Bell to drop MTS name for new wireless customers

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This article was published 15/10/2018 (2011 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The MTS brand is being phased out of the name of the mobility division of the Bell-owned Manitoba telecom company, Bell MTS.

All first-time Bell wireless customers in Manitoba will now be subscribing to a service called Bell Mobility, as opposed to Bell MTS Mobility.

Nothing is expected to change for existing Bell MTS Mobility customers, but a Bell MTS wireless customer upgrading their device will also be upgraded to a Bell Mobility plan. It’s not clear what the service will be called for those who renew a contract with Bell MTS Mobility.

Bell Canada acquired MTS in March 2017.

The change only affects Bell MTS wireless service. There are no plans to change the branding of Bell MTS internet, TV and home phone residential services or other Bell MTS brands.

A spokesman for Bell MTS said the rebranding is the same thing that happened with wireless customers at Halifax-based Bell Aliant as well as Yellowknife-based, Bell-owned Northwestel.

Bell Aliant, fully acquired by Bell in 2014, switched to Bell Mobility for wireless in 2006 (before it acquired Aliant outright, Bell was a longtime major shareholder of Aliant) and continues to offer Bell Aliant internet, phone and TV services. Northwestel has been a Bell Canada company since 1988, switched to Bell Mobility service in 2013 and also continues to provide TV, internet and phone services under its own name.

Andrew Parkinson, Bell MTS spokesman, said that since Bell Mobility is already a national network, it did not make sense for the Bell-owned Bell MTS to operate a separate business.

He said Bell Mobility subscribers in Manitoba are able to access features not available from Bell MTS like Roam Better and family share plans.

In addition to the name change for Bell’s new wireless customers in Manitoba, about 24,700 current Bell MTS Mobility subscribers will become customers of Xplore Mobile any day now.

An official from Xplornet Communications Inc., Xplore Mobile’s parent company, said the new Manitoba wireless service provider is expected to go live in the coming weeks.

“We are in the final stretch,” Sebastien Bouchard, a spokesman for Xplornet Communications Inc., said recently.

He said engineers are testing devices on the network, customer contact staff are taking calls from customers who are being transferred (they have already received notifcation about the transition) and the six new Xplore Mobile stores will open in the near future.

Xplornet, billed as Canada’s leading rural broadband internet provider specializing in fixed wireless broadband service, acquired 24,700 former Bell MTS wireless subscribers as part of the Competition Bureau’s terms that sanctioned Bell’s purchase of MTS.

Xplore Mobile will become the fourth wireless competitor in the Manitoba market.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca