If you’ve been watching the Olympics in Canada, you’ve probably noticed that Bell has changed the name of most of their internet services to Fibe. That’s Fibe as in fiber optic.
If you don’t know too much about broadband delivery, this probably sounds exciting. Alas, this is nothing special. Most of the telecommunications infrastructure in this country was already fiber optic, so don’t get excited. The reason why we haven’t all be using gigabit internet at home all this time is that a network connection is only as fast as its slowest point. The connection to your home, and within your home, is where things get slow. Cable companies have aggressively developed and adopted the DOCSIS standard to allow cable connections to support high speed internet, while telephone companies have used a standard called ADSL, or some variation on DSL.
Anyway, I won’t bore you with the acronyms and minutiae. The news is that Bell has renamed Performance to Fibe 6, Max 12 becomes Fibe 12, Max 16 becomes Fibe 16, and there’s a new speed called Fibe 25. I don’t know how much I like the name Fibe, but I really like the fact that the speed is in the name. That’s a little thing I like to call honesty, as opposed to the meaningless marketing names Bell and its competitors have used until recently.
So, here’s my revised Tier comparison. There’s a Tier VII now because I’ve decided that 16 Mbps doesn’t compete with 25. That means that Bell has a Tier V product and Rogers doesn’t.
Bell in Blue, Rogers in Red
| Tier | Service | Price | Speed | Cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VII | None | |||
| Ultimate | $99.99+7.00 | 50 Mbps/2 Mbps | 175 GB | |
| VI | Fibe 25 | $67.95+6.95 | 25 Mbps/7 Mbps | 75 GB |
| Extreme Plus | $69.99+7.00 | 25 Mbps/1 Mbps | 125 GB | |
| V | Fibe 16 | $61.95+3.95 | 16 Mbps/1 Mbps | 75 GB |
| None | ||||
| IV | Fibe 12 | $51.95+3.95 | 12 Mbps/1 Mbps | 50 GB |
| Extreme | $59.99+3.00 | 10 Mbps/1 Mbps | 95 GB | |
| Express | $46.99+3.00 | 10 Mbps/512 Kbps | 60 GB | |
| III | Fibe 6 | $41.95+3.95 | 6 Mbps/1 Mbps | 25 GB |
| Performance | $41.95+3.95 | 6 Mbps/1 Mbps | 25 GB | |
| None | ||||
| II | Essential Plus | $31.95+3.95 | 2 Mbps/800 Kbps | 2 GB |
| Lite | $35.99+3.00 | 3 Mbps/256 Kbps | 25 GB | |
| I | None | |||
| Ultra Lite | $25.99+3.00 | 500 Kbps/256 Kbps | 2 GB | |
Oh, did I say that Fibe 6 replaces Performance? Bell is still keeping a product called Performance, even though it’s identical to Fibe 6. I don’t know why.
Anyway, did you notice anything else about the change? All prices went up $2! But they only just raised their prices a few months ago! Also notice that the modem rental on Fibe 25 is a whopping $6.95 per month, like the DOCSIS 3.0 modem/router from Rogers. Bell’s prices are still better than Rogers, but the price gap is closing. It’s strange that it’s Bell that’s closing it rather than Rogers.
Despite the price increases, Bell still beats Rogers on speed and price in every tier. The only place Rogers is still winning is their bandwidth cap.
Bell doesn’t have anything that competes with Rogers Ultimate service at 50 Mbps, but how large can the market for $100 per month internet be anyway? But where Rogers only recently became the first major ISP in Canada to offer a 2 Mbps upload service — which is only available on their absurdly expensive 50 Mbps download service — Bell has just blown them out of the water by offering a 7 Mbps upload speed on their 25 Mbps download service! This might not mean much if it was another $100/month service that no one is ever going to buy, but Fibe 25 is only $6 more per month than Fibe 16. If you’re a webmaster and do as much uploading as I do, there’s no reason not to buy Fibe 25 if you were considering Fibe 16. The only problem is that scary 75 GB bandwidth cap. Rogers 25/1 service has an 50 GB per month.
In conclusion, I’m super excited about Canada’s first 7 Mbps upload service. As I concluded before, there’s absolutely no reason to buy internet access from Rogers any more, now that Bell is faster and cheaper in every tier. As a Rogers shareholder, I’m getting a bit fed up that Rogers is making no effort to be competitive. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they’re legally obliged to be competitive to protect their shareholders’ interests. What are they thinking?
I don’t know what to say, folks. I’ve held out all this time, but it’s never been more tempting to switch to Bell. Switching from Express to Fibe 25 would cost an extra $24.91 per month, but my download speed would increase 2.5x, and my upload speed would increase 14x! With the discount for the first 12 months and the bundle discount, this might just be the product that will convince consumers that $75 per month for internet access is reasonable.



















