Bell has been capping the quality of video streaming over its mobile network for a while now, and this was written in small print whenever you looked at mobile plans online. However, the company no longer discloses this on its new redesigned plan page.
Bell confirmed in an email statement that it removed the information from the plan page, but it still caps streaming quality.
Before the redesign, some plans were listed as limited to SD streaming (480p) or HD streaming (1080p). Customers could purchase a $5/mo add-on to get HD streaming. This cap only applies to video streamed over Bell’s network and not video streamed elsewhere, like over a home internet connection.
Left: A screenshot of Bell’s old website showing the HD streaming cap. Right: A screenshot of the same plan from Bell’s refreshed website.
The quality cap means that if you’re watching video content, such as what you’d find on YouTube or Netflix, over mobile data, your video quality could be limited to 480p.
It’s worth mentioning that the other Canadian providers, like Telus and Rogers, don’t have similar quality limits. That said, Bell is the only member of the Big Three that doesn’t cap data speeds on mobile plans. Rogers and Telus, on the other hand, limit speeds anywhere from 250Mbps to 2Gbps, depending on the plan customers subscribe to.
