Bell Brings 50 Gbps Internet Speeds to Canada in Major Test

bell nokia 50 gbps

Bell has reached a milestone in Canadian broadband with the successful trial of 50G Passive Optical Network (PON) fibre technology, which took place with Nokia at Bell’s Advanced Technical Lab in Montreal.

This marks the first time this next-gen fibre broadband tech has been tested in Canada, setting the stage for faster, more efficient internet services.

50G PON is able to bring speeds of up to 50Gbps using Bell’s existing fibre infrastructure. This means Bell can provide significantly faster upload and download speeds to residential and business customers without the need for additional installations.

In a marketing video shared with iPhone in Canada, Bell’s 50G PON test shows download speeds hitting just past 45 Gbps.

bell 50g pon

By building on its current fibre infrastructure, Bell says it is able to minimize upgrade costs and reduce environmental impact, all while improving security.

“Our successful work with Nokia to deliver the first 50G PON trial in Canada helps ensure we maximize the Bell fibre advantage for our customers in the years to come,” concluded a Bell spokesperson to iPhone in Canada in a statement.

I’m not sure who’s ready for 50 Gbps at home, but this might be overkill for your mom when she’s browsing Facebook. No word on what 50 Gbps internet plans will cost, but you can use your imagination.

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Kevin
Kevin
1 year ago

That is hilarious, they don't even offer FTTH and I'm in the Montreal region, best they can do at my address is 50 Mbps, a complete joke!

NightFlight
NightFlight
Reply to  Kevin
1 year ago

comment image
Check local alternates, Teksavvy, Eastlink, etc. I'm in a tiny rual town of Campbellford, ON in the middle of nowhere. Eastlink here offers last mile cable and I get 950/15mbps service, but its actually closer to 750/17mbps. Good enough for home use and I'm work from home. About $85/mo after taxes.

mikeb
mikeb
Reply to  Kevin
1 year ago

Same with Telus in Calgary. Huge areas of the city are basically ignored by them.

I moved to Roger 1 Gbps service and it's been quite good. My service with Telus was listed as dialup.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  mikeb
1 year ago

Not ignored. The city was holding out for ages.

Some Person
Some Person
Reply to  Kevin
1 year ago

You know what’s even more hilarious? For years, the maximum I can get is 25l live in a house, my neighbours on either side can get 50, even though all the houses were built at the same time and are only a few feet apart. This is a suburb on the island of Montreal.

I can’t even change/upgrade my router anymore due to this – finally fed up any will change providers.
Bell has no problem increasing prices, service is another matter.

Joshua Eaton
Reply to  Kevin
1 year ago

I've got 1.5gbps an it's great

dwild
dwild
Reply to  Kevin
1 year ago

They do offer FTTH, but obviously can't offer it everywhere. If you are in an appartment, obviously you need the landlord to allow them to install it in the building.

At my previous appartment in Longueuil, I could only get 10 Mbps with Bell, while on another one they would offer FTTB and give much more. Now that I moved much further in my own home, it's already has FTTH and I'm so happy to at least have the choice instead of just relying on Vidéotron cable.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Kevin
1 year ago

That was a level of idiocy but expected.

Naive Observer
Naive Observer
1 year ago

This is clearly not end user stuff, it will fatten up their Trunk feeds to neighborhoods so they will be able to support more of their up to 1GB connections without slowing down.

zamarax
zamarax
Reply to  Naive Observer
1 year ago

I don't think you fully understand this, 1 single strand in a fibre like can do 96gbps.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  zamarax
1 year ago

It can do a lot more than that. The spectral capacity is much higher. 100G PON and faster are on the horizon. All of these standards can all co-exist on the same fiber strand side by side if the provider so chooses.

zamarax
zamarax
Reply to  Brad Smith
1 year ago

Yeah I agree, just saying that TODAY if you had the hardware you could be doing 96gbps.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  zamarax
1 year ago

It can do a lot more than that. The spectral capacity is much higher. 100G PON and faster are on the horizon. All of these standards can all co-exist on the same fiber strand side by side if the provider so chooses.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Naive Observer
1 year ago

That is not how FTTH works. It is end user stuff. They will need this when they roll out the 8 Gbps tier or anything faster.

Naive Observer
Naive Observer
Reply to  Brad Smith
1 year ago

It actually IS how FTTH works. You need high speed trunks to feed the neighbourhood nodes. No one (less than maybe .0001%) needs 8GB to their house, but you DO need 8GB to the neighbourhood so they can feed many houses at lower speeds that people actually do buy/use without slow downs.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Naive Observer
1 year ago

There are no "nodes" in a FTTH network. This isn't cable or DSL. Good thing your opinion is irrelevant as that's now how the world works.

Smart Like Rock
Smart Like Rock
1 year ago

But can I just get internet connection over 10mbps in rual quebec???? Pleeeessseeee

Some Person
Some Person
Reply to  Smart Like Rock
1 year ago

Whatever “ real Quebec “ means. when Montreal has millions of people, but whatever.

We won’t necessarily have the same solutions everywhere nor at the same price point, at the same time.

Smart Like Rock
Smart Like Rock
Reply to  Some Person
1 year ago

Huh?

Daniel Lynes
Reply to  Some Person
1 year ago

Rural, not real. Smart like rock typoed and missed an 'r'.

Theepan Raj
Theepan Raj
1 year ago

Most people's home network won't support above 1Gbps…

wifi has speed limit too

at most you can have is 10 Gbps.

waste to pay for 50 Gbps

Ken
Ken
Reply to  Theepan Raj
1 year ago

Not if you have 5 people running 10Gbps…

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Ken
1 year ago

Most people don't have a clue how technology works.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Theepan Raj
1 year ago

That's not true and for people that do want said service it's no big deal nowadays.

Wifi 7 allows for much much faster speeds. But anyone wanting faster speeds would be using wired connections especially.

That's not true.

It's not 50 Gbps down to the customer.

Paul Rezinsczk
Paul Rezinsczk
1 year ago

I've had 50Mbps down for about 20 years now. Seems like regular fiber never made it to most folks.

Joe Piccolo
Joe Piccolo
Reply to  Paul Rezinsczk
1 year ago

Get starlink

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Paul Rezinsczk
1 year ago

They pass over 8 million locations. That's definitely not true.

Bob Smithers
Bob Smithers
1 year ago

The speed race is just that. It's not relevant to home usage needs for 99.9% of users. All anyone nèeds is 100Mb for multiple streams and devices.
As for the highest theoretical speed, it's all up to the RE and the OLT and its cards. Fiberoptic is a pipeline operating at the speed of light. The end equipment determines the ultimate bandwidth.

Mavro Genuine
Reply to  Bob Smithers
1 year ago

Then someone downloads a large file, and everyone else waits for them to finish. 100 Mbps is definitely not enough; 300 Mbps might not be either, especially in a household with young adults or children.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Bob Smithers
1 year ago

The network has to be upgraded period to deliver service. It matters to business customers and higher end residential customers.

Barney FifeandDrum
Barney FifeandDrum
1 year ago

We can see the Bell fibre cables sticking out of the ground about 5 metres from our homes. A year and a half ago Bell had the cables installed on our street. Then they got into that fracas with the CRTC and won’t complete our installations.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Barney FifeandDrum
1 year ago

Yes, Bell throwing a hissy fit. There were a number of areas in the works like London, Barrie, Ottawa when that started.

Jason Chute
Jason Chute
1 year ago

Where I live (12 unit condo, 10 buildings total) we are absolutely surrounded by Bell's fiber optic network that was installed over two years ago… But we can't get it in here. Bell is being held up by our absolutely incompetent property management company. Won't let them work on the property! So frustrating.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Jason Chute
1 year ago

Yes, they can bring the fiber network to the neighborhood, but they also need the appropriate riser access and buy in from the MDUs. Some management are being difficult.

Observnat
Observnat
1 year ago

I live on Nuns Island right close to those Bell offices and I can't even get basic fiber optic Internet.
Not gonna hold my breath on this.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Observnat
1 year ago

That sucks, but the rest of the network has to be upgraded too.

I DONT GIVE A F*K
I DONT GIVE A F*K
1 year ago

I'm with Primus and I get around 40MBPS and pay around 37$ a month so that's good enough for me

Aakash Vajhallya
Aakash Vajhallya
1 year ago

We live in Oakville, fairly dense part of suburb and they don't even offer FTTH, forget rural communities. They will deploy it to few ultra dense pockets and call it a day.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Aakash Vajhallya
1 year ago

There are rural and cottage country areas where there is fiber from both Bell, Rogers and other providers depending on the area. Bell passes 8 million locations at the moment.

AKA007
AKA007
1 year ago

Bell advertises fibre to me all the time but I can only get 50 mbps living in Burlington in the same area as the Central library and not rural. Was with Bell years ago before I switched and though I would prefer to be on Fibe for their TV, they can never tell me when they are going to update my neighborhood. Fibre apparantly goes to a point in the neighborhood but the lines to the house are still on outdated technology. But buy a new condo in the area and you can get lightning fast speeds.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  AKA007
1 year ago

So your area has FTTN which uses VDSL2. FTTH uses fiber to the home. There are parts of Burlington that do have FTTH.

Victor Creed
Victor Creed
1 year ago

Bell just upgrade me to 3Gbps up/down from 1.5 for free. It's absolutely incredible. I won't be able to go back to anything less.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Victor Creed
1 year ago

For me the biggest improvement is the latency and upstream speeds. But the beauty of FTTH is they can deliver speeds of a wide range simultaneously.

Albertabest
Albertabest
1 year ago

This is like saying your EV charger is capable of delivering 10000 Amps, but you car can only handle 15 amps.

Brad Smith
Brad Smith
Reply to  Albertabest
1 year ago

That made zero sense.

Albertabest
Albertabest
1 year ago

The other problem is that the
content is the same garbage. Our local county just received a federal grant of $23 million to put in fibre, but that gives them a monopoly to charge as much as they like for the service and they refuse to provide a local indigenous community with any internet, amounting to raw prejudice.

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