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Gigabit Fibre - Bell and City of Toronto

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TheTigerMaster

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John Tory and CEO of Bell are announcing their intentions to bring gigabit fibre to Toronto.

Hopefully this is the right section for this. Not transportation related, but very significant infrastructure.
 
It will be rolls out to 1.1 Million homes and businesses.

I'm interested to see the pricing of this. I'm hoping we'll see Google Fibre style pricing, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
Bell Fibe and Fibre and not the same thing. Fibe is a marketing gimmick. If you pick the same speed as your Fibe service it will be about the same price. If you want faster, it'll cost you more (I'm guessing 1 Gig will be $200-$300/month)

It's been rumoured they were going to do this for a while. The first thing they are going to do is fibre to the node. That is the main line that serves your neighbourhood will get replaced with fibre. The "last mile" to your house will still be the copper wire. This will allow them to have the same or better speeds than Rogers but not the Gig speeds in the press release.

In certain neighbourhoods (condos and new developments) they will then finally connect this node of fibre directly to your house. This will give you the 1 Gig in these areas. And over time when wires become faulty they will slowly connect house after house.

The big problem is that Bell has wires in a lot of people's back yards where they do not have an easement. They illegally have strung wires in the back yards (Rogers has done the same). This is throughout a lot of neighbourhoods. So before they can put fibre there they will have to sort out this issue.

They can't wire every house simply due to cost. It can cost anywhere between $500 for a condo and $2500 for a house to bring fibre. They simply don't have the money even in 10 years to give everyone fibre.

They have started a similar project in Peterborough.

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer....o-invest-35-million-in-new-technology-locally
 
Well Bell has promised to do 1.1 Million homes and businesses. Is it fair to say most will be condos and apartment buildings?

I'm not sure if they've given out a timeline.

I'd be very wary of their promise to have 1.1 Million homes wired. That doesn't necessarily mean that 1.1 Million homes will be able to purchase the service (at a reasonable price anyways). Verizon in NYC did some nonsense where they wired up the nodes but left individual homes and businesses unconnected. There are are whole zip codes that technically receive fibre service, but can't use it.

This is apparently the largest fibre rollout in North America, which is cool I guess. Hopefully this will make fibre cheaper for schools and businesses (especially in IT)
 
Would love to see this happen someday in Hamilton.

Probably not for a long time -- but at least I now have reasonably decent options where I live -- Fibe TV is now available, 150Mbps cable options are available, and third-party VDSL/Cable options like Teksavvy, Comwave, ACANAC, etc. I have 50 bps VDSL synced at full speed and instant-playing Netflix 1080p. I'm okay for the moment, but I'd definitely upgrade to a Google Fiber style service. We may complain about our Internet options a lot, but our friends to the south often have only 1 option where they live, and few TPIA systems as good as ours.

Fiber is the future, though!

TheTigerMaster said:
So why was John Tory at this announcement? Has Bell entered into an agreement to complete this rollout?
Click to expand...

On topic, fiber increases telecommute viability and can reduce GTHA traffic when sufficiently widely deployed. So this is relevant to John Tory traffic gridlock initiatives, if its rollout is accelerated. This may be why Tory is attending. Effective if co-announced with a telecommute tax credit (calculated mindfully of removing cars from the roads).
 
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They need access to Hydro poles, man holes, etc. The City can create huge roadblocks or help the fibre build. Tory is hoping for the city to help the fibre build....let's see what the various departments do.

They say 1.1 million households over time without giving a commitment (other than 50,000 in 2015). I'm assuming they will go after the lowest hanging fruit (condos and apartments) first.
 
Bell says they are partnering with Toronto Hydro, so it would appear they will have access to those hydro poles. This is important for a quicker rollout, or rollout as needed anyway. My Bell copper line is buried, but runs under lawns and driveways, and not just my own. In contrast, my neighbourhood is full of "telephone" poles... which ironically don't carry telephone lines. They are hydro and cable TV.

BTW, they say 1.1 million households and businesses. I don't know what that means in terms of proportions, but the real estate sites tell me Toronto has 1.1 million homes.
 
That mostly kills my enthusiasm for the announcement. Without a legal agreement, these promises aren't worth much.

I'm very skeptical of these promises after watching the situation in the United States. The service providers there haven't yet expanded broadband connections to many areas they promised to connect years ago, let alone fibre.
 
Eug said:
Bell says they are partnering with Toronto Hydro, so it would appear they will have access to those hydro poles. This is important for a quicker rollout, or rollout as needed anyway. My Bell copper line is buried, but runs under lawns and driveways, and not just my own. In contrast, my neighbourhood is full of "telephone" poles... which ironically don't carry telephone lines. They are hydro and cable TV.

BTW, they say 1.1 million households and businesses. I don't know what that means in terms of proportions, but the real estate sites tell me Toronto has 1.1 million homes.
Click to expand...

It's really hard to make sense of what exactly 1.1 million homes and businesses are, if we don't know how the define homes and businesses. For example, would a condo be considered one home or 200 homes?
 
TheTigerMaster said:
It's really hard to make sense of what exactly 1.1 million homes and businesses are, if we don't know how the define homes and businesses. For example, would a condo be considered one home or 200 homes?
Click to expand...
A household is typically a single dwelling unit, so a 200 unit condo would be considered 200 households. A duplex would be 2 households.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
That mostly kills my enthusiasm for the announcement. Without a legal agreement, these promises aren't worth much.

I'm very skeptical of these promises after watching the situation in the United States. The service providers there haven't yet expanded broadband connections to many areas they promised to connect years ago, let alone fibre.
Click to expand...
Bell was quite quick to roll out FTTN actually. I was pleasantly surprised. Given their history here, I would be hopeful they can roll out FTTH quickly too. However, it's not as if they're going to install it for all homes just for the sake of doing that. They'll lay out the backbone, and then as people need it, they'll install it in your home.

In fact, I wonder how much of that FTTN infrastructure can be utilized as the basis for FTTH implementation. Can it be as simple as shoring up the pipes to the neighbourhood nodes, and then running all the FTTH from those nodes over the hydro poles?

TheTigerMaster said:
It's really hard to make sense of what exactly 1.1 million homes and businesses are, if we don't know how the define homes and businesses. For example, would a condo be considered one home or 200 homes?
Click to expand...
Condo is 200 homes. My main concern here is they didn't say "1.1 million homes". They said "1.1 million homes and businesses".
 
Toffy said:
Dotto One (8241104 Canada Inc) has already started offering these speeds to select downtown condominiums and likely for a fraction of the cost that Bell will offer it at and with unlimited bandwidth.

https://dotto-one.com/services/
Click to expand...
That's not surprising, but also largely irrelevant for the larger infrastructure issue. New builds are often going fibre, but this wasn't trickling down to any existing residences. Basically if you wanted FTTH, you had to buy a new condo (or move out to the boonies to a new suburban subdivision).

Bell's plan means any home will (eventually) have FTTH service available. They're laying out the groundwork, and then when you order that new 200 Mbps service, they install the hardware to/in your home if your neighbourhood is supported.
 
Eug said:
Bell says they are partnering with Toronto Hydro, so it would appear they will have access to those hydro poles. This is important for a quicker rollout, or rollout as needed anyway. My Bell copper line is buried, but runs under lawns and driveways, and not just my own. In contrast, my neighbourhood is full of "telephone" poles... which ironically don't carry telephone lines. They are hydro and cable TV.

BTW, they say 1.1 million households and businesses. I don't know what that means in terms of proportions, but the real estate sites tell me Toronto has 1.1 million homes.
Click to expand...

I wonder if Bell is paying market rents for the use of the hydro poles? Currently Rogers and Bell pay a fixed amount for each hydro pole they are on. I would assume that Bell would continue to pay the same rent to Toronto Hydro. If not, I can smell a lawsuit waiting to happen if Rogers or someone else wants to put fibre on the same hydro pole.

And isn't Toronto Hydro suppose to be arms-length? What happened to the Board?
 
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