The Decibel - Why do so many Canadian roads not have cell service?

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Across Canada, highways and rural roads are studded with cellular ‘dead zones’. In some provinces, coverage gaps span over 30 per cent of major roads. In some cases, you can’t receive calls and texts for more than 100 kilometres. So when something goes wrong, what do people do?Today, the Globe’s telecoms reporter Irene Galea and national news reporter Jill Mahoney have been investigating how many of the country’s major roads and highways are disconnected. They explain why years-long public safety risk persists, how it affects the Canadians driving through them, and what is being done about the problem.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are a remote little northern community surrounded by lakes and forest, and it's beautiful, but it is kind of isolated. Jen Grundy lives in Sioux Lookout, a small town in northern Ontario. In order to buy groceries or get her two-year-old to swim lessons, Jen has to drive to Dryden, the next town over, down a 45-minute stretch of Highway 72. As scenic and as beautiful as this road is, and helpful because it links me to essential services, it can be quite dangerous, mainly because there is no lighting. And also wildlife, other vehicles, a lot of transport trucks coming up and down the highway. And for most of that drive, Jen also has no cell service. And if something were to happen, for the majority of the commute, I cannot call for help. I can't call if I have a flat, I can't call if I get in an accident, I can't call if I hit wildlife.

It's just one of those situations where you would hope and pray that somebody comes by at some point while you're stranded and that they're willing to help and or have the skills to help. Across Canada, highways and back roads are studded with cell phone dead zones. bars drop and reception can suddenly become spotty or completely go away. In some areas, coverage gaps can stretch for a kilometer or so. In others, it can go on for a hundred. Today, Globe reporters Irene Gallia and Jill Mahoney join us. They've been looking into what's behind Canada's dead zones,

why it's been so challenging to address, and what may solve the problem. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the December. Globe and Mail. Jill, Irene, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having us. So, Jill, what is the picture across the country when it comes to dead zones? So one thing that Irene and I found is that there's a real dichotomy here.

Canadians have coverage for their cell phones and their houses. almost everybody, 99.5% of Canadians have coverage at home and at work. So we pretty much have universal service. But where this really breaks down is on our roads. Our major roads across the country have huge gaps in service. So across the country, 13% of our major road distance is not covered by cell service. And that equates to nearly 15,000 kilometers. That's a huge amount of highway. And that actually understates the problem because that doesn't include the secondary highways that are not covered. And also several provinces think that that figure of 13% is itself an undercount.

So these dead zones are everywhere that you could drive. They're in remote and northern regions. They're even in cities. So this is really a problem that affects Canadians from coast to coast. Jill, who is responsible for providing cell infrastructure in Canada? So the actual infrastructure, these large cellular towers, are built by private telecom companies, companies that we all deal with every month when we pay our bills, Rogers, Talis, Bell, etc. But it's the federal government that regulates these companies.

And Ottawa and the provinces sometimes provide funding. for certain projects. I mean, that sounds like a very interesting relationship. Yeah, in Canada, we mainly rely on private companies to provide our telecommunications service. There's one exception that's SaskTel in Saskatchewan. It's a holdover from the days where we had more Crown Corps as telecom providers. Interesting. Okay.

So are these dead zones more common in certain areas, I mean? Yeah. Yeah, so as Jill said, they're everywhere across Canada, but the data from the CRTC, that's the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission, the federal telecom regulator, shows that the problem is most acute in British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador. So BC lacks mobile service on 32% of its major roads, and this includes stretches of the notorious highway of tiers where indigenous women have gone missing or been murdered. In Newfoundland, 38% of major road distance was still unconnected as of the end of 2023, according to the CRTC. The dead zones are most common on national highways, with 21% of national highways not covered, followed by 12% of major highways. These are more within a province instead of spanning provinces, and 3% of the Trans-Canada Highway. But as Jill mentioned, our investigation found that even these statistics could be an undercount.

Interesting. I want to just kind of reiterate some these numbers because these are some huge percentages, like 32% in BC, 38% of major roads in Newfoundland. Like, that's not a small amount. And to the point of the highway of tiers, it just feels like that would be a place where cell service would be so important. Right. Yeah.

So, I mean, who tracks these dead zones? Like, how do we know they exist? So the CRTC tracks it. The way that the federal government currently gets their data is from estimates provided by the telecom companies. What this isn't is on-the-ground field reports. So four provinces, BC, P.E.I, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, they've all said, you know, we've heard from our residents that the federal data doesn't really align with their experience. So they did their own on-the-ground study. so going out on the roads and testing for cell phone service.

And they found that cell phone dead zones were much more common than what the federal data showed. So for instance, in New Brunswick, federal maps show that only 1% of highways are dead zones. But when that province did a study, it found that 17% of roads have insufficient coverage. And the New Brunswick finance minister, Renee Legassee, told us, that there's a lot of frustration caused by this discrepancy and he encounters gaps himself while driving in both rural and urban areas in the province.

1%, 17%, those are completely different percentages here. Why is there a discrepancy when it comes to the numbers? It's a bit unclear to us why that is, but the CRTC has said that it is reviewing its methodology. In fact, in 2024, they hired a firm to study this. a third-party consulting firm. So they said that they're working on improving the accuracy of their dead zone maps. So it feels a bit surprising that this is an issue here in Canada,

given that we've had LTE service since 2011, which seems like, I don't know, a lot of time to deal with dead zones. Irene, why aren't we fully connected? Well, I'll start by saying that, as Joe mentioned earlier, we have very broad coverage of cell phone service in our households and in our workplaces. But to your point, LTE, which is long-term evolution, the cell phone service that followed 3G, faster speeds, lower latency, that sort of thing, that's been around since 2011. In the first six years after LTE was developed, Canadian cell phone companies expanded service quite quickly across Canada, basically up to the 86% of coverage that we see today. But since 2017, that number has stalled.

First of all, because those areas that have yet to be covered are the most difficult to cover. So cell phone dead zones exist in large part because of cost. These areas are sparsely populated. They're very far-flung. They're rural. So the population density economics just doesn't really work for telecom companies. In their view, there isn't a strong business case to be. made for building in these areas. So often they rely on government subsidies to build them out.

I'd also like to add that there are regulatory bottlenecks that really come to play in this. Approvals for telecom and spectrum are a federal responsibility. But on the land use and permitting side, that is a provincial and sometimes even municipal responsibility. So it's a really complicated issue with a lot of interconnected factors, and it's hugely expensive. We'll be right back. So, Irene, this last bit of the country is expensive to get coverage, too. Just how costly is this? In recent years, the cost to build has really increased.

So we saw several instances where companies had accepted government funding to build out in different parts of the country, and they saw those costs grow exponentially. Two cases stood out to us, so earlier this year, Bell Canada pulled out of a four-year plan to bring internet to the north coast of Labrador. This was mainly an internet project, but it would have had ancillary cell phone service as a result. Several years ago, the federal government had committed $32 million. to this project over a series of investments, but Bell said that the project had ballooned

from an original estimate of $25 million to $110 million. So this means that the amount that they would be paying made the project unviable. Notably, they said that they are still providing service to the area. They told us that in a statement. In July, the BC government said that Rogers had backed out of a plan to bring new cell powers to a stretch of highway in B.C. between the towns of Hope and Carameos. The costs for that project had initially expected to be about $9.7 million, but those costs, Roger said, had jumped to over $70 million. So at that point, the companies are finding that they're not

able to span that gap. Although I will say that the telecom companies do spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on building out their networks and maintaining their networks. They also contribute to a federal fund called the Broadband Fund. This is collected by the CRTC and then it's redistributed back to telecom companies. Often these are smaller telecom companies for targeted rural projects. So they are still spending money, but the economics have to make sense. Okay. It sounds like there's a tension here of who, pays for what? So, Jill, since this is a public safety issue, why isn't Ottawa just

shouldering the full cost? It's a great question, Cheryl. This debate really is underpinned by the fundamental tension. Many feel that connectivity is a public good and that the federal government should be providing these services. But it's hugely expensive, as Irene mentioned, and they're largely paid for and delivered by the private sector. So we have the public good on one hand and then the private sector. And it's a business case. It all comes down to the economics for a for-profit company. So some people think that Ottawa should take a far greater role in expanding cell service or else force the hand of industry and require expansion of cellular service on roads. So we tried to speak with industry minister Melanie Jolie. She declined

our request. Her department provided a statement and said that Ottawa does give funding for expanding mobile service. So we do have this fundamental tension. Maybe one thing I'll add there, look, it's not up to us as reporters to decide how the government spends money. But what we can say is that the federal government's current policy is one of universal coverage. They have set the goal of reaching 100% of Canadian's households with cell phone service and as many roads as possible. Whether or not that's how people feel our tax dollars should best be spent. In some ways, it's a matter of politics. In some ways, it's a matter of how you look at the economics, how you look at the numbers. But the reality is this is the government's goal.

And so we have to evaluate whether they're doing the right things in order to reach the goal. That's a great point. As you pointed out, the coasts are especially affected by this issue. Have provinces tried to solve this themselves, Jill? Yes, several provinces have decided to fund their own projects. BC has committed $90 million over the past five years for projects. New Brunswick announced plans just a couple of months ago to build three new cell towers at a cost of about $7 million.

New Brunswick also made expanding rural cell service a condition for a contract earlier this year for its own government cell service. And also Nova Scotia is planning to spend about $18 million to build 27 new government-owned telecom towers. So several provinces are really putting their money where their mouths are on this. Okay. Irene, are there any other potential solutions here? There are. So the big one is satellites, and I'll get to that in a minute. I think one thing I want to add first is that spending money is not the only solution that the government can provide here. They can do things like better enforcing existing regulation that require telecom companies to deploy cell phone service in areas where they own spectrum. We heard from a professor who'd studied this and found that although telecom companies are required to build out cell phone service in areas where they have the rights to do so, the federal government isn't really watching to make sure that they are and that if that was happening, he said we might have better coverage in rural areas.

The federal government for its part has said that they do periodically check and that taking away spectrum when it isn't being used. used is a last resort. So there is a potential solution that, in fact, is already available. And this is direct to sell satellite service. So we've had access to satellite cell phone service since the 1970s, 1980s with very specialized cell phones. Like giant phones, right? Yeah, huge phones. They cost hundreds of dollars. Historically, the plans themselves have costs it hundreds of dollars and they have very, very limited capabilities. This is not a solution for your everyday person. What's been happening in the last few years is that cell phone manufacturers and telecom companies have been rolling out new cell phone capabilities for modern

smartphones that enable those phones to connect directly to a satellite. So you don't need a specialized device. You don't need a special plan. For instance, in Apple phones that are iPhone model 14, so that's about 2022 or later, you already have a built-in satellite connection. And recently, Rogers rolled out Rogers satellite. This is with essentially a text capability, and soon they'll be rolling out more capabilities. So internet, calling. Bell also recently said that they plan to launch this service in 2026, but it's still new. So we can't say that this problem has.

gone away. First of all, there are limited capabilities at the moment. It's just texting. You can't call. There's some other concerns. So the strength of the connection, satellite service is not as strong as, let's say, a fiber to the home or cell phone service from a tower. The government has also expressed some concern about interference with other spectrum frequencies and also whether satellite to cell service will be able to support our current emergency notification system. That's a big one. And so as such, the federal government has said that they still want telecom companies to

build out on the ground. They still want them to prioritize, deploying terrestrial service as much as possible. And this is a policy decision. This is them saying, we're not completely comfortable with direct-to-satellite service yet. We're not convinced that this is a solution, maybe one day, but we're not there yet. Okay. And I can imagine also there's something with cost, right? Like I can't imagine this is free. Yeah, that is an extra consideration. So what we've seen in the U.S. and what we've seen suggested in Canada is that this could cost about $15 a month at the beginning.

On top of what you're paying, I'm assuming. On top of what you're paying. That could change over time in some plans offered by Rogers. What they've said is if you have a higher tier plan, then you you'll have access to this feature for free, for instance. But you'll have to pay $15 a month if you have one of the lower tier plans. That's what they've said to date, at least. But it's still $200 a year. So that is a cost. And we can't ignore that.

Especially in a country where our bills are already so high when it comes to cell phones. So that would be, you know, $15 a month is not nothing. So, Jill, in the meantime, do Canadians in these areas, So they just need to deal with what's going on? Like, how are people like Jen making this work? Yes, Cheryl. So there isn't much that people can do. I mean, other than exploring satellite, as Irene mentioned, that's an option.

But otherwise, we've just heard that people are planning their lives around it. They're putting emergency supplies in their trunk. There just really isn't much that an individual can do to solve this problem. Irene, you've heard from a lot of people on this issue. What have you heard? Well, one thing that became very clear to us while writing this story is that it's not just about emergencies, it's about people's everyday lives. Coverage gaps affect countless individuals every day, whether those are lost tourists, stranded drivers facing mechanical breakdowns, victims of car accidents. And it also affects people in emergencies, natural disasters, flea. forest fires.

You know, it affects how people receive emergency alerts. And these dead zones cover not just major roads and highways, but also some of our biggest trade corridors. They stretch for hundreds of kilometers at a time on the Trans-Canada Highway. One family that we heard from in particular was the family of a young man named Avery Dixon. In 2021, when he was 23, he was driving on a road. near his house in southwestern New Brunswick, and he crashed. And unfortunately, he died. His body was found a day later. And it was discovered that that area was a dead zone. Now, ultimately, we don't know for sure what impact the dead zone had on his death. But what we do know is that his mother, Claudette McLean and his family, will always wonder whether things could have been different if they'd been able to reach him. And they've tried,

for the last four years to have that area covered. As of right now, that stretch of road still is a dead zone. Wow, yeah. I mean, that just goes to show just how varied it can be when it comes to what can happen in these dead zones, right? Like from not knowing whether the dead zone was a part of someone's death or just every day, like trying to drive, going to a store and being worried about breaking down. Jill, any stories stick out to you? Yeah, so since our piece has been published, Irene and I have gotten,

dozens of emails from Canadians across the country sharing very personal stories that have something in common, which is that the road I take to work, the road I take to get groceries every week doesn't have service. It looks like it should on the map that's provided by the regulator in Canada. But when I drive, you know, these five kilometers or 50 kilometers, I can't reach anybody. If I were to break down, I would be completely. stranded. So this is a problem that affects Canadians from coast to coast. Irene, Jill, thank you so much for being on the show. It was great to be here. Thank you.

Irene Galea is the Globe's telecom reporter. And Jill Mahoney is the globe's national news reporter. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon.