Bell announces several new fibre initiatives supporting its broadband investment strategy, including the deployment of Fibre-to-the-home in Québec City and to new housing developments in Ontario and Québec, the launch of enhanced Bell Fibe Internet services, and the introduction of Bell IPTV service in 2010.

Fibre-to-the-home investments

Bell announces a three-year plan to deploy high speed Fibre-to-the-home across the Québec City region, including Ancienne-Lorette, Beauport, Charlesbourg, Lévis-Wolfe, Loretteville, St-Cyrille, Ste-Foy, St-Nicolas, St-Réal and St-Romuald. FTTH will offer consumer and business customers Internet download speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second and upload speeds of at least 20 Mbps.

One of the first FTTH deployments in Canada, Bell's Québec initiative is also by far the largest city-wide FTTH rollout in the country. Because the Québec City region is served largely by "aerial" infrastructure - above-ground wiring on utility poles - these extensive fibre deployments can be accomplished much faster and more economically than in centres with underground infrastructure.

Bell also announced it will deploy FTTH in all new urban and suburban housing developments in Ontario and Québec beginning in the second half of 2010. This is in addition to the company's deployment of Fibre-to-the-building already under way, which will deliver 60 Mbps service to approximately 1,600 condominium and apartment buildings in Ontario and Québec by the end of 2012.

Bell Fibe Internet

Bell's new Fibe Internet service is now available in Montréal and the Greater Toronto Area, providing customers access to increased uploads speeds as high as 7 Megabits per second - the fastest available in the market - and download speeds now as fast as 25 Mbps.

Fibe Internet employs advanced tools to proactively monitor and optimize customer access speeds and offers comprehensive security features at no extra cost, including parental controls, pop-up blocker, privacy control, Wi-Fi protection, fraud protection and 5 Gigabytes of Personal Vault online storage.

Fibe Internet is enabled by advanced VDSL2 technology enhancements to Bell's Fibre-to-the-node network in Toronto and Montréal. By next month, Bell will have passed 1.8 million homes with advanced VDSL2 capability, and approximately 3.6 million FTTN households in Québec and Ontario will be enhanced by the end of 2010.

Bell IPTV

Bell's advanced FTTN network also supports the addition of Bell IPTV to the Bell TV line-up in 2010. All-digital Bell IPTV (internet protocol television) will deliver a wide range of advanced television and entertainment services over Bell's fibre network to customers in Toronto and Montréal this year.

Already in extensive consumer trials, Bell IPTV is powered by the Microsoft Mediaroom multimedia software platform, the most widely deployed IPTV platform in the world.