Bell Canada expands 5G+ across Ontario

Bell Canada is now deploying 3500 MHz wireless spectrum in the next phase of its 5G rollout.

Bell 5G+ service is now available in southern Ontario, including Toronto, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Barrie and select areas of Mississauga, Bell 5G+ is expected to be faster and more responsive, allowing for a superior mobile experience. In Toronto, speeds with 5G+ are now over 50% faster than before.

"Bell is taking its most-awarded 5G network and making it even better with 5G+, offering customers access to even faster mobile speeds than before. Ontario is just the beginning, and we look forward to rolling it out to more Canadians, and delivering on our promise to provide the latest technology and best experience for our customers," states Stephen Howe, Chief Technology and Information Officer, Bell.

https://www.bce.ca/news-and-media/releases/show/Bell-5G-expands-across-Ontario-offering-Canadians-its-fastest-mobile-speeds-ever?page=1&month=&year=&perpage=25

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Bell Canada tests Nokia's 25G PON

Bell Canada has tested Nokia's  25G PON fiber broadband technology at Bell’s Advanced Technical Lab in Montréal, Québec. The trial validated that current GPON and XGS-PON broadband technology and future 25G PON can work seamlessly together on the same fiber hardware, which is being deployed.

Stephen Howe, EVP & Chief Technology Officer, Bell, said: “As part of Bell’s purpose to advance how Canadians connect with each other and the world, we embrace next-generation technologies such as 25G PON to ensure we remain at the forefront of broadband innovation. Our successful work with Nokia to deliver the first 25G PON trial in North America will help ensure we maximize the Bell fiber advantage for our customers in the years to come.”

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2021/11/16/nokia-and-bell-canada-test-25g-pon-fiber-broadband-technology/

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Bell Canada enters strategic partnership with Google Cloud

Bell Canada has entered into a multiyear strategic partnership with Google Cloud to power Bell’s company-wide digital transformation, enhance its network and IT infrastructure, and enable a more sustainable future. 

Bell is looking to Google Cloud to drive operational efficiencies, increase network automation, and deliver richer customer experiences through the following initiatives:

• Shifting critical workloads to the cloud
• Unlocking multicloud, next-generation network technology -- with the combined power of Bell’s 5G network and Anthos, Google Cloud’s multicloud solution, Bell will deliver a consistent customer experience with greater automation and enhanced flexibility that scales with customer demand. The increased speed and bandwidth capacity of the Bell 5G network will support applications that can respond faster and handle greater volumes of data than previous generations of wireless technology.
• Leveraging the power of AI, data and analytics -- Bell will leverage Google Cloud’s expertise in AI and big data to gain unique insights through real-time network data analytics that will enhance the customer experience, improve service assurance, and assist with network capacity planning.
• Google Cloud will contribute to Bell’s target of achieving carbon neutral operations by 2025

“We’re excited to partner with Google Cloud as part of our ongoing digital transformation and take Bell’s 5G network leadership to the next level,” said Mirko Bibic, CEO, BCE Inc. and Bell Canada. “Supporting Bell’s goal to advance how Canadians connect with each other and the world, Google’s proven expertise in cloud and leadership in sustainability will provide our customers with even faster, more reliable access to the best broadband network and communications services in Canada.”

“The acceleration of 5G has created new opportunities for industry leaders like Bell to redefine their business and create richer customer experiences,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “We’re proud to partner with Bell to support their transformational shift to the cloud, and power a better network experience for people and businesses across Canada.”

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Bell Canada activates 400G wavelength service

 Bell Canada launched a commercial 400G wavelength service powered by Ciena's WaveLogic 5 Extreme technology.

The 400G service is now deployed across major spans of Bell's 17,000 km fiber infrastructure. Bell plans to expand the service across Canada in the coming months.

"Bell 400G wavelength service efficiently delivers the speed and capacity necessary to meet the fast-growing demand of bandwidth-intensive operators moving massive amounts of data and content to the cloud," said Ivan Mihaljevic, Senior Vice President, Wholesale at Bell Canada. "Bell's unparalleled network infrastructure and customer support, coupled with Ciena's market-leading optical wavelength technology, offers major operators here in Canada and internationally the opportunity to scale up easily, efficiently and sustainably with our highly energy efficient 400G capabilities."

"The global shift to 400G is happening and Bell Canada is leading the way by evolving its network to support the insatiable and often unpredictable network demand driven by the cloud, streaming video and more," said Bruce Hembree, Vice President and General Manager for the Americas at Ciena. "With WaveLogic 5 Extreme, Bell can offer new, high bandwidth 400G services to carrier and content provider customers between key points of presence across Canada and into the US."

https://www.bce.ca/news-and-media/releases/show/Bell-Canada-rolls-out-commercial-400G-wavelength-on-fibre-optic-backbone

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Next Gen SD-WAN and 5G -Two storms colliding

Two industry storms are colliding.

SD-WAN and 5G are actually the perfect complement to each other, says Jeremy Wubs, Senior VO, Products & Marketing, Bell Business Markets.

There are a lot of very compelling use cases for combining fast wireless access with the flexibility of SD-WAN.

https://youtu.be/bWPayvLj5UA

Interview by James E. Carroll

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Expanding Lifecycle Service Orchestration Globally

MEF Annual Meeting – July/Aug 2019, Jeremy Wubs, SVP, Marketing for Bell Business Markets, Bell Canada, highlights the importance of MEF LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) Sonata APIs for enabling service providers to extend their service reach outside their own network footprints in partnership with other service providers.

“We have, over the last year, launched a new service – Bell Virtual Network Services (VNS)…In order to that, we had to make some pretty significant investments in orchestration. Now, as we look to evolve that, how do we go and take some of the orchestration capabilities outside the country, how do we expand that on a global basis? Without there being a set of clear, well-proven standards, there actually is no way to do that. So, the LSO work and the evolution of the MEF work that’s happening around LSO is a really great opportunity and model for us to do that.”

“What really excites me about MEF and how it’s transforming and changing is the focus on IP, SD-WAN, security, and applications. We look at where the industry is going. Our services are changing and transforming. They need to be more flexible. And MEF is really paving the way for a set of frameworks and foundations that are going to help us not just do it in Canada but actually to scale it globally…The ability to be part of an organization that is thinking how do we not just transform our networks but scale them and evolve them on a global basis is one of the really valuable benefits of being part of MEF.”

Explore MEF 3.0 inter-provider LSO Sonata API innovations and engage with industry-leading service and technology experts such as Jeremy Wubs, attend MEF19 (http://www.MEF19.com), held 18-22 November 2019 in Los Angeles, California.

Learn more about standardized MEF 3.0 LSO Sonata APIs at https://www.mef.net/introducing-lso-sonata

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Bell Canada launches Virtual Network Services platform

Bell launched its new Virtual Network Services (VNS) platform, offering enterprise customers across Canada a catalogue of on-demand network functions that reside securely in Bell's private cloud.

Bell also announced it will be the first Canadian service provider to offer a managed SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) solution powered by Cisco Viptela, the first Virtual Network Function offered on the Bell VNS platform.

"Bell VNS is a revolutionary way for business customers to adapt their networks quickly and efficiently while reducing their hardware expenses," said Tom Little, President of Bell Business Markets. "The Bell VNS service experience offers a new level of control, flexibility and automation through software-driven networks."

http://Bell.ca/VNS

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Bell Canada picks Ericsson’s MediaFirst TV Platform

Bell Canada, the number one television provider in Canada, selected Ericsson’s MediaFirst TV Platform to power its next-generation multiscreen TV services. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Bell currently has more than 1.5 million Fibe TV and Alt TV subscribers in Canada.

Rizwan Jamal, Bell’s President of Residential and Small Business, says: “Our longstanding and successful relationship with Ericsson helped us deliver the innovative and exclusive new Fibe TV services that propelled Bell to the #1 in position in Canadian TV. We look forward to taking the game-changing Fibe TV and Alt TV even further, enabling next-generation services across a wider range of devices by leveraging the innovative IPTV technologies of Ericsson MediaFirst.”

• Earlier this month, Ericsson announced that TELUS selected its MediaFirst TV platform.

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Bell Canada acquires a home security company

BCE (Bell) has acquired AlarmForce Industries, a Canadian home security and monitoring company, for approximately $182 million paid in a combination of cash and BCE common shares to shareholders of AlarmForce.

AlarmForce currently serves more than 100,000 subscribers across the country with intrusion, smoke, flood and carbon monoxide detection services; automation services including lighting, climate and lock control systems; and in-home and mobile medical alert systems.

Bell provides security and monitoring services from Bell Aliant NextGen Home Security in Atlantic Canada and from AAA Security, a Bell MTS company, in Manitoba.

Bell also announced an agreement to sell AlarmForce's approximately 39,000 customer accounts in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan to TELUS Corporation for approximately $66.5 million, an amount per subscriber equivalent to that paid by Bell.

"Bell welcomes AlarmForce as we build on our position as Canada's most trusted name in residential communications with an accelerated focus on Connected Home technology and services," said Rizwan Jamal, President of Bell Residential and Small Business. "Building on our leadership and scale in broadband networks and residential services distribution, installation and customer services, Bell looks forward to delivering new and innovative smart home solutions to residential customers throughout Ontario, Québec, the Atlantic region and Manitoba."

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Bell Canada implements Cisco Segment Routing in next-gen core

Bell Canada has implemented Cisco Segment Routing in its next-generation core network. Specifically, Bell recently upgraded the‎ first four IP core routers to support seamless connection between network data centers and its Smart Core network. The deployment is part of Bell's ‘Network 3.0’ transformation plan.

Cisco Segment Routing delivers network automation and software-defined networking (SDN) capabilities to simplify network operations, increase network robustness, optimize network utilization and offer innovative network services.

Cisco predicts Internet traffic per month per user in Canada will be up to 142.6 GB in 2020, from 63.3 GB in 2016 – with 74% of Internet traffic being video.

“Segment routing is a significant step forward on our mission to transform the way our network interacts with our people, processes and technology at Bell,” said Stephen Howe, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Bell Canada. “As our Network 3.0 transformation progresses, and with segment routing now in place, we now have the foundation to enable greater network reliability, as well as enhanced speed and agility from Bell in responding to clients’ needs. Using new IP routing protocols, we can improve the reliability and performance of our Smart Core network, including our network data centers, helping us to better manage overall network operations and offer our customers a superior service experience.”

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Bell Canada Evaluates AT&T’s Open Source ECOMP

Bell Canada is currently testing AT&T’s ECOMP platform to create and manage software-defined networks.

ECOMP, which stands for Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy, is the software platform AT&T created to power its new network. ECOMP lets service providers quickly add features and drive down operations costs.

AT&T has committed to release its ECOMP platform as open source software in conjunction with the Linux Foundation in the first quarter of 2017.

“ECOMP represents a significant investment in the software-centric networks of the future.  We have committed to taking this investment into open source through the Linux Foundation,” said Chris Rice, senior vice president – AT&T Labs, Domain 2.0 Architecture and Design. “We welcome Bell Canada’s collaboration in driving a new network approach that is faster, more efficient and ultimately more responsive to customer needs.”

“Bell Canada is committed to leading broadband network and service innovation in Canada. We believe software-defined networks will advance the future of both wireless and wireline connectivity by adapting to customer needs quickly, and enabling a seamless user experience,” said Petri Lyytikainen, Bell’s vice president, Network Strategy, Services and Management. “We are pleased to collaborate with AT&T and other leading communications companies to evaluate the promising capabilities of the open-source ECOMP platform.”
 
“It’s exciting to see the communications industry coalescing around ECOMP,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation. “ECOMP is the most comprehensive and complete architecture for VNF/SDN automation we have seen. AT&T has had this platform in production for over 2 years now. This technology is unique in that it’s both disruptive and battle-tested. We can’t wait to host it at the Linux Foundation and open it up to the broader developer community.”

http://www.att.com

• In September, Orange agreed to test the platform for creating and managing its own software-defined network. Orange is the first telecom company to join AT&T’s ECOMP effort. The carriers have agreed to collaborate on open source and standardization initiatives to accelerate the standardization of SDN and NFV.

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