Bell has laid down the gauntlet in terms of wanting to have the fastest Internet access around by launching an all-fibre broadband network in Toronto. What that means is as follows:
- Bell now offers fibre to the premises (FTTP) service with speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second with symmetrical upload and downloads. Meaning you get those speeds on both directions rather than a fast download speed, but a substantially slower upload speed.
- Bell claims that they will increase these speeds to at least 5 Gbps next year and ultimately to 40 Gbps and beyond in future.
- Fully symmetrical speeds are available at all Internet speed tiers.
Having symmetrical speeds is something that in the past was only found in business class Internet. The fact that Bell is bringing it to consumers is a big deal. And the fact that they’re the only ones thus far to do so has Rogers on the back foot as Rogers doesn’t offer fibre to the premises nor do they offer symmetrical speeds. It will be interesting to see how Rogers responds to this because if Bell can deliver all of this at a decent price without the sort of shenanigans that they’ve been caught doing recently, they will eat Rogers alive.
Here’s a tip for Bell, just serve up your best price and not the “introductory price” games that you play. That will get you a ton of customers in a hurry.