The city's Waterfront now officially has the fastest Internet service in the city.
Waterfront Toronto and
Beanfield jointly announced that the infrastructure is now in place for buildings both residential and commercial to take advantage of speeds of up to 500 megabits per second, more than 40 per cent faster than the top speeds currently offered by Rogers and Bell.
“It’s partly an economic development tool that we use,” says Andrew Hilton, who heads communications for Waterfront Toronto. “One of the roles that we have at Waterfront Toronto is to help strengthen the economy of the city of Toronto. The communities we’re building and will build will be far more appealing to people, whether it’s for personal use, or people who work from home. And for commercial use, we’re looking at trying to find ways to attract growth-oriented business on the waterfront.”
These speeds will not be automatic, however. Developers and landlords will have to subscribe to the service for it to be offered in buildings. Some businesses — such as cafes — may offer these speeds to the public, others may not.
The price, to be included in condo fees for condo owners, will be $60 a month. For 350 megabits per second, Rogers is currently charging $226 a month; Bell charges $90 for 175 megabits per second.
In practical terms, 500 megabits per second is roughly equivalent to 60 megabytes per second. Beanfield's service is symmetrical, meaning the speed applies to both downloads and uploads.
For some perspective, however,
two Internet service providers in Vancouver are offering double that speed, 1 gigabit per second, as is Google in certain parts of the U.S.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Andrew Hilton