Random thoughts...

I don't know what the average MDU in Bell Fibe's portfolio is but assuming the average is 300 units then that would mean 1,667 buildings would be Fibe TV enabled to reach 500,000.

That's a lot of buildings. Considering that Fibe TV would likely be in newer condos and not in existing rental buildings the number seems even more incredible.

(yes I'm sure some of those 500.000 are homes but the number still seems to big to believe)

Hi Hugh,

Fibe TV's availability has nothing to do with age of the building as far as I'm aware... I think it's just the distance to the fibre node; correct me if I'm wrong on this.

In any case, my building is a rental building and was built in 1960... hardly a 'newer condo'

I think the claim makes sense... I can see over 10 buildings from my balcony that are at least 15 stories, and that doesn't count the buildings I can't see because they're blocked by the ones I can. So, we're talking about a pretty tiny postage stamp of Toronto and already that's a lot of folks. I imagine that Bell has been stragically running fibre to include these very tall (20+ stories) buildings first, and I'm just lucky that my mid-rise happens to be next to many taller buildings, so I'm also close enough to fibre.

Keeping in mind that in addition to Toronto, I'm sure they're doing the same strategy in Montreal.

Food for thought:
2006 census states Toronto (city, not GTA or even Census division or Census metropolitan area) has just over 1 million private dwellings, 55.3% in apartment buildings (575,000 dwellings)

Montreal (city again, not GMA) has over 750,000 private dwellings. 70.9% in apartment buildings (558,025 dwellings).

So, just apartments in the City of Toronto and the City of Montreal total over 1.1 million... this does not take into account the many homes that I'm sure have fibe available (I've heard of many in the beaches for example) or any of the row houses, duplexs, etc.. that have the same. It also does not take into account those that are outside of the City proper that may have Fibe (some may?)

500,000 doesn't seem that odd with that in mind (of course keeping in mind that those are how many CAN have fibe, not how many subscribe).

Bell does still have a long way to catch up to the 4-million+ digital cable subscribers nationwide (actual subscribers, not 'available')