Bell Canada
- How to use Remote PVR on Bell Fibe TV : Using Remote PVR
- Fib Internet = Fib = A lie or falsehood.
- Warning! - Bell Fibe (Fib) does not mean you get fibre-optic cable to your house.
- Fib = A lie or falsehood.
- Class-action suit claims Bell Fibe service misleads customers | Montreal Gazette - 2017-03-31 - PDF
- Finally!!!! We have had to wait a long time for this fib to come to light. Bell has been lying to us and will now have to pay for that lie. Facts matter!
- Bell's "alternative facts" = "false advertising".
- Bell's Fib service is not FTTH, it is only FTTN. Bell's Fib.TV and Fib.IP services are really only DSL.
- Bell Class-Action Authorization
- www.bell.ca
- Community Guy
- Comments
- Bell Fib (Internet & TV)
- IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) service is not television over the Internet (because Bell uses its own copper wiring). The video and Internet are not supposed to interfere with each other.
- The “last mile”, that is, the connection between Bell Canada and your house is not fibre-optic cable. Rather, it is a very fast version of DSL called VDSL2. The grey cable (see the graphic) from the Alcatel-Lucent Cellpipe modem/router is a regular POTS line (plain old telephone service) that connects to one of Bell’s many DSLAMs. From the remote networks, Bell has fibre-optic cable connecting them to their main facilities. The pedestal on the street is connected back to the Bell CO (Central Office) using fiber (that’s why they call it a fiber-based service, even though houses are connected via traditional copper).
- Bell’s Entertainment Service uses a single VDSL line to provide a converged Internet and television service.
- Don’t forget that watching or recording a TV show also uses bandwidth.
Bell says that when customers add additional TVs (up to 4), they add 5Mb to your VDSL service for each TV.
- Bell Canada does not have a plan to offer unrestricted service for customers who want it. Bell implemented the throttling in such a way that precludes it from throttling on a per user basis. This is unfortunate since there are no provisions to enable a customer to have unrestricted access for perhaps a higher fee.
- Better than a standard DSL line. If you’re looking for Hi-Def television service AND high speed Internet, you should check out Bell Fib.
- Can connect up to 6 PVRs, but only the master PVR can record or play back. All the others work off the master PVR.
- Record 4 standard programs at once or only 2 HDTV programs at once.
- PVR hard disks have limited storage space.
- You can only pause and rewind content on the master PVR (the one with the hard drive in it) (i.e. not on any of the five other TVs in the other rooms).
- Monthly data transfer cap is too low.
- No support for user profiles. Each PVR has to be set up separately.
- Customer complaints about pixelation on the TV.
- 2014-08-01 - Bell has finally come clean (sort of) by stating on its Website that Bell-Fib is "Fibre to your neighbourhood". That is the equivalent of FTTN.
- Definitions
- Fib = A lie or falsehood.
- Bell Fib is NOT FTTH
- Bell Fib is only FTTN
- FTTC = Fibre to the Curb
- FTTH = Fibre to the Home
- FTTN = Fibre to the Node (= fiber cable to some box in your neighbourhood - From that box to your home, Bell uses copper cables.)
- FTTP = Fibre to the Premises = FTTH = FTTU
- FTTU = Fibre to the User = FTTH
- CO = Central Office
- IPTV (Internet Protocol Television)
- Cable vs Fiber-Optic for hi-speed internet - Is there any difference? | Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums
- 2012
- Be very careful of what you're purchasing as "Fibe" from Bell. (Fib)
- It is NOT Fibre-Optic. Bell has been deploying true fibre in very limited-trial areas. I don't think Montreal is one of them.
Bell's "Fibe" still uses a plain old twisted-pair copper from your house to the node. From the node back to the CO, may be fibre however it's been there for a long, long time.
Basically, you're purchasing high-speed DSL. Really bad label as "Fibe".
- Most of Montreal is on copper wire. All of Québec City is FTTH, because the density of CO's was too low - to accomodate the aging copper over long distances -, which historically crippled Bell's copper DSL service (Sympatico...) dropping Bell's local market share to dismal levels. They needed a draconian solution to compete, hence FTTH. Thankfully for customers, there is now real competition again.
When in doubt ask directly if optical fiber enters the home. All of Bell's optical fiber is clearly identified on the outer protective sheath as 'Corning Optical Fiber Cable'. FWIW, the latency is super stable between 5 ms and 7 ms on Fibe 7 FTTH installations here. To check latency, go to speedtest.net or similar site.
- For internet, I would go with Videotron, unless you are sure Bell is FTTH and not to the node (FTTN); apparently there are some FTTH installations in Repentigny. If you have neighbours that are satisfied with Bell and you know the distance to the node - then that's another option
- From a broader internet point of view, what matters is local factors. DSL (either FTTH or FTTN) might give you better performance if you're close enough to the CO, but if you're far away it will result in lower speeds and higher latency. Cable might offer higher peak speeds, especially if Videotron is using Speedboost (I'm not sure if they are or not) but can be dramatically affected by other users in your neighbourhood. Cable will also offer higher download speeds, but Bell's DSL 25 offering has a significantly higher theoretical upload than anything other than Videotron's crazy expensive 120 plan.
- In the Montreal area, Bell may be FTTC (Fiber-to-the-Curb) or FTTN (Fiber-to-the-Node) but certainly not FTTH. And until that day comes, they may label it six ways to Sunday, it's still good old DSL as long as that twisted copper wire runs into people's homes.
- Fibe, Questions.. | Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums
- (Fib)
- Fiber-to-the-Home installations require a minimum of 1.5 to 2 days of labor; there is a considerable amount of hardware both inside (Clearcurve zbl optical fiber, optical network terminal, Bell router and large battery backup) and outside (Two optical junctions; on the utility pole and another on your house to accomodate the more bendable Clearcurve zbl optical fiber which runs indoors), so once all this is installed and working, a client would not be inclined to easily switch to another provider for quite some time. There is a quasi-sense of 'moral irreversibillity', once you have an FTTH installation in your home; you will be attached to Bell for a long time. Take the time to think it over.
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- Bell Canada - (Used to be Sympatico.ca. It seems that Bell no longer uses Sympatico for its Internet services.)
- High Speed Edition (ADSL)
- High Speed Ultra (ADSL)
- hsu = high speed ultra service
- Your router must be less than 3 km (2.7 km?) from the Central office.
- Central Stations and Remote sub-Stations
- You must be less than 2.7km from the Central Station or Remote Station, otherwise performance will decrease dramatically!!
Remote Stations act to boost the signal to the Central Station.
The Centre of Excellence (888)590-2375 can tell you if Bell-Sympatico has plans to put in a new remote substation in your area.
- My connection speed - 1.3 Mbps - even though I was paying for hse 3 Mbps - (or hsu 5 Mbps)
- 2002-07-14 - Erica Roselle, Business office - Erica says I must return to dial-up service (!!!!!!!!!!) because I am 5.3 km from the central office, whereas 4.7 km is the max distance possible for Sympatico's DSL.
- 2002-07-15 - Repair-611 They checked the lines etc. in my area to see why Sympatico can't provide the advertised speed.
- 2002-07-16 - Lynn, Centre of Excellence - 4.7 km is the max distance from a Central office. I am 5.3 km from a central. This is using "Half-synch" with a "loop-back". In other words, 2.65 km * 2 = 5.3 km
- 2002-07-16 - Jamie recommends returning to hse (downgrading from hsu) since Sympatico can't provide the advertised speed.
- 2002-07-22 - Jack (COE, High Speed Centre) - I get a "3" rating on my telephone line. Therefore, I do qualify for hse. I would need to get a "6" or higher in order to not qualify for hse.
- 2002-07-22 - Simone says Sympatico will do another check of all the wiring, etc.
- 2002-07-23 - André recommends returning to hse (downgrading from hsu) since Sympatico can't provide the advertised speed.
- 2006-08-04 - Kish Bhojwani, Tech Support & Marketing - He was very surprised that I never got the full 3Mbps I was paying for. (Only recently did Sympatico increase my speed from 1.3 to 2Mbps.) He says that any Sympatico High-Speed customer can request a fibre-optic cable to the home ($100 one-time installation fee) so that any DSL speed is possible. I told him I have spent a lot of time talking to technicians who have never mentioned such options. I told him it was too late, I have already cancelled my Sympatico account.
- 2014-04-01 - It is still not possible to have FTTH installed (at any price).
- Bell Customer Support Centre
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- DSL - dslreports.com - the place for DSL, ADSL
- Bandwidth... (Dialup & xDSL & Cable)
- 24/7 Tech support 800-361-5265 800-773-2121 310-SURF 310-7873
- High Speed Central Office 888-590-2375
- Nobody at Sympatico seems to know where the "Centrals" are located.
- FTP: You can not use WS_FTP or any other FTP client if you are not logged onto a Sympatico connection. In other words, if you aren't at home, using your Sympatico account to log onto the Internet, you can't FTP to your Sympatico Website.
- Telnet: Sympatico service does not provide shell accounts or telnet login capability.
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- NetAssistant is a FREE service that delivers leading edge self-healing tools directly to your computer. These tools automatically detect possible issues on your computer that may cause problems accessing the Internet and resolves those issues for you with a quick click of the mouse.
- Warning!!! - Sympatico's NetAssistant and Verizon's Assistant secretly install programs like "SmartBridge MotiveSB.exe" - Although not technically spyware, they do send a lot of your personal info back to their homebase. MotiveSB will seriously slow down your computer and often cause boot errors like "The procedure entry point GetProcessImageFileNameW could not be located in the dynamic link library PSAPI.DLL". You should see how much of your personal information is hidden in C:\Program Files\Motive . MotiveSB also will seriously slow down your computer as it checks up on you and sends that info over the Internet.
- Recommendations:
- Uninstall Sympatico's NetAssistant
- Uninstall anything from Verizon
- Run MSConfig and uncheck anything related to these companies (e.g. MotiveSB).
- Use your firewall to block MotiveSB
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- Fib = A lie or falsehood.
- BellFib or FibTV or FibInternet = Bell marketing and Bell employees lie to customers by calling it Fibre Optic, when in fact it is only DSL from the node (i.e. FTTN instead of FTTH).
- Fibre Optic connections by Bell are only FTTN.
- There are some communities that get real FTTH (Quebec City, Ottawa, Repentigny, ...???).
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