Cogeco Launches MVNO Mobile Service

telcodad

Canada’s Cogeco launches mobile service but is mum on pricing
Following deals with Eastlink and a yet-to-be-identified MVNO partner, Cogeco has debuted its long-anticipated mobile service. Breezeline, Cogeco’s US unit, launched mobile in 2024 via NCTC’s pacts with Reach and AT&T.
By Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading - July 16, 2025
https://www.lightreading.com/wireless/canada-s-cogeco-launches-mobile-service-but-is-mum-on-pricing

Cogeco has joined its cable peers in introducing a long-anticipated mobile service in Canada, with plans underway to make it available in 12 markets in the coming weeks. And like other cable operators, Montreal-based Cogeco is bundling mobile with home broadband services. The company has yet to release pricing for mobile services during this soft-launch phase but noted that the new offering is targeted to “low-to-mid data users.”

“We’re ready to go,” Cogeco President and CEO Frédéric Perron said today on the company’s fiscal Q3 earnings call. “We already have an initial cohort of users of the service and will broaden sales in 12 markets over the coming weeks ahead of a full commercial launch this fall.”

A Cogeco official told Light Reading that the operator will sell and market mobile across all its channels including physical stores, online, through customer care and via residential service bundles.

Bundling broadband with mobile

The official said pricing will be announced to customers first, but he noted that Cogeco’s mobile offering “will be exclusive to customers also buying wireline with us.”

Cogeco’s initial 12 markets targeted for mobile include Alma, Magog, Rimouski, Saint-Georges, Saint-Hyacinthe, Saint-Sauveur and Trois-Rivières in Québec; and Brockville, Chatham, Cobourg, Cornwall and Welland in Ontario. A “full geographic deployment” will follow in the fall, the operator said. ….

GrumpyCanadian

telcodad but he noted that Cogeco’s mobile offering “will be exclusive to customers also buying wireline with us.”

Oh well, so much for that idea, no matter how cheap it is (though Cogeco hardly has a reputation for “cheap”). It’s also not clear what they mean by “full commercial launch”; the two seem contradictory. A full commercial launch, to me, implies availability everywhere, while they have already announced exclusivity for their wire-line customers.

I have to guess that the service will still work outside of their core service areas, thanks to their “partners’” networks, but will only be sold where they sell physical wired services. If that’s the case, I don’t know how they will compete or make this a worthwhile (as in profitable) offering.

px_eliezer_

GrumpyCanadian

Even I as a dumb Yank recognize that list as a lot of fairly small towns.

Dks01

px_eliezer_ Those are all places where Cogeco has cable licenses and an established footprint. Cogeco is also a Quebec company. If they have partnered with Eastlink, that is another small system cable provider.

EthSlinger

GrumpyCanadian The idea is that once an existing wireline customer switches their mobile service to Cogeco, it will be stickier and it’ll be more cumbersome for them to leave. Even if Cogeco were to make it super easy from their perspective, porting phone numbers is ridiculously convoluted.