back to article Canucks: Hey, Big Dog Telcos. Share that fiber with the little guys, eh?

The government of Canada has ruled that large broadband providers will have to open up their fiber data lines for use by smaller carriers. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said Wednesday that large incumbent companies who control high-speed data lines will now be required by law to make …

  1. Sureo

    This Canuck can hardly wait. I have fiber service in my neighborhood but I refuse to subscribe with the provider, Bell. Their offerings and business practices leave a lot to be desired. Bring it on, providers!

    1. JaitcH
      Thumb Up

      Good for you.

      Bell Canada are jerks and still seem to have their knickers in a twist from losing their monopoly.

  2. Gerhard Mack

    This is why Bell is delaying FTTH for as long as possible. I worked for a smaller ISP before, and the first thing we discovered after renting space at Bell was that Bell had the advantage because they were the only ones allowed to install curb side equipment meaning they could be double our speed in most cases. I'm sure now the gap is even worse.

  3. launcap Silver badge

    Fiber/Fibre..

    Seems to be my day for being an EnglishPedant..

    1. Dan Paul

      Re: Fiber/Fibre..For all those pedants out there

      as follows taken from the Oxford English Dictionary website

      "Global varieties of English

      The territorial expansions of the United Kingdom between the late 16th and early 18th centuries, and of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries carried the English language around the world. In each country where English is spoken, whether as the primary national language or as a secondary language alongside others, it has changed and developed in the context of its new surroundings, not only through loanwords, but also through localized neologisms and changes in the usage of common English words."

      Of particular note, please notice the opening phrase "Global varieties of English" and the last sentence of the paragraph. And the source? The Oxford English Dictionary.

      You don't have a corner on the language, its usage or spelling anymore. It has been commoditized by sheer usage and changes too frequently to be locked in to your ideals anymore. So say your own word "boffins."

  4. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

    Totally off topic, but this reader from the moderate climate of the UK is curious ...

    Over here it's not uncommon for technicians to have to pump water out of the manholes before they can get to work on whatever is is they are doing. In very cold climates, I can't help thinking that the water might have set solid - not just in the manholes, but in the ducts.

    Is this a problem ? How do they deal with it ? Do you have some faults/service provisions that can only be dealt with when the weather is warmer and the ice melts ?

    1. thames

      Unless you are in a permafrost zone (in the high Arctic), the ground only freezes down so far, typically about a metre and a half. It's called the "frost line". Anything that can't survive being frozen needs to be buried deeper than that. That includes things like water mains, sewers, septic tanks, etc.

      Also the footings of buildings, poles, pylons, etc., need to be deeper than the frost line so the ground doesn't freeze under them and heave them up and knock them over.

      So, in the middle of the winter you may still need to pump out a manhole.

      Oh, if you are in a permafrost zone, then you have the opposite problem. You have to build things such that you don't melt the ground and turn it into a quagmire into which your building (or whatever) will sink. That can mean raising your building up on pilings or otherwise insulating it from the ground, and running water, sewer, etc. in raised ducts above the ground. That only affects a few small communities in extreme remote northern areas though.

      1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

        That's interesting, thanks.

  5. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    "...would only need to purchase last-mile access directly into customer homes."

    Bell's FiberOP technology reportedly covers up to 40km in the "last mile"; not to mention that each individual fiber is passively split to as many as 16 houses.

    The only practical method to share the fiber is at the IP layer.

    So the rules are going to get rather arcane.

    Popcorn and chair on standby.

    1. JaitcH
      Happy

      not to mention that each individual fiber is passively split to as many as 16 houses

      I was in Toronto when Bell started laying it's fibre optic cable into the development immediately north of the Fairview Mall, North York. Each house/property had four fibre optic feeds.

      Bell Canada, and other provincial telephone companies, have benefited from municipal growth as these then-monopolies were able to able to take advantage of the road-building. When Telus 'did' Toronto, about 10 years ago, modern cable laying techniques had evolved and they simply ploughed their backbone cables along the centre lines of major city streets and put breakout boxes at street corners.

      Here in VietNam the InterNet Providers run backbones down most every street with either pole-mounted or in-building DSLAMS. We have 3, or so, 5-terrabyte fibre optic cables spanning the country (north to south) which were ploughed in and terminated in buildings.

      Provincial highways host high-capacity fibre cables so that even my summer house/shack, as do my neighbours in the area, over 70 kilometres from the nearest population centre, enjoy 20+ megabyte service. The DSLAMS are pole mounted.

      There are two 'hot' fibres and two spares feeding every house.

      VietNam, surprisingly, in it's national Civic Code has provisions for preventing any property owner from denying common carrier service/access to any occupant. It also provides that carriers SHALL share conduits, etc. within buildings. I have service from four common carriers in my Ho Chi Minh City condominium.

      I always wonder why it is taking so long to fibre-up the UK.

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: not to mention that each individual fiber is passively split to as many as 16 houses

        "Each house/property had four fibre optic feeds..."

        Bell's "FibreOP" is a specific technology. It uses fiber optics, but it's a different technology than simple point to point.

        The emphasis is on cost effectiveness, which is very important in the present and mid-term. That's why we can live on several acres of lakefront property surrounded by trees, the ultimate in low density suburban bliss, and still have up to 200 Mbps after years of painfully slow ADSL.

        Four fibres per house would be better. But less likely to happen in most areas. You couldn't pay me to live in Toronto. Vietnam is on my list of places to visit.

  6. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    "...laying cable from town to town in Canada..."

    "While laying fiber lines can be prohibitively expensive for small carriers in just about any country, laying cable from town to town in Canada, one of the geographically largest and most sparsely populated countries in the world, is particularly costly."

    Most towns in Canada are already connected to the network. It's getting the thousands of homes in those towns wired up ("last mile") that's always been the primary cost driver.

    Another point about Canada to keep in mind is that the population density *where most people live* is not as low as the overall average implies. The vast empty space up north is irrelevant, except to those few people that live there.

    1. JaitcH
      WTF?

      "The vast empty space up north is irrelevant, except to those few people that live there."

      @ JeffyPoooh:

      Spoken like a true southerner.

      It might be irrelevant to you, if you live in the border-hugging band of 200 miles wide, but the north NEEDS better communications than most other areas in Canada.

      Fortunately the federal Government of Canada doesn't share your view and has promoted modern, high-speed communications for decades for they know that it is essential for industry and the citizens that it be present. If it were left to the Telco's the Northerners would still be using dogs and sledges to carry messages.

      I worked Northern Ontario for about 20 years and it was very annoying, as I drove Highway 11 (inland route) and Highway 17 (Lake Superior coastal route), en route to computer sites struggling to keep Bell 202 modems working, to follow the first suspended (on poles) trans-Canada fibre optic cable. It was about the diameter of my fat thumb.

      Communications, particular RF, are higher density in the remote areas than in the 'sun-belt' cities due to the logging and mining industries.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: "The vast empty space up north is irrelevant, except to those few people that live there."

        *looks south*

        Don't see no border.

        *looks north*

        Don't see no people.

        Doesn't matter anyways. CRTC rulings that benefit the people will be overturned.

        I don't care. Just get me affordable fibre. But not here, no. On the island, please. I aim to head there in about 10 years, which is about the timeframe for a fibre rollout.

      2. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: "The vast empty space up north is irrelevant, except to those few people that live there."

        The points I made remain valid: The slow pace of getting most Canadian houses connected to fiber optics has NOTHING to do with the vast empty Great White North, and everything to do with the normal cost of 'last mile' connectivity. The vastness of Canada's north *is* irrelevant to the topic at hand, except to those few that live there. These points are true, and the points expose the faulty geographical logic in the phrase from the article that I quoted.

        It doesn't follow that people living in southern Canada don't support getting the north wired up ASAP. Your aggravation stems from working and living in the north. My factual statements may have triggered off bad memories, but that's not my fault.

        Your response indicates very muddled thinking.

  7. JaitcH
    Happy

    Canadian Telecoms were, historically, two damn great whales and a bunch of minnows

    Historically, in Canada, there were two trans-national telephone networks. One was the networks formed by the 'Bell' system wherein separate 'Bell System' type companies would provide interoperability coast-to-coast. There were a bunch of provincial, municipal and 'farmer' companies

    The other was CNCP (Canadian National and Canadian Pacific), CNCP was created as a joint venture between the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1967, which used railway rights of way to bridge the coastal gap. A 40% stake was acquired by Rogers Communications in 1984 and CP acquired CN's stake.

    The CRTC, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the regulator, along with various national governments have always sought to look after the 'small guy' be they cable or InterNet operations.

    I actually installed one of the first COAM (Customer Owned And Maintained) PBX - a Mitel unit - albeit illegally - in a lawyers office on Jarvis Street in Toronto. The battle of Interconnect was interesting to experience - and, on occasion, daunting. The installation was carefully orchestrated by Mitel, the lawyers and my employer to force interconnection to be addressed by Bell Canada.

    Bell Canada's problem was that it used Mitel equipment connected directly to the network yet they demanded that we use clunky interface devices.

    The CRTC stood by and refused to allow Bell Canada to disconnect the service. Great support from a government body.

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Canadian Telecoms were, historically, two damn great whales and a bunch of minnows

      The CRTC stood by and refused to allow Bell Canada to disconnect the service. Great support from a government body.

      Ah, back in the days when our government served us. Now it's been captured by the intustries it proposes to regulate. And our choices for leader are between a religious control freak crazy man, a traitor and coward, and a flip-flopping liar.

      Woo!

    2. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Re: Canadian Telecoms were, historically, two damn great whales and a bunch of minnows

      The cross Canada networks are working just fine. Problems from the 1970s and 1980s are just interesting history, and east-west connectivity where most people live is already a completely solved problem these days.

      The only real issue remaining for most Canadians is the famous 'last mile' issue.

      Getting the last few disconnected northern communities connected is important, and there are projects to keep progressing on that front. 'Arctic Fiber' is one such project. Future satellite networks will finish it off.

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