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

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).

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.

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.

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.

Subject:	Re: [GTALUG] on internet speeds and crossing providers?
Date:	2025-06-02 00:40
From:	"D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk" <talk@gtalug.org>
To:	Karen Lewellen via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

Here's what I think I know about broadband providers in Toronto.

Broadband internet comes into houses on cables owned by Rogers or Bell.
A very few large buildings are serviced by Beanfield.
Rogers old: co-ax cable
Bell old: copper pair
Rogers and Bell new: optical fibre to the home.
Beware: Bell Fibe does not mean fibre.

The CRTC requires the owners of these cables to allow third-party ISPs to
sell services to be delivered over these "last mile" facilities.
Complicating matters is that a lot of these third parties are actually
owned by Bell or Rogers.

Bell is ripping out copper, replacing it with fibre. To a lesser extent,
Rogers is ripping out co-ax cable, replacing it with fibre. I have
seen indications that they don't build out fibre where the other company
has already done so, lowering competition.

Bell and Rogers are resisting allowing resellers access to the fibre
cables. As I understand it, this is defying CRTC regulations.

(I'm currently in trouble because my copper connection is being
decommissioned. I'm losing my 3rd party ISP even though they provide
services that Bell refuses to provide.)

Bell and Rogers each want to provide you a bundle: internet, home phone,
TV. On the face of it, these bundles are often good deals. There are
regularly very good bundle prices that expire after a year of two.

When you use a third party ISP for internet on that cable, you cannot buy
home phone or TV from Bell or Rogers. To make up for this, the ISP may
well offer a IP TV streaming TV package and an IP phone package. I don't
know how satisfactory those are.

I don't know all the true third party ISPs. I deal with Vybe Networks
(upstream: Colosseum) and Teksavvy.

I suspect that Freedom Mobile is a 3rd party ISP. Judging by the speeds
they offer my address, they are using Rogers co-ax here. They offer some
kind of TV service over their internet service. This doesn't seem to have
anything to do with their mobile services.

Telus may or may not offer me service. Their web site teases.
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