TORONTO – Bell flipped the switch on its all-fibre optic network in Toronto Thursday, in what the company described as North America's largest urban fibre deployment.
Bell says that it’s fibre to the premises (FTTP) service now delivers Internet access speeds of up to 1 Gbps with symmetrical upload and downloads at all FTTP Internet speed tiers. It added that speeds will increase to at least 5 Gbps next year and ultimately to 40 Gbps and “beyond in future”.
“The Bell team is proud to light up North America's largest fibre network right here in Toronto”, said BCE Inc. and Bell Canada president and CEO George Cope, in the news release. “Bell's all-fibre network will deliver the best Internet, TV and business connectivity services to Torontonians while enabling Canada's largest city to innovate and compete at a global level with next-generation connectivity,"
The $1.5 billion Toronto fibre project is part of Bell's reinvention of its network footprint with next-generation broadband fibre connections. Bell began the Toronto project in 2015, working closely with the City and Toronto Hydro and using “innovative installation techniques” and new heavy equipment to roll out the network as efficiently and quickly as possible with minimal disruption.
The build consists of more than 10,000 kilometres of new fibre installed to date on approximately 90,000 Bell and Toronto Hydro poles and underground via more than 10,000 manhole access points, as well as technology enhancements to 27 Bell central offices throughout the city.
At more than 240,000 total kilometres, Bell's fibre optic network stretches across the four Atlantic provinces as well as Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba. Bell said that it now serves more than 9.2 million homes and business locations with fibre to the neighbourhood, and over 3.7 million locations with FTTP connections – a total expected to grow to 4.5 million by the end of this year.
Bell all-fibre cities now include St. John's, Gander, Summerside, Charlottetown, Halifax, Sydney, Moncton and Fredericton in Atlantic Canada; Québec City, Trois-Rivières, Saint-Jérôme and Gatineau in Quebec: Cornwall, Kingston, Toronto, North Bay and Sudbury in Ontario; and Steinbach and The Pas in Manitoba, with major new locations to be announced in 2018.
Bell 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 U.S. border.
