Bell Canada Announces New Fiber for Toronto
Canadian operator Bell has announced it has launched a fiber optic network connecting Toronto homes and businesses with fast internet technology and improved television and media services. The fiber project in Canada's most populated city is part of Bell's initiative to expand its broadband fiber footprint. The program provides internet access speeds of up to 1 Gbps with symmetrical upload and downloads using its fiber to the premises (FTTP) platform. Bell says speeds will increase to a minimum of 5 Gbps by 2019, and to over 40 Gbps in the future.
Bell began the $1.5 billion project to deliver 1-Gbps fiber to the home (FTTH) and premises to residents and business in 2015. The company said it worked with the city of Toronto and Toronto Hydro to use installation techniques and new heavy equipment for efficiently rolling out the network with minimal disruption to residents and businesses. This build includes over 10,000 km of new fiber installed on nearly 90,000 Bell and Toronto Hydro poles and underground through more than 10,000 manhole access points; the upgrade also covered 27 Bell central offices in Toronto.
According to the company, the gigabit fiber internet service enabled by its FTTP will allow customers to download a 10 Mb photo in a tenth of a second, 3 Gb high-definition movie in 24 seconds, or upload a 500 Mb business plan to the cloud in 4 seconds. Fully symmetrical speeds are available at all FTTP internet speed tiers, from 25 and 50 Mbps, to 500 Mbps and 1 Gb, where top upload speed is 940 Mbps. According to Bell, uploads will reach 1 Gb when commercial modem technology catches up to fiber network capabilities in 2019.
