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Bell Gigabit Fibe Discussion

56K views 123 replies 36 participants last post by  FunkyTown 
#1 · (Edited)
Here are the highlights from Bell's press release:

Bell Gigabit Fibe bringing the fastest Internet to Toronto residents with a billion-dollar+ network investment, creation of 2,400 direct jobs

Bell Canada today announced it will deliver gigabit-per-second Internet speeds to homes and businesses across the City of Toronto with the new Gigabit Fibe service. Coupled with Bell's single largest infrastructure expansion project, creating approximately 2,400 direct jobs and significant economic and innovation benefits, Gigabit Fibe will bring North America's fastest Internet speeds to more than a million Toronto premises – starting with approximately 50,000 homes and businesses that will have first access this summer.

Part of Bell's plan to invest $20 billion in its broadband fibre and wireless networks across Canada by the end of 2020, Gigabit Fibe will ultimately be available to 1.1 million homes and businesses across the city. Bell will launch Gigabit Fibe in other cities in Ontario, Québec and the Atlantic provinces as soon as this summer in some locations.

As with all other gigabit services, like the Google Fiber project in some US cities, service will initially be available at a maximum 940 Megabits per second and rise to a full 1000 Megabits per second or faster in 2016 as modem equipment suppliers catch up to gigabit speeds. To learn more about Gigabit Fibe, please visit Bell.ca/Fibe.

A public partnership without public funding
Fully funded by Bell, Gigabit Fibe in Toronto is supported by the company's single largest infrastructure buildout. Bell's long-term agreements with Toronto Hydro to share utility poles across the city are accelerating the Gigabit Fibe project's efficiency and speeding up deployment. When the project is complete, Bell teams will have upgraded 27 Bell Central Office facilities across the city and installed over 9,000 kilometres of new fibre, both underground via more than 10,000 manholes and on approximately 80,000 Bell and Toronto Hydro poles around the city. Approximately 70% of the network will be aerial and 30% underground.

Bell is building Gigabit Fibe on a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis and will advise residents in advance if Bell crews may need to access their property. Torontonians can visit Bell.ca/Toronto for updates and Gigabit Fibe availability. Bell will have a dedicated customer service process for Gigabit Fibe and work with Toronto's 3-1-1 information service to answer any questions about the infrastructure project.

Gigabit support for the United Way
As part of its ongoing support for the United Way Toronto Community Hub initiative, Bell will contribute Gigabit Fibe service to each the charity's city-wide Community Hubs initiative, including Access Point on the Danforth, Bathurst-Finch, Dorset Park, Jane Street, Mid-Scarborough, Rexdale Community Hub, Victoria Park Hub, and the planned Bridletowne Neighbourhood Centre serving the Steeles L'Amoreaux community.

Bell remains Canada's broadband leader
Canada's largest Internet service provider, Bell serves approximately 3.3 million total high-speed Internet customers. Bell will make Gigabit Fibe available in other cities across Ontario, Québec and the Atlantic provinces over the next year, some also as early as this summer. Cities primed for Gigabit Fibe include Québec City, locations in Montréal, Laval, Blainville, Gatineau, Joliette, Saint-Jérôme, Chicoutimi, Sherbrooke, Vaudreuil/Valleyfield, St. John's, Charlottetown, Halifax, Saint John, Fredericton, Moncton, Sudbury, North Bay, Peterborough and Kingston. Gigabit Fibe infrastructure rollouts are under way in even more cities and service availability will be announced over the next year.

Note: Please use the Bell Aliant thread to discuss Gigabit Fibe in Atlantic Canada.

EDIT March 27, 2017: Bell announced FTTH rollout for Montreal - see post 58
 
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#4 ·
They already have a number of neighborhoods wired. I've seen a few. They trenched with Hydro doing rehabs and split the cost. I'm assuming they are going to use GPON in a 1:32 configuation. Now, i'd like to see Rogers step up to the plate and do the same instead of dicking around with their system. Doc 3.1 wont do 1 Gigabit for an individual customer without at least 2Gigs available at the Node with 64 bonded channels.
 
#5 ·
If you are in a neighbourhood with Fibe 50 does that mean you'll be in line for this? Any idea/forecast about what the service would cost? Kind of glad I didn't jump to Rogers Ignite if this is going to happen...

And I did check the bell.ca/toronto link in the press release and this is all I received after plugging in my address: "You can enjoy Fibe TV and fast Internet speeds today. And when Gigabit Fibe becomes available, you’ll be able to upgrade to even faster Internet." So, nothing firm to say the least...
 
#6 ·
Bell's CEO said the service would be priced "competitively", so comparable to cable for speeds in the same range. The very top speed will probably be pretty expensive.

For example, Bell Aliant's current 2 top speeds are:
450 down / 350 up for $249.95 / mo.
300 down / 30 up for $109.95 / mo.

Your existing speed doesn't have anything to do with the fibre rollout plan, since they will be rewiring the entire city with fibre-optic cable alongside the copper cable. Once you switch to Fibre To The Home (FTTH), the existing copper infrastructure is not used.
 
#7 ·
Bell Management Lies to the Canadian Public Again

This thread should be titled "Bell Management Lies to the Canadian Public Again." Comcast is rolling out 2Gbps internet in Atlanta. It's a good thing that the announcement was limited to NA since Korea is rolling out 10Gbps internet.

Despite the seemingly long list of cites, there are notable exceptions, including several of Canada's ten largest cities in Bell's service area. It's notable that 9 of the 19 cities listed are in Quebec, 6 are in the Maritimes and the other 4 are north of Toronto. Southwestern Ontario is being put at an economic disadvantage since the list completely excludes any city or area south and west of Toronto. The list also excludes several cities that have significant hi-tech businesses that would benefit from faster internet access. We don't even have FTTN in our area and Bell seems to have no plans to do so. It's no wonder that people here hate Bell with a passion.
 
#8 ·
Bell is already in the process of rolling out a lot of brownfield FTTH across Southern Ontario outside of the Toronto and the cities listed in their press release, which presumably would be phased into the "Gigabit Fibe" umbrella. They just haven't announced them and presemably they're considered "... under way ... and service availability will be announced over the next year." And yes several of them are south and west of Toronto.
 
#9 ·
ExDilbert said:
It's a good thing that the announcement was limited to NA since Korea is rolling out 10Gbps internet.
Once single mode fiber has been run to customers residences, I imagine going from 1Gbps to 10Gbps isn't a huge leap. That's just a conversation about what sort of network gear you're using. The fiber line would be unchanged.

Getting that fiber line to customers is 99% of the battle.

And, honestly, given the performance of typical Internet services, a 10Gbps line would be indistinguishable from a 1Gbps line for the end user.

I applaud all companies that are making the investment now to run fiber to their customers because, if done right, that infrastructure will be sufficient for high performance networking for decades.
 
#10 ·
presemably they're considered "... under way ...
We were told that 3 years ago about FTTN being rolled out with availability promised for two years ago. I've yet to see a Bell worker on the area for anything even resembling an upgrade. Almost everyone around here has given up waiting for Bell.

What I have seen are "BellVu" sales people telling gigantic lies about availability of Fibe (FTTN) and more lies about the capabilities of DSL and charging ridiculous prices that are supposed to be "special promotions." They have even gone as far as misrepesenting Bell satellite TV and DSL as Fibe. Sorry Bell, 5Mbps DSL at $55/mo just won't cut it. I can get cable internet at 10 times the speed for less money. The fact that there wasn't a city within 160km of here mentioned in the announcement just proves that SW Ontario is totally off the map as far as Bell management is concerned.
 
#12 ·
We were told that 3 years ago about FTTN being rolled out with availability promised for two years ago. I've yet to see a Bell worker on the area for anything even resembling an upgrade. Almost everyone around here has given up waiting for Bell.
Bell is deploying brownfield FTTH in my town less than 160km south of Toronto not listed in the press release. You can even see it on Google Streetview. A lot of it is underground, too. So it's happening. End of discussion.
 
#13 ·
I'm not that knowledgeable on computers and such, but doesn't your computer have to have a real fast processor to actually see and get the "TRUE" effect of this 1,000 GBS.
Modern computers can handle it, but there are likely other bottlenecks elsewhere. For example, one thing I've noticed is that sites that have a lot of ads are slowed down by the ad servers. And TCP can slow down, when connected to a distant site, due to the round trip time of the handshaking. Of course, who said there'd be only one computer using it. Many homes have multiple computers and users.
 
#14 ·
At 1Gbps, the bottleneck will be the remote server. Most will not or cannot serve that speed to individual PCs. In any event, 1Gbps will rarely be needed for internet alone in the near future. Much of that bandwidth will be used for Bell services like Fibe TV.

Bell is deploying brownfield FTTH in my town less than 160km south of Toronto not listed in the press release.
It's still going to be an average of 160km from the rest of SW Ontario. I live 190km from Toronto so a 160km radius leaves plenty of leeway to cover the GTA and anything directly south will still be well over the average 160km from SW Ontario.

My comments were as much about the mind set of Bell management. That several cities with individual populations larger that the combined population of Sudbury, North Bay, Peterborough and Kingston were left out speaks volumes about the contempt Bell management has for hundreds of thousands on current and potential future customers living SW of Toronto. Just what was this guy thinking? It looks, in all respects, like a major snub. Maybe it was intentional.
 
#16 ·
Bell Gigabit Fibe: Canada's fastest Internet service now available to 1.3 million homes

Bell today announced the first phase of the launch of Gigabit Fibe, with Canada's fastest Internet service now available to approximately 1.3 million homes in locations across Québec and Ontario.

"The Bell team is dedicated to continued leadership in broadband networks and next-generation communications services, so we are very proud to introduce today the absolute fastest Internet speeds available to Canadian consumers," said Rizwan Jamal, President of Bell Residential Services. "Gigabit Fibe is tomorrow's technology, offering consumers the Internet access speeds that will enable them to take full advantage of online advancements into the future."

Bell Fibe Internet customers can upgrade to Gigabit Fibe for just $10 per month in a bundle. To learn more about all Fibe Internet pricing packages, including speed tiers of 15, 25, 50, 150, 300 and 940 Megabits per second, please visit Bell.ca/Fibe or Bell.ca/Internetpackages. Gigabit Fibe initially offers top speeds of up to 940 Mbps, increasing to 1000 Mpbs (1 Gigabit) or faster in 2016. You can also visit Bell.ca/Fibe to check if Gigabit Fibe is available in your area using your postal code or home phone number.

"Bell's Network team has been quickly expanding our fibre optic network in multiple cities and towns across eastern Canada, based both on consumer demand and support from municipalities in providing permits and other assistance for this massive investment in new Canadian communications infrastructure," said Stephen Howe, Bell's Chief Technology Officer. "Available to 1.3 million homes now, Gigabit Fibe will be available to a further 650,000 locations in the Atlantic provinces this fall and to 250,000 more in Québec and Ontario. By the end of the year, we'll have about 2.2 million homes covered with the fastest Internet service available in Canada."

In Ontario, Gigabit Fibe is available in parts of Brampton, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, Milton, Ottawa, Peterborough and some neighbourhoods in Toronto. In June, Bell announced a $1.14 billion investment to roll out fibre to more than 1 million homes and businesses across the City of Toronto, creating 2,400 direct jobs. Today, Gigabit Fibe is available to approximately 50,000 homes in the Toronto neighbourhoods of Regent Park, the Distillery District, Harbourfront and Willowdale.

The Gigabit Fibe footprint covers homes in communities across Québec, including Bell Canada's first full fibre centre, Québec City, as well as locations in Beloeil, Blainville, Chambly, Châteauguay, Gatineau, Joliette, La Prairie, Laval, Lévis, Magog, Repentigny, Saint-Constant, Saint-Eustache, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Saint-Jérôme, Saint-Luc, Sherbrooke, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Sorel-Tracy, Terrebonne, Vaudreuil-Dorion and more than 85,000 homes in Montréal.
Download speed 940 Mbps
Upload speed 100 Mbps
Monthly usage Unlimited

$149.95 /mo.
$49.95 one-time activation fee.

Other FTTH plans
:
Fibe 150 down/50 up/500 GB Monthly usage $85.95 /mo.
Fibe 300 down/100 up/750 GB Monthly usage $95.95 /mo.
 
#17 ·
Are those really the only plans? They're really squeezing out the average user if so. Many people who live in new homes where fibre is the only option will be screwed for several years. The average consumer really only wants to pay $40-50 a month for 25-50mbps and unlimited usage. Even a tech savvy person like myself with a decent income would never justify paying $90+ a month for 150mbps. We recently went from 30 to 60mbps and didn't even notice the difference.
 
#23 ·
It's not possible for GPON
What's the limiting factor? In some ways, GPON is similar to DOCSIS, in that there has to be some way to manage the upstream traffic, usually assigned time slots. But DOCSIS over coax is limited by the available bandwidth on the cable. That's not an issue with fibre Incidentally the limit to bandwidth isn't the fibre, but the electronic side. It simply isn't fast enough to fill the available bandwidth, even with multiple wavelengths used.

As I mentioned, I have never seen fibre that wasn't symmetrical and I work with up to 10 Gb. I first started working with fibre about 25 years ago and that was 45 Mb. Later on 2.488 Gb and now 10. However, my experience has been entirely with carrier and business telecommunications and not residential services.
 
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