Claudette MacLean was frantic with worry. Her son, Avery Dixon, had not responded to text messages for 23 hours, and she knew something was wrong.
Mr. Dixon also hadn’t shown up for his shift at the hospital, where he cleaned and delivered meals.
Family members and friends began searching for him. Ms. MacLean called the RCMP and kept trying to contact her only child.
“If you’re getting my messages, please reply,” she texted him.
“Please please answer.”
But Ms. MacLean’s texts didn’t reach her son.
Avery Dixon was 23 when he died in a car accident on a single-lane provincial highway in southwestern New Brunswick in August, 2021.Supplied
Mr. Dixon, 23, had been driving home after visiting a friend in southwestern New Brunswick on the evening of Aug. 11, 2021. His route took him through marshes and forests along an aging, single-lane provincial highway with extensive gaps in cellular coverage.
His body was found the next day, lying in the woods near his wrecked black Chevrolet Cobalt, which had rolled over and crashed in an area with no mobile signal.
Four years later, Mr. Dixon’s family is haunted by questions about whether the highway’s lack of cell coverage had a role in his death. They wonder how long he survived and whether the outcome might have been different if the road had reception.
Many of Canada’s roads and highways are studded with dead zones. Across the country, roughly 15,000 kilometres – or 13.4 per cent – of major roads have no mobile service, according to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Four provinces consider that figure an undercount, and it also does not include thousands of kilometres of gaps on secondary roads.
Dead zones on major roads snake through remote and northern regions, but gaps also exist on well-travelled corridors, including the Trans-Canada Highway and tourist routes, such as the parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper, Alta.
These coverage gaps affect countless individuals every day. Lost tourists. Stranded drivers facing mechanical breakdowns. Victims of car accidents and collisions with wildlife. Evacuees fleeing forest fires and other natural disasters, who sometimes also miss vital emergency alerts.
Many rural residents, provincial politicians and experts say dead zones pose unacceptable public safety risks and are calling on the federal government to steer the expansion of mobile service to cover the country’s major roads.
“It’s across the nation,” said New Brunswick Finance Minister René Legacy. “So when there’s a common issue, obviously the federal government has an interest and we need their help for that lift.”
However, experts say Ottawa has not adequately pushed cellphone companies to increase coverage with incentives, directives or funding. Progress on expanding service on roads has stalled in recent years; the coverage rate in 2023 was about the same as it was in 2017.
Dead zones on major roads are common in remote and northern regions, but there are also coverage gaps on well-travelled corridors near populated areas.Taylor Roades/The Globe and Mail
The CRTC, a quasi-judicial body that regulates telecommunications providers in the public interest, has set a goal of connecting 100 per cent of Canadian households and “as many major transportation roads as possible” to mobile wireless service by 2026. While Ottawa says it is “on track to meet that goal,” with 99.5 per cent of households connected, it has not set concrete steps for extending highway cell coverage, which lags significantly.
A new variable is the promise of emerging direct-to-device satellite technology, which does not rely on cellular towers and could help close coverage gaps. But questions surround the nascent technology, which Ottawa says has not supplanted the need to invest in traditional infrastructure.
Earlier this year, the federal government said telecoms should prioritize deploying terrestrial service “as much as possible,” calling ground-based infrastructure “the primary driver” for expanding mobile connectivity, including along roads.
But for cellphone companies, closing dead zones using traditional technology would be enormously complicated and expensive, highlighting the perennial tension between private cost and public benefit.
Dead zones creating ‘a high level of frustration’
Highways with gaps in cellular coverage twist through all parts of the country but the problem is most acute in British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador.
B.C. lacks mobile service on 32 per cent of its major roads, including stretches of the notorious Highway of Tears, a portion of Highway 16 associated with the disappearance and murders of numerous Indigenous women. In Newfoundland, 38 per cent of major road distance remained unconnected as of the end of 2023, according to a CRTC report earlier this year.
The report found that, on average across the country, dead zones are most common on national highways, where they represent 21 per cent of road distance, followed by 12 per cent of major highways and 3 per cent of the Trans-Canada Highway. But the regulator’s figures don’t show the full picture.
B.C. and the three Maritime provinces have commissioned their own cellular gap assessments because the CRTC’s maps, which rely on data provided to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), do not align with residents’ experiences.
In New Brunswick, for instance, federal maps show dead zones on just 1 per cent of highways. However, independent testing of cellular signal strength in 2023-24 found that 17 per cent of the province’s major roads have insufficient coverage.
“There’s a high level of frustration,” said Mr. Legacy, who added he encounters gaps while driving in both rural and urban areas in the province.
Drivers sometimes lose service for 100 kilometres at a time on the Trans-Canada Highway, said Mike Millian, president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada, adding they are only occasionally provided with satellite phones when hauling particularly valuable goods.
“It’s not feasible to have cell coverage in every corner of the country, we get that,” he said. “But we think it should at least be prioritized on the major coast-to-coast trade routes.”
Jenn Grundy says she's unable to get cellphone service for most of the 45-minute drive on Highway 72 from her home in Sioux Lookout to the Trans-Canada for her son’s weekly swimming lessons in Dryden.Willow Fiddler/The Globe and Mail
In northwestern Ontario, Jenn Grundy regularly travels from her home in Sioux Lookout along a 45-minute stretch of Highway 72 to the Trans-Canada on the way to Dryden, the closest town with a Canadian Tire, Walmart and pool for her toddler’s swimming lessons.
While the CRTC’s map shows the highway has cell coverage, Ms. Grundy said she’s unable to get service for most of the way.
The single-lane road is a danger zone for moose, wolves, bears and other wildlife, and collisions aren’t uncommon, she said.
Northbound traffic on Highway 72 also includes daily commuters unable to find housing in Sioux Lookout, as well as logging and fuel trucks that have to navigate the rough gravel shoulders lined with yellow moose warning signs, winding through dense bushes, hills and rock cliffs.
During the winter, when the temperature can drop as low as -40, the area is pitch black after 4:30 p.m. The road has no lights.
Ms. Grundy says collisions aren’t uncommon on Highway 72, where wildlife often cross the unlit single-lane road.Willow Fiddler/The Globe and Mail
“I always get nervous. If I break down, I can’t call for help,” said Ms. Grundy, who keeps her trunk packed with emergency supplies. “As a woman with a young child, that’s always in the back of my mind.”
The federal government said it is addressing discrepancies between cellular coverage maps and users’ experiences. In 2023, the government issued a policy directive ordering the CRTC to improve its reporting standards, said Hans Parmar, a spokesman for ISED.
CRTC spokeswoman Megan MacLean said its coverage maps are based on “modelled and predictive” data submitted by carriers, not direct field measurement.
The CRTC said it is seeking to update its methods, including by hiring consulting firm FarrPoint in 2024 to study how to improve the mobile coverage reporting standard.
Ms. MacLean added that the commission is “actively exploring ways to improve accuracy and transparency of its cellular coverage mapping processes in the near future.”
Escalating costs lead to dropped projects
In a country as vast and sparsely populated as Canada, with varied geography and climate, filling the gaps in mobile coverage is no easy feat.
Providing cellular service requires more than just a tower and radio. Equipment also needs to be connected to the wider network, requires a power source and must be served by spectrum, the airwaves used to transmit wireless signals.
The regulatory system can also lead to bottlenecks in approvals, said Mark Goldberg, a telecommunications consultant in Toronto. While telecom and spectrum management are federal responsibilities, land use and permitting are either provincial or municipal jurisdiction.
LTE cellphone service was launched in 2011, and in the seven years that followed, telecom companies covered 100,000 kilometres of major Canadian roads, according to CRTC data. But from 2018 to 2023, less than a thousand kilometres received new coverage.
Companies shoulder a significant portion of the costs, said Eric Smith, senior vice-president of the Canadian Telecommunications Association, which represents carriers.
“Our industry expends a tremendous amount of money every year in upgrading and expanding networks, as well as providing huge amounts of revenue to the government,” Mr. Smith said.
But sharply rising costs have seen some companies back away from projects, several years in.
Earlier this year, BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada pulled out of a four-year plan to bring internet and ancillary cell service to the north coast of Labrador, for which several levels of government committed $32-million. The company said the project had grown in cost to $110-million, up from an original estimate of $25-million, making it unviable. Bell said in a statement it is still providing service to the area.
Transport trucks travel the Coquihalla highway northeast of Hope, B.C. This summer Rogers backed out of a plan to bring new cell towers to a 92-kilometre stretch of highway between the towns of Hope and Keremeos, according to the BC government.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
And in July, the B.C. government said that Rogers Communications Inc. had backed out of a plan to bring new cell towers to a 92-kilometre stretch of highway between the towns of Hope and Keremeos. Costs for the project, initially expected to be completed in 2024, had jumped from $9.7-million to over $70-million, with the province paying $3-million and the company covering the difference.
The dropped projects reflect a fundamental tension underlying many telecom debates: While many feel connectivity is a public right, these services are largely delivered by the private sector. And, given a wave of consolidation, there are few carriers who can bear the brunt of major infrastructure costs.
“Companies, by their nature, are looking to maximize profitability. These are not public utilities. They are profit-seeking entities,” said Gregory Taylor, an associate professor at the University of Calgary studying telecom policy. The federal government, he added, “has to make it somehow appealing, or they have to force the hand of industry.”
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly declined an interview request.
In a statement, her department said the federal government provides funding for expanding mobile service on roads but noted such efforts are costly for telecom companies – especially in rural and remote areas.
“The business case to build in these areas can be very challenging, even with government assistance,” ISED’s Mr. Parmar said.
Highway 16 cuts across a sparsely populated area of British Columbia where large stretches of the route are cellphone dead zones.RUTH FREMSON/The Globe and Mail
Sluggish government rollout
Ottawa has committed substantial funding for internet expansion in recent years. However, relatively little has been earmarked for improving cellular service on roads.
The CRTC’s main funding mechanism is the Broadband Fund, launched in 2019 to improve internet and cellphone services in rural, remote and Indigenous communities and composed of contributions from telecom companies. Of the $769-million distributed to date, just $64-million has gone toward sponsoring projects with a mobile wireless component, which cover 652 kilometres of major roads.
Part of the challenge is that only 7 per cent of applications to the Broadband Fund proposed building cellphone infrastructure. The commission has “selected as many of these projects as possible for funding,” said the CRTC’s Ms. MacLean, adding that the Broadband Fund is one part of a broader effort to help close cellular gaps.
Meanwhile, ISED runs a separate $3.2-billion taxpayer-financed fund, called the Universal Broadband Fund. However, it capped the amount of money available for mobile projects, including roads, at $50-million and requires that they benefit Indigenous peoples. So far, ISED has announced plans to spend $25-million of that amount to improve coverage on nearly 1,000 kilometres of roads, including B.C.’s Highway of Tears, said spokesman Justin Simard.
Gregory Taylor, an associate professor at the University of Calgary studying telecom policy, says telecom companies are profit-seeking entities, not public utilities, and market forces alone cannot ensure service is delivered to underserved areas.The Globe and Mail
Overall, the rollout of funds has been sluggish, a 2023 report by the Auditor-General found. Between 2014 and the time of publication, Ottawa had allocated $2.4-billion for various connectivity programs, but only spent 40 per cent of that amount. (Following the report, both the CRTC and ISED conducted reviews of their funds. The CRTC said it will update its practices accordingly; ISED said it will publish its evaluation when it’s completed.)
Experts say that ISED – the department responsible for managing spectrum licences, the valuable and finite resources required for deploying cell service – has not imposed sufficiently strict requirements on companies to ensure their spectrum is actually put to use.
In order to keep exclusive rights to the spectrum, carriers are required to provide service to a particular portion of the population within a set time but are typically free to deploy the network as they see fit. This means that telecoms usually have focused on servicing more urban areas, said Prof. Taylor.
Finally, there’s the issue of enforcement: ensuring that telecoms follow the conditions placed on them, such as “use it or lose it” policies which require carriers to deploy cell service if they own the spectrum for that area.
But in a 2022 study, Prof. Taylor found that government rarely, if ever, removed spectrum that was not being used, calling the spectrum policies “extremely idle” threats.
“The only way that this was ever going to really work is if it’s part of the regulation,” he said. “We are, as a country, paying the price for what have been weak deployment conditions.”
ISED’s Mr. Parmar said the department regularly monitors compliance and works with companies to ensure they are meeting their obligations.
“Revoking a licence is an option of last resort as it may leave those Canadians already being served in that area without service,” he said.
Satellite connection could help, but ‘it’s not there yet’
During a summer evening drive to a lake from his home near Lytton, B.C., Patrick Michell noticed a curious banner pop up on his new iPhone: a notification that he could connect to a satellite to send and receive messages when WiFi and cellular aren’t available.
The option wasn’t around in 2021, when a fire destroyed most of Lytton, about 260 kilometres northeast of Vancouver. The blaze happened the day after the village set a national record for the hottest temperature ever recorded at 49.6.
The fire took out the area’s cellular coverage, creating a temporary dead zone. Mr. Michell, who was chief of the Kanaka Bar Indian Band at the time, lost communication with his family after learning their reserve was ablaze. By chance, he managed to find his wife, his pregnant daughter and her husband, and several of his grandchildren, parked along the side of the road, and they safely left the area.
But the crisis showed Mr. Michell that backup systems like direct-to-device satellite technology could prove crucial. He believes government should play a bigger role in ensuring that all mobile users have access to such systems. “We can reduce the suffering,” he said.
In the four years since a fast-moving wildfire destroyed 90 per cent of the village, Lytton has gradually rebuilt. But the crisis highlighted the dire consequences of cellphone deadzones during major emergencies.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Satellite phones have been available since the 1990s, but the specialized devices can cost thousands of dollars and the plans more on top of this, making them unaffordable for most Canadians who also pay for a smartphone.
Some manufacturers, like Apple Inc., are building satellite connections right into regular smartphones, allowing them to send emergency text messages when they have no service but full visibility of the sky.
In July, Rogers launched a free trial of Rogers Satellite, a direct-to-device service that gives users text and emergency connectivity in remote areas beyond the limits of traditional wireless networks, with plans to expand its offerings in the future. The service runs on Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation.
And Bell plans to offer its own satellite service in 2026 through a partnership with Texas-based AST SpaceMobile, Inc., which will also include voice, video and data services.
This summer Rogers launched a free trial of Rogers Satellite, a direct-to-device service that gives users text and emergency connectivity in remote areas beyond the limits of traditional wireless networks.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
Quebec-based satellite service company Terrestar Solutions Inc. is trying to raise $500-million to launch its own satellite constellation. Having a made-at-home option makes sense, given growing concerns about Canadian sovereignty and defence, said Jacques Leduc, Terrestar’s chief executive officer.
“To avoid dependency, let’s make sure we have an alternative,” he said. “We can build this Canadian infrastructure.”
Satellite technology is a much more cost-effective way to provide connectivity where building an extensive land-based network is impractical. And the sector is being fuelled by private, rather than government, capital.
But direct-to-device technology won’t be an instant solution, experts warn.
Satellite-connected phone calls are still a future prospect. There are concerns about the strength of the connection, interference with other spectrum frequencies and whether they are able to support the current emergency notification system. Moreover, a ground-based network adds much-needed redundancy, said Prof. Taylor.
“Satellite has incredible potential to be of real assistance, especially in a country like Canada, but it’s not there yet,” he said. “It should not mean that we don’t even bother with the rollout of our own terrestrial networks right now.”
To ensure that telecom companies continue to invest in ground-based technology, ISED decided that coverage using satellite connectivity will not count toward meeting deployment requirements associated with certain spectrum licences, maintaining that direct-to-cell services would be limited in the near term.
But Nate Glubish, Alberta’s Technology and Innovation Minister, said the math does not support expansion of cell towers in remote areas. Instead, he wants Ottawa to fix its “broken” spectrum policies and encourage direct-to-device satellite service.
“We have to live in the real world,” he said, “rather than trying to subsidize, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, old technology to achieve this goal.”
Alberta’s Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish wants Ottawa to fix its 'broken' spectrum policies.Kelsey McMillan/The Globe and Mail
Provinces pursue their own projects
Other provinces are advocating for Ottawa to do more to expand cellular coverage, while also launching their own plans to fill dead zones.
The B.C. government has allocated $90-million since 2020 for projects to expand service on roads.
Nova Scotia is planning to spend $18.6-million to build 27 new government-owned telecom towers, and is subsidizing 80 per cent of the cost of upgrading 27 others. Rogers was awarded the contract last year.
The move follows flash flooding that killed four people, including two children, in West Hants in 2023. A report later found that poor cellular service was partly to blame for problems with emergency alerts reaching some residents, as well as a lack of access to online storm maps, which put many more at risk.
In New Brunswick, the government signed a mobile services contract with Bell in April after asking bidders to commit to expanding cellular coverage in rural areas. As part of the deal, the province is allowing Bell to install wireless equipment on 10 government-owned communication towers for free for a decade. The province also announced last month it plans to build three new cell towers at a cost of $7.1-million.
“It would be great if we could have 100 per cent coverage, and that’s what we’re striving for. But it’s going to take some time and it’s going to take some money and resources,” said Mr. Legacy, the province’s Finance Minister.
‘It would have made a huge difference’
When Avery Dixon didn’t show up for work on that August day in 2021, his stepfather Jeff Haslam searched for him on roads near their home in Brockway, about 80 kilometres southwest of Fredericton. He drove along Route 127 three times, never noticing the spot after a bend where the dense trees and bushes were disturbed.
“I have kicked myself so many times that I didn’t see him,” he said, choking back tears. “It’s still hard for me to talk about it, to think – did you drive by him when he was laying there hearing your truck go by? That will haunt me forever.”
On a recent late summer afternoon, Mr. Haslam gazed at the spot where Mr. Dixon’s body and car were found in the woods. There was no cross or other marker. The road was lined with cracks and potholes, its edges crumbling.
Four years after Mr. Dixon’s death, there is still no mobile signal at the accident site and on much of Route 127, the only road into the tourist destination of St. Andrews. The dead zone includes part of another highway through blueberry fields and swamps that locals call Moose Alley for the wildlife that cause periodic collisions.
Both before and after Mr. Dixon’s crash, his mother’s employer offered to donate land to a telecom provider for a cell tower to service the area on a garbage dump it operates. But appeals to companies and the provincial government seemed to go nowhere for years. That will soon change, however, after a recent government decision to expand an existing cell tower to improve coverage, including along Route 127.
While it’s unclear whether the highway’s lack of mobile service played a role in Mr. Dixon’s death, Ms. MacLean believes her son might still be alive if the road had coverage.
“I feel that it would have made a huge difference,” she said. “All you have to do is punch 911. Even if you had serious, serious injuries and you were conscious, you could punch 911.”
Claudette MacLean says governments have a responsibility to ensure public safety along roads where companies aren’t willing to expand service.Chris Donovan/The Globe and Mail
Instead, Ms. MacLean clings to memories and photos of her smiling, long-haired son who dreamed of becoming an outdoor guide in B.C.
She hopes her loss will help push politicians to eliminate dead zones, saying governments have a responsibility to ensure public safety along roads where companies aren’t willing to expand service.
“It’s not the convenience of having cellphone communication,” she said. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
With a report from Willow Fiddler in Sioux Lookout, Ont.
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