07.07
Aliant To Bring FTTH To 70,000 Homes In New Brunswick
On Tuesday, Bell Aliant announced a $60 million investment to bring fiberto-
the-home (FTTH) technology to 70,000 homes and businesses in the
cities of Fredericton and Saint John in New Brunswick. In support of Aliant,
the government of New Brunswick is contributing $1 million to the project.
While FTTH has been widely deployed in the U.S., mainly by Verizon, it is
still a relatively nascent technology in Canada. Bell Aliant’s FibreOp network
will be Canada’s first 100% FTTH network to cover an entire city. The
network should be operational by mid-2010.
The 2009 portion of Bell Aliant’s investment in FibreOp is already included
within the company’s 2009 capital intensity guidance of 13.5% to 14.5% of
revenues. The remainder of the spending is expected to be part of Bell
Aliant’s normal capital program in 2010.
Bell Aliant’s investment should not come as a surprise, and supports a
longer-term view that telcos need to increase investments in fiber
(FTTN/FTTH) to narrow the cablecos’ current bandwidth advantage
(especially with the rollout of DOCSIS 3.0) to stay relevant.
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