Utilities & Internet

Canada has some of the highest mobile phone and internet costs in the developed world — significantly higher than the US, UK, or most of Europe — and the major carriers (Bell, Rogers, Telus) charge premium pricing for what you’d consider standard service. The good news: their lower-cost subsidiaries and regional competitors (Public Mobile, Freedom, Fizz, Koodo, and others) offer the same network coverage at meaningfully lower prices, if you know to look for them.

This section walks through setting up utilities, mobile providers, and internet as a newcomer: the realistic Canadian mobile plan landscape, postpaid vs. prepaid trade-offs for someone without Canadian credit history, the major internet providers worth considering, and the utility setup process for electricity, gas, and water depending on your province. We cover what the bills will actually look like, what’s negotiable, and which providers most newcomers end up switching from after the first year.