SUDBURY, ONTARIO, CANADA — Vianet, a communications service provider in Ontario and Quebec, announced the launch of its fiber-to-the-home network throughout Chapleau, Ontario, a community of about 2,000 residents. For the past three years, Vianet has built out its fiber network through the main arteries of Sudbury, the town where it is headquartered, and offered fiber optic services to Sudbury businesses at prices comparable to less reliable and slower DSL and cable Internet services. In [...]

Because trampling your privacy rights while mirroring U.S. warrantless surveillance efforts doesn’t come cheap — Canadian law enforcement is now considering a new “public safety” tax on user broadband connections. As we’ve noted, Canada is busy trying to push very U.S.-centric new wiretap laws aimed at allowing the disclosure of ISP customer data without court oversight, requiring ISPs to rework their networks to allow real-time surveillance, and expanding law enforcement authority to allow broader access [...]

QUÉBEC CITY, CANADA — Bell Canada, the largest communications company in Canada, has invested more than $225 million to launch its next-generation Bell Fibe service in Québec City. The service is now available in most boroughs of the city and will soon be available in the rest. Bell brought high-speed fiber optic technology directly to homes and business across the provincial capital in the largest network rollout of its kind in Canada. The new network [...]

QUEBEC CITY, CANADA — EXFO Inc. announced the integration of its iOLM technology to the FTB-720 LAN/WAN Access test module. With the added features, the new FTB-720 iOLM speeds up and simplifies optical fiber assessment within access and LAN/WAN networks, as well as data centers. The iOLM application, which is widely used in FTTH deployments, has now been optimized to meet short-span, point-to-point testing needs during construction and troubleshooting of access and LAN/WAN networks. Powered [...]

Netflix several times last year took shots at metered billing, calling the shift anti-competitive, unnecessary, and an effort to try and slow or crush Internet video services that could one day pose a threat to traditional television revenues. In the interim they’ve tried to do several things to help users with low caps, including last year implementing new settings that help manage video quality and bandwidth consumption. The company is also working with a video [...]

We’ve often talked about how Canada was actually seeing some significant growth in their broadband sector early on, with users seeing faster speeds at fairly reasonable prices. The country also consistently ranked very high in the global broadband penetration rankings — despite the evil bogeyman known as “geography” — which many here in the states use to justify the United States’ broadband failings. Things were going well for Canadian broadband. But then Canada decided to [...]

Nokia, once the top dog in cell phone makers, is now marking the end of an era as they halt sales of Symbian-based smartphones and feature phones in the U.S. and Canada. Nokia plans to focus its time and productivity on the Windows Phone, which is due for public release in a few short months. The decision is part of a series of changes initiated by Nokia’s new president, Chris Weber, who assumed leadership in [...]

Canadian operator Rogers will launch its LTE network in Ottowa this summer Canadian mobile operator Rogers, has announced that it will bring LTE services to capital city Ottawa this summer. The service will be limited to laptop/PC access, with Sierra Wireless providing the USB dongle, which the operator has dubbed the ‘Rocket Stick’. The company said that customers interested in getting the device early should make a reservation online and has also launched a website that pledges [...]

Roger’s LTE network is to be built exclusively using Ericsson kit Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications network supplier has won a multi-year deal to supply Canada’s Rogers network with an end-to-end LTE network. Ericsson said that it will install its multi-standard RBS 6000 radio base stations at all of its LTE sites as well as upgrading and expanding Roger’s existing packet care network into an Evolved Packet Core network, in order to support the new base stations. The [...]

Whether in Canada or here in the States, we’ve repeatedly seen major ISPs (be they Cogeco or AT&T) so eagerly rush toward implementing billing by the byte — they forget to ensure that their usage meters actually work first. That was also the case with Bell in Canada, who recently acknowledged their DSL usage meter didn’t work very well, and isn’t particularly good at accurately tracking wireless data usage either. Judging from posts in our [...]