation, 2019, www.broadcasting-history.ca/listing‗and‗histories/bell-media-inc. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025.

Company Overview of Bell Canada, Inc.” Bloomberg, 18 June 2019, www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=92800. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025.

Grant, Tavia. “A Brief History of Bell Canada.” Globe and Mail, 24 Apr. 2018, www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/a-brief-history-of-bell-canada/article1107320. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025.

“#341 BCE.” Forbes, 2022, www.forbes.com/companies/bce. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025.

Yusufali, Sasha, and Robert E. Babe. “Bell Canada Enterprises Inc.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 4 Mar. 2015, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bell-canada-enterprises-inc. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025.