2 weeks Ago By Brad Bennett
Since April 23, 2025, Bell and its flanker brand Virgin Plus have begun selling smartphones locked to the Bell network for 60 days to help prevent theft. A notice sent to Bell customers shared with MobileSyrup states that this change will affect postpaid consumers and small business customers who buy a new phone from Bell or upgrade their old phone. Existing customers with an already network-unlocked phone will see no changes.
You can still unlock your phone before the 60-day window by calling Bell or using an online tool , but by default, new phones are locked to the network for roughly two months. Bell says that in 2025, it already had more robberies/attempted robberies at its stores than in all of 2024, so it needed to do something to try and curb this uptick in crime. This plan is based on similar strategies used by U.
S. companies and is designed to reduce the value of stolen devices. In the grand scheme of things, this will likely make little difference to customers since it’s infrequent for someone to sign up for a contract and then switch providers within two months.
In my experience, other fine print often keeps you in a contract for a few months anyway, especially if you’ve gotten a deal or a discount. In 2018, Bell started stocking all of its stores with phones locked to its network to help prevent theft , but once a customer signed up for a new contract and bought a phone, the device would be unlocked. It should also be noted that on the CRTC’s website under the unlocked devices heading , it says carriers must offer “mobile devices unlocked free of charge, upon request, and all newly purchased devices unlocked.
” Since Bell still allows users to unlock their phones at any time, it’s complying with the first part of this rule, but it’s unclear how it’s getting around the second half..
