Telus is planning to run a trial where it will bring fibre optic cabling right to a customer door to deliver faster Internet speeds. The trial will involve up to 1,000 customers in cities such as Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and is meant to let Telus determine whether it could roll out such a program on a wider basis. Those who participate in the trial should see speeds of up to 25 megabits a second.
Fibre to the home (FTTH) is a much more costlier technology than fibre to the node, or neighbourhood (FTTN) technology now used by Bell and Telus. Much of the cost is due to the need to bring new fibre to the neighbourhoods being served. For example, Verizon is spending about US$23 billion on its FTTH program in the US.
The trial will run from the fall to mid-2008. It will then decide whether or not to continue with the program.