Editing Bell Canada (section)

===Competition and territory reduction===
[[File:Bell Telephone Building 1931.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Bell Telephone Building (Montreal)|Bell Telephone Building]] in Montreal was once the head office of Bell Canada.]]

Bell Canada extended lines from Nova Scotia to the foot of the [[Rocky Mountains]] in what is now Alberta. However, most of the attention given to meeting demand for service focused on major cities in Ontario, Quebec, and the [[Maritimes|Maritime Provinces]].

====Atlantic Canada====
During the late 19th century, Bell sold its Atlantic operations in the three Maritime provinces, where many small independent companies also operated and eventually came under the ownership of three provincial companies. Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada with several private companies, and a government operation that was transferred to the control of Canadian National Railways.

Bell acquired interests in all Atlantic companies during the early 1960s, starting with Newfoundland Telephone (which later was organized as [[NewTel Communications]]) on July 24, 1962. Bell acquired controlling interest in [[Maritime Telephone and Telegraph Company]], later known as MT&T, which also owned PEI-based [[Island Telecom|Island Telephone]], and in Bruncorp, the parent company of [[NBTel]] in 1966. The purchase of MT&T was made despite efforts of the Nova Scotia legislature on September 10, 1966, to limit the voting power of any shareholder to 1000 votes. Bell-owned MT&T absorbed some 120 independent companies, most serving fewer than 50 customers each. Bell-owned NewTel purchased the CNR-owned [[Terra Nova Tel]] in 1988.

In the late 1990s, Newtel, Bruncorp, MT&T and Island Tel merged into Aliant, now [[Bell Aliant]] which owns many services in rural areas of Ontario and Quebec formerly owned by Bell Canada.

On January 1, 2011, Bell acquired xwave from Bell Aliant for $40 million, an information technology company offering sales and services in Atlantic Canada.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bce.ca/news-and-media/releases/show/bell-completes-acquisition-of-xwave|title=Bell completes acquisition of xwave|website=www.bce.ca|language=en|access-date=April 26, 2018}}</ref>

====Quebec and Ontario====
[[File:Campus Bell in Montreal 1.jpg|thumb|Bell Canada's headquarters located on [[Nuns' Island]] in Montreal, Quebec.]]
[[File:BellPromenade.jpg|thumb|A Bell Store in [[The Promenade Shopping Centre]], [[Thornhill, Ontario]]]]
Independent companies appeared in many areas of Ontario, Quebec and Maritime provinces without adequate Bell Canada service. During the 20th century Bell acquired most of the independent companies in Ontario and Quebec, most notably the purchase of Nexxlink Technologies, a Montreal-based integrated IT solutions and telecommunications provider founded by Karol Brassard.<ref>{{cite press release
  | title = Bell Canada to Acquire Nexxlink Technologies Inc.
  | publisher = BCE, Inc.
  | date = December 9, 2004
  | url = http://www.bce.ca/news-and-media/releases/show/bell-canada-to-acquire-nexxlink-technologies-inc
  | access-date = April 2, 2013
  | archive-date = December 27, 2012
  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121227005535/http://www.bce.ca/news-and-media/releases/show/bell-canada-to-acquire-nexxlink-technologies-inc
  | url-status = dead
  }}</ref> Alongside the acquisition of Charon Systems, Nexxlink now operates today as Bell Business Solutions—a division of Bell Canada.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/116/116995.html|title=INDUSTRY CENTER – INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES |publisher=Yahoo! Finance }}</ref> Quebec, however, still has large swaths of relatively rural areas served by Telus Québec (formerly Québec Telephone, later acquired by [[Telus Communications]]) and [[Télébec]] (now owned by Bell Canada via Bell Aliant) and by some 20 small independent companies. As of 1980, Ontario still had some 30 independent companies, and Bell has not acquired any; the smaller ones were sold to larger independents with larger capital resources. [[Cellcom Communications]] is the largest franchisee of Bell Canada, currently operating 25 Bell stores in both Québec and Ontario regions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cellcom.ca/en/about-cellcom-communications |title=Bell Canada Franchisee |access-date=April 27, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190405125045/http://www.cellcom.ca/en/about-cellcom-communications |archive-date=April 5, 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==== Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan ====
At separate times, the three Prairie provinces acquired Bell Canada operations and formed provincial utility services, investing to develop proper telephone services throughout those provinces; Bell Canada's investment in the prairies had been scant or insufficient relative to growth, and all three had various local telephone companies. The Alberta government's Alberta Government Telephones Commission and Manitoba Government Telephones purchased the Bell operations of their provinces in 1908. Saskatchewan's Department of Railways, Telegraphs and Telephones, established in June 1908, purchased the Bell operations on October 1, 1909; all three provinces' government operations eventually acquired the independent companies.

Having achieved a high level of development, Manitoba moved to privatize its telephone utility and Alberta privatized [[Alberta Government Telephones]] to create [[Telus Communications]] in the 1990s. Saskatchewan continues to own [[SaskTel]] as a [[crown corporation]] .Edmonton was served by a city-owned utility, Edmonton Telephones Corporation, that was sold to Telus in 1995. BCE re-gained ownership of the Manitoba system, now known as [[Bell MTS]], on March 17, 2017.<ref name="fp-dealcomplete">{{cite news|title=Bell MTS deal closes, kicking off $1-billion investment that brings 4G to Churchill, Manitoba|url=http://business.financialpost.com/fp-tech-desk/bell-mts-deal-closes-kicking-off-1-billion-investment-with-4g-in-churchill-manitoba?__lsa=6e93-21ec|website=Financial Post| date=March 17, 2017 |access-date=March 17, 2017| last1=Jackson | first1=Emily }}</ref>

==== British Columbia ====
British Columbia, served today by [[Telus Communications]], was served by numerous small companies that mostly amalgamated to form British Columbia Telephone, later known as [[BC Tel]] (the last known acquisition was the Okanagan Telephone Company in the late 1970s), which served the province from the 1960s until its merger with Telus. (The amalgamations produced one anomaly: [[Atlin, British Columbia|Atlin]] is surrounded by the territory of [[Northwestel]], implying that the company that established service there was acquired by a company serving territories further south.)

==== Northern Canada ====
Although Bell Canada entered the Northwest Territories (NWT) with an exchange at [[Iqaluit]] (then known as Frobisher Bay, in the territory now known as Nunavut) in 1958, Canadian National Telecommunications, a subsidiary of [[Canadian National Railways]] (CNR), provided most of the telephone service in Canada's northern territories (specifically, Yukon, northern BC and the western NWT). CNR created [[Northwestel]] in 1979, and Bell Canada Enterprises acquired the company in 1988 as a wholly owned subsidiary. Bell Canada sold its 22 exchanges in the eastern region of the NWT to Northwestel in 1992, and BCE transferred ownership of the company to Bell Canada in 1999. Northwestel's operating area was in 2001 opened to long-distance competition (which has materialized only in the form of prepaid card business, and service to large national customers with some operating locations in the north) and in 2007 to resale of local telephone service (which has not yet occurred).

Northern British Columbia, northeastern Ontario and the James Bay region of northern Quebec were served by independent companies, though Bell Canada eventually provided service in more far-flung reaches of Ontario and Quebec, acquired ownership interests in companies serving large swaths of northwestern Quebec and northeastern Ontario, and in Northwestel.