Bell Fibe 50 Home Installation: Toronto, Canada

Bell Fibe 50, wired connection to the Home Hub 3000, gave me 52mbps download and 52mbps upload using the the Ookla speed test. Toronto, Canada

Two months ago Bell called me up and set up an install date for my Bell Fibe 50 installation, Bell fiber optic to my house. I have waited to do a review to ensure that the install was stable and reliable. In summary, Bell was correct in that their Bell Fibe 50 is much more reliable than their twisted pair copper wire, and a whole lot faster. We are getting speeds of 51mbps download as well as upload. This compares to our Bell Fibe 15/10, which was twisted pair copper wire to the Bell node (~1km away), and from there it was fiber optic, which gave us 15mbps dwonload and .7mbps, or 700bps upload.

I have Bell Fibe 15/10 on twisted pair into my house, Toronto, Ontario, but the upload speed is .67mbps of the advertised 10mbps. This summer Bell trenched my street to install fiber optic cable. They left the fiber optic cable zip tied to the side of my house. After 2 months wait I am trying to find out when Bell will install fiber optic into my house so I can get 10mbps upload, but they cannot give me an answer. photo by Don Tai

My installer, Dino, was a great guy, who guaranteed me 50mbps download and upload. Of course i was very skeptical. He cut and then pulled the old twisted pair copper wire out of my house, and pushed the new fiber optic cable into my basement.

The black fiber optic cable is flat and quite stiff, 8mm wide and 4mm thick. On both sides of the actual fiber optic cable are two round plastic stiffeners. I guess these are supposed to protect the fiber optic thread from being bent.

Fiber optic cable, black, 8mm wide, 4mm thick. The fiber optic cable is in the middle, housed in white insulation. On either side are 2 plastic stiffener cables. Photo by Don Tai

While Dino used a regular knife to split the outer black housing, he used a special tool to remove the white sheath from the fiber optic thread, as well as another special tool to put an end cap onto the thread.

Next, Dino installed a special “flashlight” to the end of the fiber cable, used as a diagnostic tool so that he could find my house fiber cable in the local cable box. Off he went to the local box in order to screw in my cable into the main fiber trunk. Each box is about 50 meters apart. Dino says that fiber optic is impervious to water, so humidity and the weather will not affect it. We have had some strong rain, snow and freezing temperatures here and the weather does not affect performance.

My local house fiber optic cable is routed underground to this neighbourhood connection box. Installer says this fiber optic cable is waterproof and therefore not affected by humidity, rain or the weather. Photo by Don Tai

Bell Fibe install in Ontario. The fiber optic cable runs from the street box, to this 10.5″ square box in front of my house, to going into my house. photo by Don Tai

Bell Fibe install in Ontario. The fiber optic cable runs from the street box, to this 10.5″ square box in front of my house, to going into my house. Inside of the box in front of my house. Photo by Don Tai

Bell Fibe install in Ontario. The fiber optic cable runs from the street box, to this 10.5″ square box in front of my house, to going into my house. Inside of box cover. Photo by Don Tai

Bell Fibe install in Ontario. The fiber optic cable runs from the street box, to this 10.5″ square box in front of my house. 2017 Sept 15 contracted city workers replace the sidewalk. While Rogers internet lines were cut, Bell fiber optic lines were deeper than 6″ from the surface and were intact. Kudos to Bell. photo by Don Tai

The fiber cable is then hooked up to my Home Hub 3000. It comes with a small lithium ion battery, similar to a laptop battery, so the hub and telephone still work when the power goes out. The battery recharges automatically. Initially it had a “Replace battery” message, but after powering it off and on the message went away.

Home Hub 3000 router has a lithium ion battery backup so that your telephone and internet does not go down during a power outage. Photo by Don Tai

While all the install photos and the tech are nice, what speeds did I get from Bell? Using the Home Hub 3000 and wired I was getting 55mbps download and 52mbps upload on the bell speed test site. This was confirmed through Ookla’s speed test site. The Home Hub 3000 wireless speeds were also impressive at 18mbps download and 16mbps upload. Ookla gave me 27mbps download and 14mbps upload.

Bell Fibe 50, wired connection to the Home Hub 3000, gave me 55mbps download and 52mbps upload using the Bell speed test. Toronto, Canada

Bell Fibe 50, wired connection to the Home Hub 3000, gave me 52mbps download and 52mbps upload using the the Ookla speed test. Toronto, Canada

Bell Fibe 50, wireless connection to the Home Hub 3000, gave me 17mbps download and 16mbps upload using the the Bell speed test. Toronto, Canada

Bell Fibe 50, wireless connection to the Home Hub 3000, gave me 27mbps download and 14mbps upload using the the Ookla speed test. Toronto, Canada

I have my router daisy chained to the Home Hub 3000. Though the wired speeds are the same, the wireless speeds on my router were slower at 8mbps download and 3mbps upload. I’ll try to improve this later, but this is not Bell’s issue, but mine.

When the first bill came, it was actually correct, just as I had been quoted from the Bell sales staff. Surprise. I was expecting “differences of opinion”

Overall the Bell Fibe 50 has been really stable and fast. I really cannot feel any download difference between 15mbps and 54mbps, but Big Weed notices that the upload speeds are like night and day, a huge improvement in speed. Our bandwidth usage for the month, has remained relatively unchanged since we moved to Fibe 50, remaining at about 130G/mo. Just because you have fast speed does not mean you’ll necessarily use more.

I have only had the service for 2 months, so only time will tell about longer term reliability. Initially Bell was calling me weekly about upgrading my TV (currently Over the Air) to Fibe TV, but that will never happen. I did notice that my Panasonic wireless home phone’s ring tone has changed to become more annoying, ringing continuously on the second ring, but I can live with that. We rarely receive phone calls anyway.

Addendum: 2017 May 22 A couple of weeks ago Bell upgraded my service to 300mbps, for free. I did not ask for it, nor do I need it, so I was pretty unconcerned about the change. Today I did some speed tests. The speed is now 345mbps download and 115mbps upload, significantly faster than the original 55 mbps download and 52 mbps upload. In reality I did not see one speck of difference in performance and my kids did not mention to me any difference in speed.

Here are my stats, wired rj45:

Bell Fibe 50, upgraded to 300mbps, wired, Toronto, Canada. I cannot tell any difference.

Bell Fibe 50, upgraded to 300mbps, Ookla test, wired, Toronto, Canada. I cannot tell any difference.

Here are my stats, wireless. The Hub 3000 router yields slower speeds.

Bell Fibe 50, upgraded to 300mbps, wireless, Toronto, Canada. I cannot tell any difference.

Bell Fibe 50, upgraded to 300mbps, Ookla test, wireless, Toronto, Canada. I cannot tell any difference.

Addendum: 2017 Sept 15 Contracted city workers came to dig up and lay new sidewalk. While my neighbour, who uses Rogers, had his internet cut, I, with Bell, did not. The Bell lines are much deeper than the Rogers lines. The Rogers lines are less than 6″ from the surface, while the Bell lines were at least 12-14″ below the surface.

Bell Fibe install in Ontario. 2017 Sept 15, a year after, contracted city workers replace the sidewalk. photo by Don Tai