[Dr.Dave]

MTS Allstream announced today that it plans to invest $125 million over the next five years as part of an accelerated deployment of its fibre to the home network, named FiON, in Manitoba. By the end of 2015, MTS expects to deploy fibre to about 120,000 homes in close to 20 Manitoba communities such as Steinbach, Thompson, The Pas and in areas of Winnipeg. FiON will enable MTS to provide its industry-leading MTS Ultimate TV service and very high-speed Internet services in those communities.

"Together with our existing high speed VDSL networks in Winnipeg, Brandon and Portage, this expanded fibre deployment is expected to make available advanced broadband and television capabilities to about 65% of Manitoba homes."

From the quarterly report:

Based on announced plans across the industry, this would place MTS in a unique position with the greatest penetration of VDSL and FTTH services in Canada.

Additional items:

• Initial focus will be the cities that don't have VDSL2 currently. FFTH in Winnipeg will be later in areas that would have been scheduled for copper line rehab.
• Overall average of about 60% aerial, 40% buried cable.
• VDSL2 is available to about 80% of Winnipeg homes, scheduled to be 96% by the end of 2010.

Edit: VDSL2 means Ultimate TV is currently available to 80% of Winnipeg homes.

 

[mbhydro]

It will be interesting to see how the expansion goes in Winnipeg.

I know somebody who lives a few blocks east of the Alpine (St. Anne @ Hindley) exchange who cannot even get basic MTS TV provisioned, and has been unable to even find anybody at MTS who can give him an estimate of when they will be able to provide it.

 

[Dr.Dave]

If you mean they can't even get the old Classic TV at that location, that seems odd.

My experience has been that companies like MTS don't give out their schedules to the public. We just have to wait "patiently" for the service to arrive.

 

[mbhydro]

Your right Classic is what they can not get, they call MTS and are told sorry not at this time. I thought the same as you that it sounds funny but have driven around the area and there are no DSLAM's visible.

There are also people near the Gateway exchange that I have been told are not able to get Classic either.

I wonder if not enough people in those areas have called to ask MTS about the TV service so they are servicing the areas where there is more interest first.

I know that Greater Winnipeg Cable (pre Shaw days) did that to my Aunt and Uncle and they lived on a street behind the GWC Narin Ave. offices. It took them years to get cable down Mission Ave.

 

[Dr.Dave]

MTS publish in their official quarterly reports that 98% of Winnipeg households have access to Classic TV. The 2% that can't get it are probably in sparsely populated areas, industrial areas or areas that have technological limitations like wiring that needs to be upgraded.

Without knowing exactly where the people live I would guess they fall into the last category. If the wiring in their area needs to be replaced maybe they will be getting FTTH in a couple of years.

 

[mbhydro]

Area south of Beliveau around Beachtree. May be an area that is up for cable replacement as it has to be at least a 30 year old subdivision.

 

[llcarlos]

There are some large apt blocks where MTSTV is banned because SHAW pre-wired the building and they have an exclusive agreement.

 

[Mozza]

There are some large apt blocks where MTSTV is banned because SHAW pre-wired the building and they have an exclusive agreement.

Yeah - that's why I couldn't get the Lobby Camera up and running with MTS, because Shaw refused to allow access to it. But at least I was able to get Ultimate here!

 

[Dr.Dave]

I measured the distance on Google Maps from the Beliveau and Beachtree area to the CO. It looks like that location would be just outside the reach of the CO and would require a fibre-optic node. The number of houses in that little corner may not justify it (especially if the apartment complexes are blocking access).

 

[Macman]

The odd part is that birds-eye view doesn't always equate to loop length, but probably more so in the case of underground wiring like my area. I don't think they ever thought length would be a problem way back when it was just dial tone, which can travel a long ways unlike VDSL.

I'm doubtful they'll ever put in a fiber node closer to me, so I'm hopeful they'll trench in a shorter loop. If they went in a straight line from the cross connect to my house (same boulevard all the way down) it would be about 300 meters. Then they could splice into the existing loop and cut it from the original loop at the point where people are out of range, if that makes sense.

I don't know if I explained it on here, but I saw something similar at one of my installs. I go into the pedestal (which was NOT labelled as being modified for TV, which would have saved me a real headache and MTS truck roll!) and I cut what I think is the end tap. What I was actually doing was cutting the VDSL signal! The customer's original loop was WAY too long to ever get TV, so at some point MTS trenched in two 50 pair cables to a new node up the road. Then they spliced all the wires in this pedestal (no clue how many customers, but it was a lot) creating a detour to the node and back, effectively increasing the length the dialtone had to travel, but creating a short VDSL loop.

I had trouble wrapping my head around it until I drew it out on paper. Most installers probably couldn't give two hoots what was going on, but I'm a real thinker and have a desire to know what's going on

Sorry if I'm babbling.

 

[sctb1]

I like this quote from the article Telco speeds up network upgrade in Saturday's Winnipeg Free Press.

He said the company also intends to extend its fibre-to-the-home network to all of the Winnipeg, Brandon and Portage la Prairie homes connected to its VDSL networks.

Blouin said those upgrades will likely occur in the final two years of the five-year period.

It sounds like everyone with Ultimate TV will have FTTH within 5 years!

 

[Dr.Dave]

I read the Free Press article as well and that part didn't make any sense and conflicts with the official press releases. Remember, they are only adding 120,000 FTTH homes over 5 years.

I think the article might be trying to say that FTTH would be extended to homes that don't have VDSL2. It's hard to say "all". I would think 98 or 99% of homes in Winnipeg will have either VDSL2 or FTTH by 2015.

 

[recon]

I read the Free Press article as well and that part didn't make any sense and conflicts with the official press releases. Remember, they are only adding 120,000 FTTH homes over 5 years.

Great MTS always does things in slow motion......real slow...

 

[recroom]

I've been waiting for Ultimate TV for about 18 months. I've entered my phone number and postal code into the MTS website box several times, only to find out yet again that HD isn't available in my area (Niakwa Place/Southdale). Why is MTS launching new programs all over the province when it can't even finish the projects it started in the provincial capital?

I've thought many times about switching to Shaw to get HD but then I'd lose my bundle privileges. MTS should ditch its bison and replace him with a snail! The way things are going, we won't see HD in our neighborhood for another year, and even that may be optimistic!

 

[SomeRandomGuy]

I have spoken to MTS about gaps in the TV civerage several times as my Mother-in-law lives just off Waverly and Sterling Lyons PW, and her area has neither Classic nor Ultimate TV.

It has been explained to me that there are certain areas that have too few homes to make it viable for the amount it costs to put in the equipment needed to offer service. I get the impression that MTS would like nothign else but to make service available to everyone, but the cost is prohibitive in some areas.

I read into the new announcement that MTS has set their sights on future-proffing their network by making everything new fiber, and slowly converting everything copper ot fiber as it requires replacing.

 

[Dr.Dave]

@recon, the point I was making is that MTS definitely won't have fibre to every home in Winnipeg by 2015. As for them being slow, they're faster at providing FTTH in Manitoba than other companies I can think of.

@recroom, it looks like MTS will take your advice. They plan to have Ultimate TV to 96% of Winnipeg by the end of 2010 and don't expect to start the new FTTH implementation until 2011.

 

[sctb1]

I read the Free Press article as well and that part didn't make any sense and conflicts with the official press releases. Remember, they are only adding 120,000 FTTH homes over 5 years.

I think the article might be trying to say that FTTH would be extended to homes that don't have VDSL2. It's hard to say "all". I would think 98 or 99% of homes in Winnipeg will have either VDSL2 or FTTH by 2015.

It sure is a confusing article because just before that it talks about upgrading faster than waiting until copper needs replacing. That's why it led me to believe that everyone would be converted in the 5 year timeframe.

Blouin said MTS had originally planned to install its new fibre-to-the-home network only in new residential developments and communities where the existing copper-wire network needed to be replaced.

But under that timetable, it would have been up to 15 years before some of the communities on the new to-do list received the advanced service, he added.

I sure hope they are giving us FTTH in 5 years!