Not ‘cutting edge’ yet

Dear sir:
Once again, Bell Canada is promising some sort of ADSL service for our area. After five years of promises, can we finally start believing Bell Canada?
I’m sure last summer is still fresh on everybody’s mind, when official Bell Canada call centres started pitching their ADSL service—trademarked “Sympatico High Speed Edition.”
Then Bell Canada said, “Oops, we made a mistake,” and contradicted their sales pitch.
The use of a “remote” switch, by itself, does not technically prelude offering a “narrowband” ADSL service of 56 kbps-256 kbps, depending on loop length and QAM encoding rate, which would be about 1.5-5 times faster than dialup.
Indeed, Bell could have offered us this service in 1998 when it first became a generally available operating system release on the Nortel DMS platform.
However, the official Bell Canada FAQ states: “. . . Unfortunately, the ‘remote’ office does not use copper wire and is therefore not compatible for the Sympatico High Speed Internet service.”
I encourage readers to check out CRTC Decision 98-22, Paragraphs 118-119. Bell Canada was aware of this “limitation” back in 1998.
By contrast, many rural areas in the U.S. are receiving federal USDA RUS funding for 100 percent CapEx to install Fiber To The Home. FTTH offers speeds of 800 times dialup and 30-60 times ADSL.
So the FTTH connection to every building far exceeds what we in Northwestern Ontario must share among 60,000+ residents. No, we still won’t be anywhere near “cutting edge” or even competitive.
Is the Bell “solution” faster than dial-up? Sure. Will it make us “competitive?” Not by a long shot.
The local ISPs should worry about the Bell Canada press release. Sympatico will offer both dial and “narrowband” ADSL at loss-leader pricing, much as they do in Toronto, with obvious consequences for the local ISPs.
Signed,
Jerry Korman