Fibre vs. Cable? Bell vs Rogers

[sid0195]

So i'm looking to get a new internet plan and its come down to Bell Fibe 50 and a couple of Rogers plans, Ignite 150u and Ignite 500u. As far as I know, Bell uses Fibre whereas Rogers uses cable. Bell is offering 50/10 whereas Rogers is offering 150/15, 500/20. What would be better? Theres about a $5-10 difference between the plans, is cable really that much worse than Fibre?

[jblflip5]

Personal experience, I have used both. At times of heavy usage, the bell fibe slows down 2 Mb sometimes. Currently I have Ignite 150u and I am getting 200 Mbs with no slowdowns, but I do have restart my router once a month. 

[Kyle_N]

Bell's "Fibe" is only fiber to the neighborhood, phone line to the house. 

So it's more accurate to say phone line vs. TV cable. 

 

No idea what Rogers is like, but with Bell I typically get download speed slightly above my speed (30 instead of 25), and usually below-expected upload (5-7 instead of 10). Note that the speed they list is usually the maximum, and the guaranteed speed is usually lower. 

[anylettuce]

12 minutes ago, DOGC_Kyle said:

Bell's "Fibe" is only fiber to the neighborhood, phone line to the house. 

So it's more accurate to say phone line vs. TV cable. 

 

No idea what Rogers is like, but with Bell I typically get download speed slightly above my speed (30 instead of 25), and usually below-expected upload (5-7 instead of 10). Note that the speed they list is usually the maximum, and the guaranteed speed is usually lower. 

it does sound like bell is offering DSL and rogers is the cable

 

Was reading into the fttp that most isp use. Looks like it depends on the feeder card. as ir is sharred bandwidth like cable is.

 

Still if it is dsl you should get the full 50 all the time, but hearing everyone complain about bell then it wouldn't surprise me

[Donut417]

25 minutes ago, sid0195 said:

So i'm looking to get a new internet plan and its come down to Bell Fibe 50 and a couple of Rogers plans, Ignite 150u and Ignite 500u. As far as I know, Bell uses Fibre whereas Rogers uses cable. Bell is offering 50/10 whereas Rogers is offering 150/15, 500/20. What would be better? Theres about a $5-10 difference between the plans, is cable really that much worse than Fibre?

If what @DOGC_Kyle stated is true, then Id go Cable. I live in the US and we have whats call AT&T Uverse which is similar to Bell Fibre. In all its just a less shitty form of DSL. The service from Rogers should be better in most cases and offer faster speeds. While Cable providers uses similar tactics, meaning the Roger service is whats called Fiber to the node, it tends to allow faster service and with the new Docsis 3.1 spec, a lot greater speeds. How good the rogers service will be, will depends on how many are put on a node. Here in the US Ive heard most providers do about 100-300 people per node. So it really depends how congested the node is, depends on how service will be. But I would go with a Cable provider any day of the week. 

[Canada EH]

I think its the same as years past, telephone vs cable is on one part how far you are away from the switch, and the other is how many users are on the network.

[intertan]

On 1/1/2018 at 7:59 PM, Canada EH said:

I think its the same as years past, telephone vs cable is on one part how far you are away from the switch, and the other is how many users are on the network.

giber gpon is simmar but I just read that there is a 100gbps card available. isp upgrading would be a breeze

[Canada EH]

Fiber optics is a gimmick, its fiber until the switch, then copper. Telus evens spells it wrong, FiberOptiks and now they coined the term Pure Fiber.

[Egg-Roll]

My experience with Cable and DSL is this:

During a big game in a big city (Toronto) Internet takes a dump, tv cable idk but the internet can leave you hanging.

DSL/Fiber:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_x

 

Basically, if bell hates you you get eh speeds, if Bell loves you you get fiber to the door , where some of my family live they have both, old hook up and new. They only use the old but they still get decent speeds.

 

Personally if you can tolerate the name try Virgin Mobiles home internet, It's owned by bell so unlike 3rd parties you wont get throttled (It's not allowed but they do it anyways)

Same with Rogers, Try looking at Fido.

https://www.virginmobile.ca/en/internet/index.html

https://www.fido.ca/pages/#/internet

[dalekphalm]

On 1/1/2018 at 8:29 PM, sid0195 said:

So i'm looking to get a new internet plan and its come down to Bell Fibe 50 and a couple of Rogers plans, Ignite 150u and Ignite 500u. As far as I know, Bell uses Fibre whereas Rogers uses cable. Bell is offering 50/10 whereas Rogers is offering 150/15, 500/20. What would be better? Theres about a $5-10 difference between the plans, is cable really that much worse than Fibre?

So, Bell advertises a lot of their products as "Fibe", which may, or may not be "fibre" in the way that you are thinking.

 

Basically ANY Internet connection faster than, say, 20 Mbps, is a form of Fibre. There are a few different types:

 

FTTH (Fibre to the Home)/FTTP (Fibre to the premises) - this is what we might call "true" fibre, in which a fibre connection is routed directly to your home - they often (but not always) are symmetrical (meaning upload and download speeds match), but that's by no means a requirement.

 

FTTN (Fibre to the Node)/FTTC (Fibre to the curb) - this is by far the most common type of Fibre, and what both Bell and Rogers use for most of their connections. FTTN has a fibre backbone from their offices (or another major node), to a node in your neighbourhood. From the node, the rest of the connection is either a copper pair phone line (VDSL) or a coaxial cable line (DOCSIS 3.0 or higher). This last run of cables from the node to your house is often called "the last mile".

 

Rogers DOCSIS 3.0 (or higher) connections can offer speeds up to Gigabit download, with very low latency and otherwise fairly good performance. I've had this exact connection (Gigabit download, 50Mbps upload) from Rogers for a year - I recently downgraded to 500Mbps download, 10Mbps upload, to save on costs.

 

Bell typically uses VDSL (Probably VDSL2+ or some other variant) for their FTTN connections. If Bell is only offering 50/10 "Fibre", it's almost guaranteed to be FTTN, NOT "true" FTTH.

 

In my opinion, Rogers is SMOKING Bell in high speed internet packages - they've rolled out 100+ Mbps packages far faster than Bell has. Performance between the two at the same speed will be fairly comparable.

 

I would go with the plan that has the best value, which is almost certainly Rogers.

 

With that in mind, I would check your postal code with a TPIA (Third Party Internet Access) ISP, such as TekSavvy (www.teksavvy.com). They resell both Rogers and Bell lines, and have lots of good packages. Check them out and see if they offer service at your location.

[dalekphalm]

On 1/1/2018 at 8:35 PM, jblflip5 said:

Personal experience, I have used both. At times of heavy usage, the bell fibe slows down 2 Mb sometimes. Currently I have Ignite 150u and I am getting 200 Mbs with no slowdowns, but I do have restart my router once a month. 

If you have to restart your modem monthly, I would contact support and get them to do some troubleshooting. You may need a new modem, or a firmware update.

 

Furthermore, if you haven't already, put your modem into "Modem only" mode, and buy a good quality third party router. I added a TP-Link Archer C9, and my stability increased a lot.

On 1/1/2018 at 8:55 PM, anylettuce said:

Still if it is dsl you should get the full 50 all the time, but hearing everyone complain about bell then it wouldn't surprise me

Kind of, DSL claims that your "connection" is dedicated, and never shared. That's true. Kind of. What it means is that the connection from your house to their local backbone is dedicated. But once you reach the local backbone, you're still susceptible to local congestion, and over-subscribing - just like Cable.

 

With Cable, your connection in the local neighbourhood may be shared with a huge pipe. This means your neighbours habits could directly affect you, if your neighbourhood is over-subscribed. Ultimately you're still affected either way, just Cable may be affected on a more local basis.

 

In my personal experience, I've pretty much never experienced congestion, and that's with both Rogers or Bell (DOCSIS vs DSL).

[intertan]

22 hours ago, Canada EH said:

Fiber optics is a gimmick, its fiber until the switch, then copper. Telus evens spells it wrong, FiberOptiks and now they coined the term Pure Fiber.

I take it this is fiber to the cabinet and not fiber to the home

[dalekphalm]

9 minutes ago, intertan said:

I take it this is fiber to the cabinet and not fiber to the home

Yes, FTTN (Fibre to the Node). The "last mile" is still copper (either copper pair phone line for VDSL - which is Telus/Bell, or copper coaxial for DOCSIS 3.x - which is Shaw/Rogers).

[intertan]

Sasktel my isp has 2

interNET classic DSL

infiNET pure fiber to the home

[Canada EH]

4 hours ago, intertan said:

I take it this is fiber to the cabinet and not fiber to the home

Fibre to the can out on the wire, if they do that.

Most likely its just Fibre to your community switch.

[LienusLateTips]

Shaw

 

In all seriousness, I've heard Bell is quite a bit better.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, JDE said:

Shaw

 

In all seriousness, I've heard Bell is quite a bit better.

Ehhhhhh.... If you're one of the extremely few customers who has access to FTTH from Bell, sure.

 

But their FTTN rollout is so far behind everyone else, it's not even funny.

 

I live in one of the biggest cities in Ontario, and I can get 1000/50 from Rogers, and Bell offers 5/0.68... Seriously 5 fucking Megabits per second.

 

At my old place, which was in an apartment complex, the best package from Bell was 50/10 - but Rogers still had them beat with 1000/50 there too (And Rogers had that package available about 4-5 years before Bell had anything beyond old ADSL speeds there).

[LienusLateTips]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Ehhhhhh.... If you're one of the extremely few customers who has access to FTTH from Bell, sure.

 

But their FTTN rollout is so far behind everyone else, it's not even funny.

 

I live in one of the biggest cities in Ontario, and I can get 1000/50 from Rogers, and Bell offers 5/0.68... Seriously 5 fucking Megabits per second.

 

At my old place, which was in an apartment complex, the best package from Bell was 50/10 - but Rogers still had them beat with 1000/50 there too (And Rogers had that package available about 4-5 years before Bell had anything beyond old ADSL speeds there).

Does a suburban area of Markham have FTTH? IDK.

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, JDE said:

Does a suburban area of Markham have FTTH? IDK.

Markham Ontario?

 

It would almost certainly have FTTN from Rogers (Possibly Bell too). As for FTTH? I have no idea - I doubt it though. I've never actually seen a residential area in Ontario that had FTTH, outside of the brand new condos in Toronto.

[Egg-Roll]

4 minutes ago, JDE said:

Does a suburban area of Markham have FTTH? IDK.

Maybe the new multi-million dollar homes  The apartments might have them along with Condos, but it's markham we are talking about... Who wants to live there, they drive like they are insane 

 

9 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Ehhhhhh.... If you're one of the extremely few customers who has access to FTTH from Bell, sure.

 

But their FTTN rollout is so far behind everyone else, it's not even funny.

 

I live in one of the biggest cities in Ontario, and I can get 1000/50 from Rogers, and Bell offers 5/0.68... Seriously 5 fucking Megabits per second.

 

At my old place, which was in an apartment complex, the best package from Bell was 50/10 - but Rogers still had them beat with 1000/50 there too (And Rogers had that package available about 4-5 years before Bell had anything beyond old ADSL speeds there).

Even knowing this and the issues my family has had with Rogers (3 locations over 25 years) I still can't suggest them. BTW welcome to my world with 5mb... right now my modem says 4000 flat max speed... courteous of Bell throttling me due to 3rd party supplier... I simply can't be bothered with support tickets any more...

[LienusLateTips]

2 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Maybe the new multi-million dollar homes  The apartments might have them along with Condos, but it's markham we are talking about... Who wants to live there, they drive like they are insane 

Nah, it's like an older neighbourhood, maybe 80s/90s.

2 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Even knowing this and the issues my family has had with Rogers (3 locations over 25 years) I still can't suggest them. BTW welcome to my world with 5mb... right now my modem says 4000 flat max speed... courteous of Bell throttling me due to 3rd party supplier... I simply can't be bothered with support tickets any more...

HOW IS ONTARIO SERVICE TERRIBLE?

I get 200/20 paying for 150/15.

[Egg-Roll]

1 minute ago, JDE said:

Nah, it's like an older neighbourhood, maybe 80s/90s.

HOW IS ONTARIO SERVICE TERRIBLE?

I get 200/20 paying for 150/15.

Yea, you'd be lucky to even have fiber to the box, if you have to postal code you can look it up... I have fiber locally, but i would have to move up in price by $500,000, 2km away... Nope not doing that...

 

Easy Bell loves free rides, they can't be bothered to upgrade when many stupid people simply pay way too much for junk service... I could get 25/10 here or better with Rogers, well Virgin claims i can get 50/10... Rogers requires work(no rogers to the house), Virgin wants to manhandle everything inside my home to set it up and during winter yea...I have carpet  If i upgraded my package (tempting) Bell rep would nag on how i can get better speeds, not allowed but they do it anyways... One even was so cocky to do so on a service call from their throttling, the guy literally fixed it (while)at the box 

[LienusLateTips]

6 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Yea, you'd be lucky to even have fiber to the box, if you have to postal code you can look it up... I have fiber locally, but i would have to move up in price by $500,000, 2km away... Nope not doing that...

 

Easy Bell loves free rides, they can't be bothered to upgrade when many stupid people simply pay way too much for junk service... I could get 25/10 here or better with Rogers, well Virgin claims i can get 50/10... Rogers requires work(no rogers to the house), Virgin wants to manhandle everything inside my home to set it up and during winter yea...I have carpet  If i upgraded my package (tempting) Bell rep would nag on how i can get better speeds, not allowed but they do it anyways... One even was so cocky to do so on a service call from their throttling, the guy literally fixed it (while)at the box 

I get it from the local cable company (Shaw), which only values customers that pay a lot (used to get 3/0.02 paying for 10/0.5)

[dalekphalm]

8 hours ago, Egg-Roll said:

Even knowing this and the issues my family has had with Rogers (3 locations over 25 years) I still can't suggest them. BTW welcome to my world with 5mb... right now my modem says 4000 flat max speed... courteous of Bell throttling me due to 3rd party supplier... I simply can't be bothered with support tickets any more...

www.teksavvy.com

 

There you go my friend. You can use the last mile owned by Rogers, but you don't have to deal with their bullshit. There are of course other TPIA's, that will offer similar packages (Start, Distributel, Acanac, etc), but TekSavvy is my favourite. They resell both Bell and Rogers lines btw.

[Egg-Roll]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

www.teksavvy.com

 

There you go my friend. You can use the last mile owned by Rogers, but you don't have to deal with their bullshit. There are of course other TPIA's, that will offer similar packages (Start, Distributel, Acanac, etc), but TekSavvy is my favourite. They resell both Bell and Rogers lines btw.

I've been with them for about 6 years now great people but the stupid TPIA BS Bell is pulling is the reason why I'm getting crappy connection... It gets better once a week usually at night on the weekend.

 

I doubt it's the modem or wiring as when i put this modem into use about 6 months ago it went from 3500+- 500 all the way to full 7000 with a top speed of 24000, stayed there for about a week. It then went to 5000 with a top speed of 7000...

 

Weirdest thing is losing internet for upwards to 5 minutes but the modem never disconnects and displays I have it...

I own this thing:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_1059_1060&item_id=090394