November 8, 2011 – Shaw Communications is now capable of carrying Internet, voice, video and data at 100 Gigabits per second – making it the country’s fastest inter city fibre-optic network, it said.

The network, delivered by Alcatel-Lucent, has the capability of carrying up to eighty-eight 100 Gbit/s channels over a single pair of fibres, it said, which results in a “game-changing network able to handle up to 133 million voice calls, 440,000 HDTV channels, or transmit 44 Blu-ray Discs in one second.”

“People are demanding more from their Internet experience, and as a leader in Broadband Internet, Shaw continues to upgrade to bring Canadians the best Internet experience,” said Peter Bissonnette, president, Shaw Communications. “The launch of this fibre-optic network allows us to lay the foundation in delivering a new Internet experience for our customers.”

According to Shaw, the new network is 10 times faster than its existing fibre-optic network.

The launch follows a field trial over a 350-kilometre network between Calgary and Edmonton, Alta.