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POTS and Bell Fibe FTTH

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fibe fibre pots
14K views 38 replies 12 participants last post by  Dr.Dave 
#1 ·
Hi. Our 30 year old condo building was wired for Bell FTTH last year but I never considered switching from DSL (Fibe 25/10) because the fibre had to be run to a phone jack in the bedroom and my PVR, Apple TV, etc. are all in the living room on the other side of the apartment.

Long story short, I decided to take the plunge this week and go for FTTH (double the speed for pretty much the same price). I ordered the upgrade online but what I didn't realize is that this apparently forces you onto VoIP through the HH3000 for phone service. At least that's what the installer told me. Along with, "Oh, didn't they tell you that when you ordered...?"

That was yesterday morning and the phone service has dropped at least three times since then. The last time it happened, Bell support reset the connection, had me reset the modem, and swore it wouldn't happen again. We'll see :rolleyes:...

Anyway, I was wondering why I couldn't keep the POTS and just have fibre for TV and internet. I assume they got rid of the DSL signal on the phone line anyway, so why not leave intact with just voice on it? I realize that probably isn't true POTS either, but it was sure more reliable than what I have now.

Thanks.
 
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#2 ·
I suspect once a customer is removed from the copper pair that supports POTS, that BELL wouldn't entertain going back to it. I'm sure BELL doesn't want to maintain two separate systems (copper and Fiber), and so will do their best to remove everyone from copper.

elyk
 
#6 ·
There are still lots of people who have only POTS available, no FTTN and many without DSL as an option. One incentive is to wire neighborhoods so it's even an option. As far as home phone is concerned, Bell will have to give it away in 20 years. Everyone will be on cellphone or with more reasonably priced VoIP providers. There are lots of free VoIP options as well.
 
#10 ·
Percentage of Americans with no Landline Phones (by Age)
That's about wired phone vs cell phone, not fibre vs copper. Copper pairs can no longer keep up with the bandwidth demands. Even now, in many areas where a customer has a copper pair coming in, it converts to fibre somewhere nearby.
 
#20 ·
Cable and phone companies want to cut costs by abandoning POTS but still want to charge POTS prices. I've seen a few offers where they cut their fibre or cable home phone plans to a reasonable price for a few months but prices should be that low on an ongoing basis. Bundling helps but better prices on every service are usually available from third party providers. By ripping people off on home phone, they are losing customers for every service.
 
#21 ·
My issue with a landline vs. FTTH VOIP is that the the HH300 backup battery I think only lasts for a few hours.
As one of the few people who still uses corded phones (not exclusively, I do have a set of cordless phones as well), I like the security of being able to rely on the central office's battery backsup and, eventually, diesel generators for extended outages.(During the 2917 Tornado, our power was out for 5 days, so this is not a theoretical issue).

So is it possible (ahead of time) to specify FTTH internet and TV, while maintaining POTS on copper?
 
#22 ·
I do not think its possible to have residential services delivered over copper AND fiber at the same time.. I inquired about it when I signed up for services at my current house a few months ago and was told Phone service MUST be delivered thru the modem. I went and checked my house and even though there is copper wiring and a few phone jacks inside, there is absolutely NO copper coming from the outside plant into my house, its possible it might have existed but I'm not the original owner and judging by all my neighbours everyone who has phone service (not many to be quite honest) has it thru their modem.

Another note I want to mention, I also have the HH300 but as discussed in another thread, There is NO option for me to buy the backup battery, so since you have yours already you should consider yourself lucky, they don't sell them no more. you now have to plug your HH3000 into the same UPS you plug your cordless phone base station into if that's the case.
 
#25 ·
no but you can go with Rogers Wireless home phone or wireless home phone from another provider, wireless home phone costs half of what bell charges, so it might be a good deal, your not "forced" to stay with bell, are you?
 
#26 ·
Wireless home phone uses the cellular network so it has the shortcomings of cellphones without the portability and other advantages. An inexpensive flip phone with a cheap prepaid plan would be as good and more portable. The whole idea behind POTS phones is the high reliability of the POTS network.
 
#27 ·
Your certainly correct that the PSTN network (I know people call it POTS as well) has a history of very good reliability. Its also been around for a very long time this means they had time to iron out all the bugs and kinks in the technology. Voice Over IP is still very new technology even though its existed for some time. People are migrating to it in large numbers. But as with any technology there is growing pains so yes it does have the tendency to go down when there is a problem, and can be complex to fix, That is just the technological issues, i have not talked about the battery backup issues when the Hydro goes out but that's a problem too but not as big of a problem, like how often does our hydro go down? not that much man. once or twice a year for a short blip?

Anyways yes i can see why people are nervous but think about this, as technology evolves it gets better over time. I mentioned wireless home phone because its been very reliable to a family member of mine. how often does the cellphones go down? almost never.
 
#30 ·
Your certainly correct that the PSTN network (I know people call it POTS as well)
POTS means Plain Old Telephone Service. Technically speaking PSTN also includes cell phones as, until VoLTE, they were also a Public Switched Telephone Network. These days, even if you do have a POTS phone, it's likely to be VoIP for much of the trip back to the CO.
 
#28 ·
The big problem with newer networks is that when events that create emergencies occur it is often associated with network failure due to power outages and an overloaded cellular network. That was not as much of an issue with POTS, especially in urban areas where line are buried, but the capacity and resilience of cellular networks appears to be lower. VoIP networks over internet also seem to have an issue with resilience when power is interrupted and they appear to be more susceptible to malicious attacks.
 
#29 ·
Also lets not forget that VoIP providers like Rogers home phone, Bell home phone FTTH, Cogeco Home phone, Shaw home phone, etc. run on a private network isolated from the public internet, which is less susceptible to malicious attacks. The ones like Vonage, Voip-MS, Magic Jack, Comwave, use the public Internet and more vulnerable to internet related issues.
 
#31 ·
It's the last mile that is the main issue with VoIP. Networks that carry VoIP often use cable or FTTN which don't have the same power backup as POTS. Not sure about fibre but the weak point there seems to be the equipment in the customer residence. Once the voice gets to the CO or past the street node and on to major internet backbones, there seems to be better reliability. As seen with the recent VoIP.ms attack, VoIP seems to have a further issue with malicious attacks on internet facing servers.

Also lets not forget that VoIP providers like Rogers home phone, Bell home phone FTTH, Cogeco Home phone, Shaw home phone, etc. run on a private network isolated from the public internet, which is less susceptible to malicious attacks.
As noted above, the weakness with fibre, cable and DSL providers is connectivity over the last mile.
 
#33 ·
its not just the power in your house, its more complex now, the power feeding the local node on your street could also be dead and even if you have all the best UPS devices powering your modem, your laptop, your cordless phone, you still might not get a working phone or internet signal during a power outage.

This is the problem people are complaining about, this was never the case 20+ years ago, I see and acknowledge this can be an issue, I just do not have a suggested solution at this time because the problem is on the provider end not the customer premise
 
#36 ·
, this was never the case 20+ years ago,
It wasn't an issue with POTS but it was an issue with cable TV. If power went out, even on other parts of the cable system, then TV services would go out. The problem now is that TV, phone and internet are all on similar systems with limited or non-existent power backup. What makes it worse is that the companies are refusing to supply or replace backup batteries that could maintain those systems in an emergency. What was once an annoyance has now become a life threatening issue due to loss of communication for emergency services.
 
#37 ·
Assuming you still have one to give up. These days, there's a good chance you only have "POTS" to a node in your neighbourhoud and VoIP over fibre from there. I'm on Rogers and my home phone is a closed VoIP system over coax to the node and fibre to the Rogers office.
 
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