Bell Aliant extends FTTH to 5 new communities, updates download/upload speeds

Bell Aliant (Toronto: BA-UN.TO) on Wednesday announced it will extend its FibreOP Fiber to the Home (FTTH) service targeting residential and business customers in five new Atlantic Canadian communities.

The service provider will spend CAD 11.5 million (USD 11.6 million) to serve an additional 22,000 potential new customers in Grand Falls-Windsor, NL; Campbellton, NB;  Digby, NS; Antigonish, NS; and Hampton, NB. What's more, it is adding new homes and businesses to its network footprint in the Greater Moncton area.

In 2012 alone, Bell Aliant has been building out FibreOP service in a number of communities, including Edmundston, Grand Falls, Woodstock, and Sussex, New Brunswick, Yarmouth and Bridgewater, Nova Scotia; Corner Brook, Newfoundland; and Sudbury, Ontario.

As it continues to build out the service into new territories, Bell Aliant is also offering new speed tiers, including upping its current download speed of 30 Mbps to 50 Mbps and upload speeds up to 30 Mbps. Earlier this year, it launched a 250 Mbps/30 Mbps tier, complementing its symmetric 30 Mbps and 70 Mbps download speed tier.

But Bell Aliant's FTTH drive isn't just about speeds alone. Current and new FibreOP customers will be able to access two new applications: the Weather Network and its online music Galaxie app.

These latest buildouts, speed increases, and new applications are part of an aggressive FTTH buildout strategy that it says will reach about 650,000 homes and businesses in its territory by the end of the year. As of the end of June, it passed an additional 58,000 homes and businesses with FTTH, expanding overall coverage to 574,000 premises.

FibreOP was a major contributor of growth in the telco's Q2 earnings report. During the quarter it added 15,200 new FibreOP FTTH customers, bringing the total FibreOP Internet customers to 75,500 at the end of June 2012.

For more:
- see the release

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