Hello Hugh,

I beg to disagree with your statement: Beware: Bell Fibe does not mean fibre.

When the Bell technician installed the Bell Fibe service in my apartment, I went with him to the building's basement utility room, where he checked to confirm that red-coloured luminosity was present on the fibre leading to my apartment.

I also watched him checking the two small plastic Bell Fibe service termination boxes already mounted on the walls of my apartment. One showed no luminosity but the other showed red luminosity.

The technician also checked for the same red luminosity at the end of the thin white plastic fibre cable leading from the  plastic Bell Fibe service termination box, to the wall-mounted French-made fibre modem, before he stapled to the wall, the fibre cable run

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I asked the technician about the warning in the Bell Fibe contract, regarding power loss to the wall-mounted modem interrupting my fibre service.

He told me that, indeed, power loss at the modem will take down modem operation, but, all the rest of the way, from the fibre modem, to the Bell end of the fibre run at Bell's integration to global network connectivity, is pure passive fibre. So no utility pole power outage will impact actual Bell fibre physical continuity.

So, I am very sure that my Bell Fibe service really is running as pure light all the way from: (A) it's connection to the wall-mounted fibre modem in my apartment, to: (B) the Bell "central office".

So long as there is power to the fibre modem in my apartment, no other Toronto Hydro outage should disrupt Bell fibre physical continuity (I assume Bell equipment at the Bell end of the fibre run has UPS).

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Being a pathologically frugal old SOB, I chose not to invest in a battery-backed UPS. To the best of my recollection, there has been only one Toronto Hydro outage during the many years since the switch to Bell fibre.

Bell fibre service already costs an outrageously excessive amount. So I can live with the very rare occurrence of a power outage disconnecting my home phone and Internet connectivity.

And if the power outage affects the apartment building where I live, my desktop PC will be down anyway.

Since I got Bell fibre service, the Bell fibre system itself in my neighbourhood, has only had one Bell equipment outage somewhere outside my apartment building.

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Bell service fees are pure robbery, but i stick with Bell for: super-fast bandwidth, superb service reliability and friendly knowledgeable support.

Rogers has such a terrible reputation, I will not consider them. So long as Rogers runs over shared co-axial cable, I would expect variable bandwidth to plague the Rogers service.

Unfortunately, start.ca does not offer service in my neighbourhood.

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Some day in the far future (probably long after my expiration date), Bell will be forced to accept third-party services to piggy-back on its fibre.

If a hyper-reliable bargain-priced third-party service appears in my neighbourhood, before my earthly demise, it will be bye-bye Bell for me.

Until then, I am grumblingly content to make the greedy execs at the top of the Bell heap, laugh all the way to the bank (or other financial storehouse), where Bell stashes its disgracefully huge cash pile.

Steve Petrie

apetrie@aspetrie.net
416-233-6116

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