Over 300 Mbps speed adoption ‘accelerating’ in Toronto: Barclays

More customers in Toronto are adopting internet speeds over 300 Mbps, and the trend looks to be picking up pace as competition heats up in that market, according to Barclays Capital. With limited-time lower prices and increasing competition due to BCE Inc. getting fibre to more neighbourhoods, speeds above 300 Mbps “have increasingly become mainstream in the city,” Barclays analyst Phillip Huang said in a Monday note, and adoption of plans between 300 Mbps and 1 Gbps “appears to be notably accelerating.” “With BCE’s rapid fiber expansion in Toronto over the summer and the upgraded service now reaching many prime neighborhoods, broadband speeds that seemed out-of-reach merely a year ago are now increasingly accessible and affordable to the average consumer,” Huang said. Huang said Rogers Communications Inc. is offering its Ignite Gigabit (1 Gbps download and 30 Mbps upload) for $75 for 12 months, down from $145. Meanwhile, Bell is offering its Fibe 300 (300 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload) and Starter TV bundle for the same price for the same amount of time. Huang said in a note earlier this year that Rogers was moving to “rapid price deflation” on its gigabit internet to leverage its competitive advantage as Bell continued its expansion. At the time, Rogers was offering gigabit internet with its Extra Plus TV for $100 per month. But he also noted that this is despite some “observers” wondering whether anyone really needs those speeds, a question posed by Cogeco Inc. in the past. Huang also pointed to a contrast in discount pricing with Western Canada, where there has been “less focus on driving adoption of very high speed broadband plans.” For example, Huang noted that despite offering gigabit service, Shaw Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. have been pushing plans in the 50 to 150 Mbps range. As a result, he said he expects Western Canada to experience less intense competition compared to Ontario in the “next several quarters.”

Over 300 Mbps speed adoption ‘accelerating’ in Toronto: Barclays

Brief | November 21, 2017

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Over 300 Mbps speed adoption ‘accelerating’ in Toronto: Barclays

Brief | November 21, 2017

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