Bell Canada has announced that its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network now covers ‘most homes and business locations’ throughout Toronto, the country’s most populous city. Bell commenced the Toronto FTTP project in 2015, partnering the city authorities and Toronto Hydro to deploy over 10,000km of fibre, mounted on approximately 90,000 Bell and Toronto Hydro poles and underground via more than 10,000 manhole access points, alongside upgrading 27 Bell central offices across the city. Bell’s ‘Gigabit Fibe’ FTTP-based service currently offers download speeds up to 1Gbps and uploads reaching 940Mbps (also to reach 1Gbps next year via modem upgrades), alongside ‘Fibe TV’ IPTV and telephony. Peak downlink will increase to ‘at least 5Gbps’ next year and ultimately beyond 40Gbps.

Bell’s FTTP network now covers 3.7 million homes and business premises across seven Canadian provinces, a total it expects to grow to 4.5 million by the end of this year. Bell ‘all-fibre’ cities currently include: St. John’s, Gander, Summerside, Charlottetown, Halifax, Sydney, Moncton and Fredericton (all in Atlantic Canada provinces); Quebec City, Trois-Rivieres, Saint-Jerome and Gatineau (all in Quebec); Cornwall, Kingston, Toronto, North Bay and Sudbury (all Ontario), and Steinbach and The Pas in Manitoba, with ‘major new locations’ to be announced during 2018. Bell also unveiled its Montreal fibre project in 2017 and last month announced plans to expand direct fibre connections throughout the ‘GTA/905’ region surrounding Toronto and extending to the US border.

Thanks to TeleGeography for this Article