Bell says it's working to restore services after widespread outage across Ontario, Quebec

Jenna Benchetrit · CBC News

· Posted: May 21, 2025 9:50 AM EDT | Last Updated: 27 minutes ago

After users in Ontario and Quebec reported a wide outage of Bell Canada's services this morning, the institution said it's moving to reconstruct the system.

Data from DownDetector, an outage tracker, showed that complaints spiked astir 9:30 a.m. ET, with much than 133,000 reports made. Most of the reports cited issues with landline and mobile net connections.

By 10 a.m. ET, the fig of complaints had dropped to 41,000.

Bell Canada first acknowledged successful a connection connected its Facebook page that "some customers successful Ontario and Quebec whitethorn beryllium experiencing an net work interruption."

"We are moving to reconstruct work arsenic rapidly arsenic possible," the connection said. "Thank you for your patience."

The institution shared an update connected societal media astatine 11:30 a.m. ET, acknowledging that immoderate customers are besides having issues with mobile service.

CBC News reached retired to Bell requesting more information. A typical for the institution said that the web is investigating and that they volition stock updates arsenic soon arsenic possible.

The typical said users tin besides look for updates connected the company's X feed.

The DownDetector representation shows that immoderate outages are being reported crossed Atlantic Canada. Bell Aliant, a subsidiary that operates successful the Atlantic provinces, doesn't look to beryllium having the aforesaid issues arsenic the wider network.

After a monolithic Rogers outage near 12 cardinal radical without internet service successful 2022, Canada's telecom regulator acceptable new rules requiring companies to study large outages and interruptions wrong 2 hours. 

More than a twelve Canadian telecoms — including Bell, Rogers and Telus — signed a memorandum of knowing that year, pledging to enactment unneurotic to supply exigency roaming, communal assistance and communications with the nationalist and the authorities during an outage oregon different "impactful disaster."