News   Dec 23, 2025
Happy Holidays From the UrbanToronto Team!
 188     2 
News   Dec 23, 2025
UrbanToronto Year-End Poll: Vote on the Best Buildings of 2025, presented by Diverso Energy
 414     0 
News   Dec 23, 2025
City Council December, 2025 Zoning Settlements: Large-Scale Housing, City-Wide Policy
 995     0 

Telephone wires in Toronto?

M

MetroMan

Senior Member
Member Bio
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
8,108
Reaction score
4,804
Location
Toronto
I'm doing some research on internet service providers and I noticed that Bell is phasing out their landlines. Their traditional home phone is now being run via their 3G service. You get an internet 3G modem and plug your existing home phone in to it. So no wiring is needed.

What does this mean for all the telephone posts and wires in Toronto? Are those wires for hydro or telephone or both?

Will we finally see Toronto free of telephone posts and wires simply by virtue of their obsolescence?
 
Telephone and cable is either underground or at the rear of properties (lanes when available). This move to wireless would have virtually no impact. Hydro is rebuilding as well though so theres a chance although I would say the TTC power lines, street lighting, and abandonment are the biggest culprits.
 
MetroMan said:
I'm doing some research on internet service providers and I noticed that Bell is phasing out their landlines.
Click to expand...

where did you hear this? that doesn't sound right.
 
This is what they're pushing to people who want to sign up for a new Bell phone and to existing customers who are signing up for internet:

turbo_hub.jpg

Turbo Hub


Download speed: up to 7.2 Mbps
Upload speed: up to 5.76 Mbps

^ That's 3G speeds. You plug your home phone into this to get a landline. Only $10 extra per month for unlimited local calling.

It makes sense. Why maintain a wired infrastructure alongside cell infrastructure when mobile is their main product and cell technology can accomplish both?

Thanks guys for the info on how the city is wired. I noticed on a walk just now that indeed the main streets have what appears to be hydro carrying wires. Back lanes do to have the wooden posts with thinner wires.
 
MetroMan said:
This is what they're pushing to people who want to sign up for a new Bell phone and to existing customers who are signing up for internet:

turbo_hub.jpg

Turbo Hub


Download speed: up to 7.2 Mbps
Upload speed: up to 5.76 Mbps

^ That's 3G speeds. You plug your home phone into this to get a landline. Only $10 extra per month for unlimited local calling.

It makes sense. Why maintain a wired infrastructure alongside cell infrastructure when mobile is their main product and cell technology can accomplish both?

Thanks guys for the info on how the city is wired. I noticed on a walk just now that indeed the main streets have what appears to be hydro carrying wires. Back lanes do to have the wooden posts with thinner wires.
Click to expand...

are you sure that's not what they are pushing you to sign up for? sales reps are notorious for giving wrong information. i don't see bell abandoning their line infrastructure anytime soon. maybe this solution was offered to you due to some limitations in your location?

also notice the up/down data speeds of that particular service. with landlines you can get up to 25mb/s down and 7mb/s up.
 
I live right downtown. I have landlines in my building, yet when I punched in my address, this was the only option that came up. Just early this year, Bell Sympatico over phone lines is what appeared.

For customers who require higher speed, they're offering Fibe, which is their fibre optics product. 4G speeds will catch up to current broadband in late 2011, early 2012. Nonetheless, 7mpbs is great for most people and the upload speeds are over 5 times than any phone line/cable solution.

Because the trend is for people to move to mobile computers (phones, laptops and iPad like devices), cable tethered solutions will soon phase out, unless you're a power user who requires over 30mpbs.
 
MetroMan, the wired infrastructure is NOT going anywhere.

Forget about the consumer for a second... think about the business. Serious businesses continue to have little confidence in the wireless medium for either their BAU or mission-critical applications, i.e. their "bread and butter".

In addition (coming back to the consumer), FIBE represents a major *new* investment by Bell in a long time. In fact, they're still in the process of rolling out FIBE to condo buildings (my building at NYCC was a "guinea pig" for the service last year; since it did so well, they're now installing it to all the other condos in this area) - why would you throw away a serious investment like that?

The future is not in pure mobile (at least, not the near future) - it's in multi-channel. We want to provide the customer maximum flexibility in accessing whatever they want from where-ever they are, at the maximum speed possible. At home, it's using the wired network. How else is netflix supposed to provide streaming high-definition movies on demand to their Canadian customer base (they're just starting up this year)? HD data rates will *kill* even a 4G network.


As an aside, I think we will see Toronto free of power/telephone poles (why not - Mississauga already is) but that will be due to modernizing the various forms of infrastructure we depend on such as power, cable, phone, streetlights, TTC-related, etc. Not due to a massive jump to 3G/4G.
 
MetroMan said:
I live right downtown. I have landlines in my building, yet when I punched in my address, this was the only option that came up. Just early this year, Bell Sympatico over phone lines is what appeared.

For customers who require higher speed, they're offering Fibe, which is their fibre optics product. 4G speeds will catch up to current broadband in late 2011, early 2012. Nonetheless, 7mpbs is great for most people and the upload speeds are over 5 times than any phone line/cable solution.

Because the trend is for people to move to mobile computers (phones, laptops and iPad like devices), cable tethered solutions will soon phase out, unless you're a power user who requires over 30mpbs.
Click to expand...

don't depend on the website to give you accurate information. also, the turbo hub only offers 5.76 Mbps upload. how can it be over 5 times what landline offers if you can get 7 Mbps upload speed on a bell landline?

tethered solutions aren't going anywhere. quebec city is currently being strung up with fiber optic cable to the home. i can't wait untill we get that here in toronto. what is refered to as fibe is fiber to the node.
 
Prometheus The Supremo said:
. also, the turbo hub only offers 5.76 Mbps upload. how can it be over 5 times what landline offers if you can get 7 Mbps upload speed on a bell landline?
Click to expand...

That's download. Maximum upload speed for all cable and phone line internet is 1Mbps. 3G and Fibre Optics are the new solutions that are finally offering faster upload.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top