On 1 October 2025 Bell handed its home and business security customers to a.p.i. ALARM Inc. You did not choose a.p.i. You were moved. That is worth knowing, because it also means nothing is stopping you choosing somebody else — and in most cases you can keep the equipment on your wall.
Bell stopped taking new security orders on 7 August 2025 and serviced existing accounts until 30 September. From 1 October 2025 the accounts, the monitoring and the billing moved to a.p.i. ALARM. Customers were told to open a.p.i.’s app with their existing sign-in. Bell’s own notice tells customers “no action is required” and that the service continues uninterrupted, which is true on the day. The question this page is about is the one after that.
Straight from Bell: the transition, the dates and the two-year rate hold are on Bell’s own business support page. We are not interpreting a rumour for you — go and read it.
Ask yourself: what happens when the hold ends?
Part of the deal was that monthly rates are held for two years after the transition. That puts the end of the hold around October 2027 — though Bell’s wording adds that if your term runs past those two years, the rate holds for the rest of the term, so check which of the two you are on rather than assuming the earlier date. A rate that is frozen is not a rate that is low — it is a rate somebody has agreed not to touch for a while. When the hold lifts, the rate is theirs to set.
Here: every price we charge is published on this website — equipment, monthly, the lot. You will not have to ask what it costs, and there is no contract, so a price you do not like is a thirty-day problem rather than a three-year one.
Ask: what panel is actually in my closet?
Honest answer, and it splits two ways.
If Bell installed a DSC or Honeywell panel — common on older accounts, and on anything that came through AlarmForce — it usually stays. We add an Alarm.com communicator, keep your keypads and sensors, and the system carries on with us monitoring it.
If you have one of the proprietary all-in-one Bell or AlarmForce units, it is locked to that platform and will not run on anybody else’s monitoring. That needs a new panel. The wiring, and usually the hardwired door contacts, still get reused — it is not a start-again job, but it is not free either, and we would rather say so here than discover it in your hallway.
How to find out in a minute: send us a photo of the panel and of the keypad. We will tell you which of the two you have before you cancel anything. See the panels we can take over.
Ask a.p.i.: what term am I on, when does it end, and what does cancelling cost?
Whatever term you signed with Bell went across with the account. Get it in writing before you do anything, and give us the end date.
What we will tell you: if you are mid-term and the penalty is real, we will tell you to wait and we will diarise the date. We have said that to plenty of people. A customer who comes over in eight months having not been hustled is worth more to us than one who pays two companies at once.
Ours goes to Lanvac, a ULC-listed station, and has for twenty-five years. Fire, smoke, CO and medical dispatch are in the base rate at every price on this site — you pay for the detectors, not for the watching of them.
And the part nobody mentions: nothing is sent to your house until the station has called your premises and given you the chance to cancel it. What happens after that is the way you set it up. How dispatch works, and what a false alarm costs in Ottawa.
Send a photo of the panel. We tell you whether it stays or goes, and what it costs, in writing, before anything is ordered. You give a.p.i. notice on your terms. A technician attends, puts the system on our account, and you are on the Alarm.com app the same day.
No contract. Month to month, thirty days’ notice, and you own the equipment from the day it goes in. If we stop earning it, you leave.
Yes. Bell stopped taking new security orders on 7 August 2025, serviced existing accounts to 30 September 2025, and transferred its home and business security customers to a.p.i. ALARM Inc. on 1 October 2025. Bell’s own notice says no action is required and that service continues uninterrupted; what changes is who owns the account and, after the two-year rate hold, who sets the rate.
No. The accounts were transferred rather than chosen. You are free to move to another monitoring company, subject to whatever contract term came across with your account — ask a.p.i. in writing for your term end date and any cancellation cost before you do anything.
It depends on the panel. A DSC or Honeywell panel — common on older Bell and AlarmForce accounts — can usually stay, with an Alarm.com communicator added and the existing keypads and sensors kept. A proprietary all-in-one Bell or AlarmForce unit is locked to that platform and needs a new panel, though the wiring and hardwired door contacts are normally reused.
Monthly rates were held for two years from the 1 October 2025 transition, which puts the end of the hold around October 2027. After that the rate is the new owner’s to set. If your term runs past the two years, Bell says the rate holds for the rest of the term.
Sources, and how to check them yourself. Both are the companies’ own documents rather than anybody’s summary of them. That the sale happened: BCE’s second-quarter 2025 results release, as filed with the SEC — “BCE entered into an agreement to sell its home security and monitored alarm assets to a.p.i. ALARM Inc.” We link the filed copy on sec.gov on purpose: it is a public archive and it does not get taken down. The dates and the rate hold: Bell’s own Security & Automation update. The 1 October transfer is at the top of it; the rest sits inside the questions on that page, so open “Can I still order a new Bell Security and Automation service?” for the 7 August cut-off and “How does this impact my bill?” for the 30 September service end and the two-year rate hold. Checked again on 5 October 2026 — and if Bell has since retired that page, which companies do once they have left a business, the filed BCE release above still stands and so does everything on this page that matters. We have deliberately not repeated the deal value that is circulating on competitors’ blogs — BCE did not disclose one. Accurate Security is not affiliated with Bell Canada or a.p.i. ALARM Inc.; both names are used here to describe whose service a reader already has.
We call you back within the next business day with a written quote — no pressure, and nothing is ordered until you say so.
