Canada's Xplornet Communications has announced a plan to deliver affordable fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) internet to 200,000 homes and businesses in rural communities across Ontario. The move forms part of Xplornet's commitment announced last year to invest CAD500 million (USD399 million) by 2025 in deploying fibre and 5G fixed wireless access to meet the needs of rural Canadians. Xplornet also has FTTH projects underway in the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. In parallel, Xplornet is rolling out Canada's first rural 5G standalone network in New Brunswick and, over the course of 2022, will expand its 5G network to 250 additional rural communities across Canada. Currently, over 500,000 rural Canadians have access to 50Mbps/10Mbps download/upload speeds from Xplornet with unlimited data on the 'Xplore 50/10 Unlimited' service package.

The operator's B2B division, Xplornet Enterprise Solutions, meanwhile this week announced a new business cloud communications offering. The new voice-first Unified Communications as-a-Service (UCaaS) solution is designed 'to meet the diverse and changing communications needs of workers in remote, in-office, or hybrid work environments, while also providing frontline workers advanced communication solutions.' The service incorporates Alianza's new Cymbus Business Cloud Communications applications supporting mobility and team collaboration, enabling customers to talk, chat, meet, and share across their devices. A press release says that Cymbus desktop and mobile apps provide a seamless interface for accessing calls, voicemails, chat functions, and video collaboration tools, replacing the need to rely on additional applications such as Slack, Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Robbie Zetariuk, VP of the B2B division, declared: 'Alianza's new Cymbus Business Cloud Communications is set to position Xplornet Enterprise Solutions as a leader in Canada's business VoIP solutions market.'

Thanks to TeleGeography for this industry update.