MONTREAL and SAN JOSE, Calif. - February 6, 2008 - Vidéotron today announced that its customers in the city of Laval, Quebec can now experience Internet speeds up to 50 Mbps. This service is enabled by the Cisco® Wideband solution featuring Cisco cable modems working together with the Cisco® uBR10012 cable modem termination system (CMTS). Vidéotron is the first cable operator in North America to roll out services based on Cisco Wideband, which uses channel bonding as defined by the CableLabs® DOCSIS® 3.0 specification.
Vidéotron began testing the Cisco Wideband technology last year and today launched the first commercial availability of its "Ultimate Speed Internet" service offering in Laval, with other Quebec metropolitan areas to follow in the coming months. Laval, a city of 112,000 households, is the third-largest city in Quebec; the new "Ultimate Speed" service will be available for both residential and business customers.
"Our new "Ultimate Speed Internet" service, the fastest Cable Internet experience for both residential and business customers in North America, demonstrates Vidéotron's commitment to deliver leading-edge products and services," said Manon Brouillette, senior vice president, Marketing, Content and Product Development, Vidéotron. "The positive customer feedback from our comprehensive year-long field trial, in addition to Cisco's solid DOCSIS 3.0 roadmap, over 400,000 Wideband subscribers outside North America, and recent CableLabs DOCSIS 3.0 Bronze qualification, all add up to help ensure our successful deployment today and the ability to scale in the future for 100 Mbps services and beyond."
The Cisco Wideband solution, based on CableLabs' Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0 standard, offers channel bonding technology that is designed to provide ultra-high-speed performance to homes and businesses for a vastly improved Internet access experience, based on the industry-leading Cisco uBR10012 CMTS, the Scientific Atlanta DPC2505 channel bonding cable modem, and the Linksys WCM300 channel bonding cable modem.
With the new Vidéotron "Ultimate Speed Internet" 50 Mbps service, a 6 MB song could be downloaded in as little as one second, an album of 10 songs in as little as 10 seconds and a 2 GB movie in as little as 6 minutes*.
"As video and new media continue to drive the need for unprecedented levels of speed and bandwidth, cable operators and other service providers are under increasing pressure to transform themselves from being a 'service' provider into an 'experience' provider in order to compete in today's competitive markets," said Surya Panditi, vice president and general manager of the Optical Technology and CMTS Business Unit for Cisco. "The Cisco Wideband solution allows Vidéotron to optimize its Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network and deliver the 'Connected Life' to Vidéotron subscribers - providing consistent, high-quality end-user experiences to win Vidéotron an industry-leading position."
