Small and medium-sized businesses in Vancouver that need more Internet bandwidth but can’t afford to upgrade to high-speed fibre optics have a new option.
Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. has expanded its Business Ethernet Xtended (BEX) service into Vancouver, Edmonton, Brampton and London.
“It’s a brand new technology,” said A.J. Byers, executive vice-president of Primus Business Services.
Many smaller companies still rely on DSL (copper phone lines) for their Internet connections, Ayers said, which has limited download and upload speeds.
As more companies move their computing functions to the cloud and their phone service to voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), their bandwidth demands increase. This means that their costs will also increase if they need to switch to fibre-optic Internet service.
Fibre offers much faster speeds, but is far more expensive – about $800 or $900 per month, Byers said.
The BEX is a new high-speed service that uses existing copper phone lines, but with download and upload speeds that are between five and 50 times faster than DSL.
Ayers said the service offers broadband comparable to fibre optics – from 10 to 40 megabits per second – for $400 to $800 per month.
