Canada’s largest telecommunications carrier, Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., has reported a 45% drop in profit for the first quarter of 2008, as it paid to expand its broadband infrastructure into 86 remote and rural communities.

Net Q1 income weighed in at C$289 million, or $0.32/share, compared to C$529 million in the same period a year earlier. Revenue, meanwhile, edged up 1% to C$4.39 billion, in what could be BCE’s last quarterly report as a publicly traded company.

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, together with a number of private equity firms, are currently in the process of taking the company private, in a deal worth C$52 billion.

In the years to come, BCE will likely depend on revenue from broadband internet, mobile phone, and satellite television services, as its core fixed-line telephone business continues to gradually decline.

Subscriber growth was generally below estimates in the first quarter, with Bell Mobility adding just 34,000 wireless subscribers, missing a Genuity Capital Markets forecast of 49,000. The company lost 106,000 local telephone customers in the same three-month period.

BCE’s change of ownership is expected to be completed by the end of June.