Source: Montreal Gazette

OTTAWA — Internet service in Central Canada is set to take a bold step into the future with the introduction by Bell Canada of technology that could pipe much larger volumes of data into people's homes.

Bell announced plans Thursday to install new fibre optic cables to replace the old copper lines in several cities over the next few years, which it says could mean download rates will soar from existing levels.

It will begin its three-year plan to install high-speed Fibre to the Home (FTTH) across the Quebec City region in 2010. Quebec City is the largest urban centre in Canada to be selected for the deployment of FTTH.

Often referred to as the "final mile" for high speed, FTTH replaces the last mile copper connection from the neighbourhood node to the home with glass or optical fibre. At minimum, homes with fibre have the potential for 100-megabits-per-second connections. Currently, most households in Canada receive around two-to-seven Mbps.

The implications of this changeover are huge, according to David St. John, spokesperson for the Fibre to the Home Council in the U.S., which has many members in Canada.

"Just five years ago, YouTube did not exist, and now everyone is on YouTube and watching videos online," said St. John, who runs a public relations company from his upstate New York home. "You can even get movie services that bypass your cable and go to your wireless router to a Slingbox on your TV. You don't have to use the disks. So things like this are coming soon."

He said emerging technologies like cloud computing and 3D TV as well as simple things like backing up files to an online server and HGTV all need higher Internet speeds.

Not only are existing applications benefiting from these upgrades, but having more bandwidth also allows for development of more applications, which then drives people to seek more bandwidth.

While Canadians may be some of the most connected in the world, we lag far behind when it comes to our Internet infrastructure. St. John's data shows just 30,000 homes — about one per cent — having access to fibre technology, which Bell residential services president Kevin Crull calls the "gold standard" of any communications network.

That compares with other countries like South Korea, which leads the way at 50 per cent of households enjoying FTTH or Fibre to the Building (FTTB) technology, Hong Kong comes second, then Japan and Taiwan, which also have high rates of penetration.

But 2010 might be the year to change that.

Bell also announced it will deploy FTTH in all new urban and suburban housing developments in Ontario and Quebec beginning in the second half of 2010. This is in addition to the company's deployment of FTTB to multi-dwelling units already under way. Bell said its FTTB will deliver 60-Mbps service to around 1,600 condominiums and apartment buildings in Ontario and Quebec by the end of 2012.

In total, the company said it expected 3.6 million households in Quebec and Ontario will be enhanced by the end of 2010. Another 1.8 million homes in Toronto and Montreal are expected to receive the less-efficient Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) technology in the first quarter of 2010. FTTN offers download speeds of up to 25 Mbps, according to Bell.

However, as of yet there are no plans to install FTTH in existing homes in Canada on a massive scale, as that would require digging up huge amounts of cable and installing fibre optic cables right in people's homes. Quebec City was chosen for the rollout because it can be "completed quickly and economically because it is served largely by . . . above-ground wiring on utility poles," the release stated.

"The cost and inconvenience of (putting fibre) in an existing neighbourhood where the cables are buried is just too prohibitive. There may come a time when it's not prohibitive, but right now it is," Crull said.

Elsewhere, Bell Aliant, in partnership with the government of New Brunswick, has announced that by the middle of 2010 about 70,000 homes in Fredericton and Saint John will also have FTTH. Other smaller projects have also taken place in communities across Canada.

This year, Rogers launched its new 50 Mbps Internet service, or "Ultimate High-Speed Internet" in select areas of the Greater Toronto Area and New Brunswick, but that technology does not use fibre; instead, it uses a technology called DOCSIS 3 on existing cables at a cost of about $150 a month to users.

Although Bell has not released its pricing information, Crull said getting its higher-speed services would be "competitively priced . . . in relation to speed and quality to the product.

© Montreal Gazette