Small ISPs take the lead on gigabit Internet in Canada

Small Internet service providers are taking the lead on providing gigabit Internet service in Canada, in contrast to the United States where Internet giant Google Inc. is pioneering efforts to bring this type of ultra-fast web connection to the masses. Heather Burnett Gold, president of the U.S.-based Fiber to the Home Council Americas, said in a phone interview that gigabit connections enable “frictionless” use of current applications such as streaming video and gaming, as well as future Internet-based applications such as remote education and telemedicine. “If bandwidth is not a constraint, people will let their imagination go wild,” she said. “There are services we haven't even thought about. You're always going to have capacity for multiple users, multiple devices and multiple applications. It eliminates any kind of friction.” Most Canadian home Internet users have a connection between 5 and 49 Mbps for downloads with around 1 mbps dedicated to uploads, according to the CRTC, while users on a gigabit network generally receive a symmetrical connection of 1,000 Mbps for both uploads and downloads. Gold said that it makes sense for smaller companies to be experimenting with gigabit offerings because incumbents such as Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. have to balance investment in fibre with maintenance and upgrades of their legacy copper networks. “It's going to cost you a lot more to expand incrementally than if you just do it all at once,” she said. “The big companies are still seeing where they can justify the cost.” Urban Communications Inc. is the latest to join the gigabit competition, announcing this month service for about 1,800 units in Vancouver. It says it has about 200 customers now and is offering price at $49 a month for the first 1,000 customers for its unlimited gigabit service. “The model the cable companies and the telcos have rolled out is going to be under siege in the next few years as consumers want and need more and more bandwidth,” Urban CEO John Farlinger said in a phone interview. “A gigabit service radically changes the consumers’ online experience, obviously.” Urban Communications has built a fibre-to-the-home network through contracts with government and universities, Farlinger said, and now has more than 200 kilometres of unused “dark fibre” at its disposal. The company is connecting directly with content providers such as Netflix Inc., he added, and is looking to offer television services over its network in the future. Ultra high-definition video, also called 4K, can take up 25 Mbps by itself, Farlinger said, showing the need for a future with more bandwidth. Farlinger said many consumers do not understand the benefits of a gigabit connection, so his company offers short trials and provides demonstrations that show off what a high-speed connection can do. “Our phone lines are busy,” he said. “We want to offer the consumer something different. We've already got our stake in the ground. We just want to compete.” Urban Communications claimed in a press release this month that it was the first ISP to offer residential gigabit service in Canada. Farlinger later clarified that he meant the company was the first to offer gigabit service in British Columbia, and acknowledged the lead of a small town in Alberta. In Olds, Alta., municipally owned O-Net began offering gigabit service in August 2013 on fibre lines built by the town’s non-profit economic development corporation, the Olds Institute. O-Net serves about one quarter of the town’s 8,500 residents, said Olds' director of business development, Nathan Kusiek. He said the original impetus for the fibre network came in the early 2000s when the two Internet incumbents in the region, Shaw Communications Inc. and Telus Corp., said they would not be hooking up the town to the newly built Alberta SuperNet, a provincewide fibre backbone. "Rural towns are the last one on the upgrade schedule," Kusiek said in a phone interview. "The belief was that Internet is universal, it's a utility and everybody should have access to it.” A one-gigabit connection costs $120 per month from O-Net, according to the company’s website. The local Olds College has used its gigabit connection to offer new services in education, Kusiek said, including the use of Apple Inc. iPads in the classroom and streaming HD video of classes. He said his town's success at implementing a gigabit network has attracted attention from other cities across Canada and the U.S., and he is in regular communication with many other public and private agencies about what it takes to run a community fibre service. "People reach out to ask us how we've done this and how they can do it in their own cities," he said. “A lot of the other rural communities are now looking at us and our business model, which can be repeated, to take ownership themselves.” In Ontario, the highest available residential speed from Rogers is a 250 Mbps connection, which costs $95 a month after an introductory offer expires. Bell, which has rolled out an extensive fibre-to-the-home network, offers Ontario users a 175 Mbps connection for $93.95 at the top tier. Shaw Communications Inc. trialled a gigabit connection to some of its customers in 2010, but no longer offers service at that speed, according to a company spokesperson. Other providers, including Ontario’s Lakeland Networks, provide gigabit service for businesses and public agencies, but not consumers. In the United States, Google rolled out a gigabit fibre service in Kansas City in 2012 and has since expanded to two more cities, with a four planned in the coming years. The company charges $70 US a month for an unlimited gigabit connection. — With reporting by Peter Henderson at phenderson@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Small ISPs take the lead on gigabit Internet in Canada

News | March 23, 2015

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us

Small ISPs take the lead on gigabit Internet in Canada

News | March 23, 2015

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Related Stories

CRTC approves 4K travel channel

4G will continue to dominate global connects in 2025: GSMA

Rogers must make 4K channel available to Telus: CRTC

Cogeco launches 4K PVR

Reuse & Permissions

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us