[hugh]

By the middle of 2010, 70,000 homes in Fredericton and Saint John New Brunswick will have the fastest broadband connections in the country thanks to fibre to the home (FTTH) technology.

Wow. That's 70,000 potential IPTV subscribers with super fast internet service!

 

[morikaweb]

Nice to see FTH getting a foothold in canada. I'll be crossing my fingers this goes well so other providers might consider it.

 

[hugh]

Truthfully, at $857 per home, I will be really surprised if this works.

Let's say a whopping 50% of folks in Saint John and Frederiction go with Aliant for phone, internet and television. That means they have a $1,700 hardware cost plus acquisition costs etc. Total cost of new customer could be close to $2,000 to $2,500 with all costs in.

Assuming a 40% margin that means that Aliant would need those 35,000 homes to spend $5,000 to $6,000 in net present value terms to break even.

I don't know how cable is doing in those cities but I doubt they will get 35,000 homes and I doubt they have a 40% margin so this is quite a risk.

 

[Momorider]

For sure the cost is way too much I bet the economy of scale would do better in a high density environment of a bigger urban area. Even with a escalation of the user portion it would take a long tome to get a return on investment.

 

[hugh]

I spoke to someone from Bell a few years ago who said FTTH in an existing subdivision would cost around $1,000 a home even in Toronto.

new subdivisions are obviously a lot cheaper and MDU's (multiple dwelling units) are the cheapest per home.

 

[morikaweb]

I wonder if given a chance how many people would swallow the cost themselves to have the line installed? Considering a thousand bucks is really nothing considering how much in home infistructure normally costs (furnace, hot watter, sewer lines, ect).

Personally I would be willing to pay the money, if only because it would most likely increase my property value.

 

[Jase88]

Eventually, it will be necessary for telecommunications companies to do this for every home. Copper and coaxial cable is quickly running out of bandwidth.

Verizon has undertaken this in the US.

And with the cost of raw materials soaring (copper, for example), fibre makes sense.

 

[Cabanon]

i'd gladly pay the 1000 buck if this save me trouble and alot less than what i actually pay. plus if the internet is unlimited bandwidth usage. its an all win for me.

 

[que3jxp]

Well, being out here in NB and in the Freddy area, I can tell you that ever since NBTel went Aliant, NB was put on the backburner for most hardware/infrastructure updates till PEI and NF were brought up to match. We are just finally getting the upgrade we should have years ago but now that FTTH is the thing to use, that is what we are scoring.

Also, FTTH is a LOOOOOONNNNGGG term investment as it is fully capable of replacing all of the old POTS infrastructure and allowing Bell/Aliant to provide just about any service they want. Just look at Verison in the US. They actually sell cable TV service instead of IPTV because of the crazy bandwidth at their disposal and that combined with internet services as fast as 50 dl/20 ul (in mbps not MBps).

Either way, this is going to be REALLY neat. I just hope that I can get it where I am JUST outside the city limits (Maybe 1000 meters outside)

 

[FuzzFace]

hey que3jxp, goto https://public.bellaliant.net/FibreOp/ and sign up to get information when it comes avaliable, I also live outside fredericton(in new maryland) and hope they include us in this

 

[okcomputer]

I find Aliant's choice of areas for roll-outs very strange.

Newfoundland gets Max internet first. Very specific parts of Halifax get AliantTV. Now small cities in NB get FTTH.

I don't know if it makes much business sense to start it there rather than Halifax, but more power to them.

I switched to Eastlink because I can't get AliantTV and I can only get Ultra internet (5mb) where I live, even though I am 2mins away from an area that has Max and AliantTV, etc. I am now paying less and getting 3x faster internet and HD PVR, etc.

If FTTH ever comes this way, I'll take a peek for sure.

 

[axross]

The reason it's being rolled out in NB first, taken from the very first line of the announcement on Bell Aliant's corporate website:

Bell Aliant, with support from the Government of New Brunswick, will be the first in Canada to cover an entire city with fibre to the home (FTTH) technology.

 

[Anteater]

I find Aliant's choice of areas for roll-outs very strange.

Newfoundland gets Max internet first. Very specific parts of Halifax get AliantTV. Now small cities in NB get FTTH.

I don't know if it makes much business sense to start it there rather than Halifax, but more power to them.

I switched to Eastlink because I can't get AliantTV and I can only get Ultra internet (5mb) where I live, even though I am 2mins away from an area that has Max and AliantTV, etc. I am now paying less and getting 3x faster internet and HD PVR, etc.

If FTTH ever comes this way, I'll take a peek for sure.

Yeah... I figured any Aliant infrastructure upgrades would start in the HRM first, it being the most populated city/metro area in Atlantic Canada.

St. John's has a higher population (100,000) than Fredericton and Saint John, NB as well. AFAIK Max and Aliant TV are only available in the St. John's metro area anyway, not all of Newfoundland.

I don't know the accuracy of these numbers, but Wikipedia says:

Halifax, Nova Scotia 407,007
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador 181,113
Moncton, New Brunswick 126,424
Saint John, New Brunswick 122,389
Cape Breton Regional Municipality (Sydney Metro Area), Nova Scotia 102,250
Fredericton, New Brunswick 85,688

I know density and other factors (including the fact that the New Brunswick government is supporting this) play a role too, but the metro areas of Halifax, St. John's and Moncton (which is in NB...) have a higher population than Saint John and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality has more people than Fredericton.

 

[classicsat]

Nice to see FTH getting a foothold in canada. I'll be crossing my fingers this goes well so other providers might consider it.

Quite a few providers are. A couple of independent (as in non-bell) phone companies in my part of Ontario are a offering FTTH and IPTV to their suburban areas..

 

[okcomputer]

Bell Aliant, with support from the Government of New Brunswick, will be the first in Canada to cover an entire city with fibre to the home (FTTH) technology.

That will be a nice bit of press for Bell. I love how they can spin it to say they're the first to cover an entire city... but that city has a tiny population in comparison to most cities in the country.

Oh well, I'm just jealous haha.

 

[Danster]

Found out today I'm in the Fibre zone...

There was a man walking around my street today and I thought he might be with DOT, which I need to talk too.
To my dissapointment, he wasn't. That was short lived. He was a sub contractor for Aliant measuring for the fibre op on our street.

I had quite a good chat with him, trying to get as much info as possible. Right now, there are some people on the north side doing the beta testing already. Most of the northside is all wired up. I gather from what he said that the FO would go as far as just past the Petro Canada at the end of main street. They are laying fibre op cable where there are the most people in relatively short distance. He had just done Tamarack park yesterday where there are over 400 homes under 3 square kilometer. I guess that's why we are added to the list because of them. Where I live, we are about 100 in 5 sqaure kilometer.

He told me that New Maryland area stops near Sunset Drive near the Ultramar gas station. They don't have enough density after that.

Having said that, I'm sure Oromocto will be also on the list cause they sure have lots of homes in that area in a relatively small area as far as the military quarters go.

I asked him when would I expect to get the cable laid on my street and he said Main Srteet had been surveyed at the end of March and they where almost all done as we speak so before years end, I should have it.

Now I wonder if Aliant would take my dual tuner PVR's from ROGERS and exchange them with whatever they need or have in order to please me?

I asked him about pricing and he said it will be very competitive with ROGERS as far as what I have right now (cell, home phone, internet and digital TV) and that would be at lightning speed of course. I asked him if he knew if Bell would be sending the HD channels as originally broadcasted by companies or would they just send them compressed as on the satellite and he didn't know that part of the specs.

All in all, a very good chat. Did I mention I know for a fact that my street is slated for Fibre Op?

He said if I called Aliant, they would probably deny it but he said if my street wasn't on it, we wouldn't have had that chat.

Oh, and my street is slated to have Fibre Op Cable.

 

[kirjtc2]

Yeah...I saw a lot of Aliant trucks in my neighbourhood (Nashwaaksis) about a week ago...wasn't sure what they were doing until I saw this announcement.

 

[que3jxp]

If people look at the news releases, the number one official cited reason (Other than Gov't money) is that Aliant wants to roll IPTV service in SJ and Freddy and they cannot without a network upgrade. So rolling FTTH in these two cities delivers two benefits. A showcase and the ability to roll an existing service into new markets.

 

[FuzzFace]

Driving back from Miramichi today i noticed two homes as i was coming into fredericton with lawn signs that said "FirbreOp is coming to this home" but i have yet to hear any pricing information or any information for that matter

 

[Danster]

I guess until they answer our email when we sign up for the service, it may take a while. Like the guy I spoke with told me, they will have to make it very competitive with ROGERS.