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Achieving optimal upload, and download speed from your TELUS connection

DrPacman
Rockstar

 

After much research into this matter, I would like to offer my 2 cents worth on achieving the optimal Up/Dl speeds with the various currently offered packages, and hardware from TELUS.

 

The main questions that I’ll try to answer here are the following:

  1. Will the Actiontec T3200M support a 1.0 Gbps connection
  2. Will the Actiontec T3200M support 1.5 Gbps connections
  3. Will the Actiontec T3200M support a single connection at 1.5 Gbps
  4. What do I have to change/upgrade to get a single 1.5 Gbps connection
  5. What do I require to support a 2.5 Gbps connection or faster

I’ll only address the 1.0 Gbps fibre connection, and 1.5 Gbps connections with a smattering of the hardware needed to support the 2.5 Gbps, and faster offering that may come down the pipe.

 

As well this discussion will not address Wi-Fi speed issues, only hardwired fibre connections.

 

Currently the majority of the 1.0 Gbps installations utilize the Actiontec T3200M a GPON fibre connection. (Gigabit Passive Optical Network).  For the average users this is a very well supported connection and installation type. Historically you should see a greater than 920 Mbps data transfer rate both up and down connection utilizing gigabit network cards and switches throughout your setup. TELUS claims the maximum throughput of 940Mbps symmetrically up, and down.

 

DrPacman_0-1683998581523.png

 

There are as well aa number of installations that utilize what has been referred to as the Trashcan router supplied by TELUS. I will not discuss that device as I have little experience with it. However, like the T3200M, the 1Gbps connection is fully supported on this device.

 

DrPacman_1-1683998630188.png

 

The 1.5 Gbps is as well supported on these devices. However, not in way you may think.

 

As the T3200M LAN ports (Yellow) support 1.0 Gbps connections, the fastest single connection to your hardware will be limited to that 1.0 Gbps connection. However, the trick, and key to TELUS’s thinking is that if you have multiple devices connected to your network, then, the aggregate downloads can achieve up to the advertised 1.5 Gbps download speeds utilizing these devices.

 

I would argue that most people paying for the 1.5Gbps service have it in their minds that without doing any upgrades to there own equipment they should just be able to plug it all in and off you go working correctly.

 

That scenario is just not the case. Think of it this way. You have a 2” waterline feeding your home. All the pluming throughout your home is 1” piping. You turn on the tap and get great water flow. However, there is no way you can achieve the same flow as if you had a 2” line to your endpoint. Now you can turn on multiple taps throughout the house and achieve the aggregated flow of what would be the 2” waterline, but it takes multiple streams to achieve the maximum flow.

 

To achieve the maximum flow, you would have to upgrade your pluming to 2” piping throughout your home everywhere.

 

This is the same case as the 1.5Gbps offering from TELUS. So, what is the solution for achieving a single 1.5Gbps connection? Enter the device known as the “NAH” more technically known as the Arcadyan NH20A, or the Technicolor FXA5000 virtually the same device for all examples here.

 

DrPacman_2-1683998720262.png

 

This is the future rollout device for consumer residential installations by TELUS for the foreseeable time frame.

This device not only supports a 1.0Gbps TELUS connection, it will also support the 1.5Gbps connection, and will be utilized for the 2.5Gbps connections as well.

 

In fact, this device is capable of supporting up to a 10Gbps internet connection for futureproofing TELUS envisioned upgrades.

 

So, how does this address my issues of getting the full throughput of what I’m expecting. Again, lets go back to the waterpipe theory. This device has a 10Gbps LAN port that you can connect to your network at home so long as the rest of your equipment in your environment support faster speeds, these devices are capable of feeding them.

 

You’ll need a computer with a network card capable of the fastest connection you want to achieve, and if you have multiple devices on your network, all of them will have to support the fastest speed you want to achieve including thing such as switches, Nic’s, etc. Enter some of the upgrades you’ll have to install to get the maximum single connection for any tier of internet you have.

 

DrPacman_4-1683998809134.png

 

DrPacman_5-1683998836111.png

 

Now let’s take a brief look at the 2.5Gbps internet connection, and even faster future developments.

 

Enter what’s known as the XGS-PON technology. This is the future for TELUS, at least at this time.

 

10G-PON (also known as XG-PON or G.987) is a 2010 computer networking standard for data links, capable of delivering shared Internet access rates up to 10 Gbit/s. XGS-PON is a related technology that can deliver upstream and downstream (symmetrical) speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s (gigabits per second), first approved in 2016 as G.9807.1.

 

Again, the above noted NAH devices will support the XGS-PON right up to and including 10Gbps internet offering from TELUS (in the future). Slight modification of installed hardware to support this. However, I understand that TELUS is rolling out these upgrades already in most new installation of any 1.0Gbps internet or faster deployments.

 

Again, I hate to be redundant, but everything in one’s network must be able to match the fastest speed you want to achieve. The slowest device, or link will always be the limiting factor here.

 

If you made it this far. Thank you indulging my ramblings…. Cheers

14 REPLIES 14

dru
Community Manager
Community Manager

This is an incredible write-up. Thank you for sharing!

Thank You... Cheers...

"Trashcan router supplied by TELUS. I will not discuss that device as I have little experience with it."

 

Trashcan is a good place for it......it is the reason why "downloading the Windows Speedtest App" is the only way to get accurate throughput numbers for your connection.

It institutes an oppressive QoS scheme that limits internal network speeds for Windows Home to about 45 mb/sec on my network.  No way to do anything about it now that MS have decoupled QoS from policies in Win10 home.  Transfer speeds among my *inux devices remains 100+ mb/sec which I found while trying to figure out why everything was so slow.  Basically its "load balancing by limiting network speeds of QoS capable devices"  and not intelligent balancing by traffic load, heavy handed "you don't need to go faster than X" oppressive balancing.

IE: even with a single Windows computer with QoS attached - your 1 Gb internet connection turns into 45 mb/sec.....

I'm satisfied with the white trashcan router or "Hub" as Telus calls it, made by Arcadyan, and it works fine for me.  Getting about 175 Mbps up/down on a ethernet connection or Wi-fi.  Using an iPad 7 or 9 or iPhone 8 on WiFi, or wired connection to a 2011 Mac Mini, Telus PVR, 2 Sony TVs, and 2 Apple TV 4K boxes.  Usually only using 2 or 3 devices at once, single person household, only use about 200 GB data per month.

 

The Hub is in the centre of my house in a ground floor closet and is connected there direct to fibre. The Telus technician was OK with letting me get dirty pulling the fibre cable 50 feet in from the garage through the house crawl space to the closet (Telus techs don't like or may not be allowed to go into dusty dark places, but I don't mind).  

 

A Telus PVR and secondary non-PVR box for TVs are connected and one is running all day.  There are two 1Gbps ethernet switches connected to the Hub and located in 2 rooms where various devices are connected.  I would be interested in trying 1 Gbps from Telus but 180 Mbps is all I need for now.

Seeing how the device itself is designed to handle the 1.5+Gb speeds (and thats where people have issues) I'd say your experience running the device at .18gb speeds isn't representational. Based on the speeds you're getting, a router from 2012 would give you similar service. 

No doubt the white Telus Hub aka Arcadyan can deliver a lot more speed than my 175 Mbps.  My Telus account is what limits me to that speed. 

Omegabyte
Just Moved In
Thank you! I couldn't understand why my current setup with T3200M didn't work in the way I thought it should. Sadly, Telus wants to charge me $350 for the NH20A and "trashcan".

I'm trying to set up home automation + NAS + HomeLab in my apartment. It was pre-wired with fibre to the box in the closet, and the last Telus tech put the T3200M in the living room via the Ethernet wall jack connected to the closet wiring box. It seems like my best option is to put my router/firewall box in the closet with a managed switch, then hook up all the Ethernet jacks in the place. Am I headed the right direction?

Wellstv
Neighbour

I have fibre 75 and it’s the crappiest service, the dang is always slow! I get an 11-19 mbps on this crappy service

am I doing something wrong or is Telus this consistently crappy?

Darren_P
Organizer
I recently upgraded to Telus PureFibre 3G. The T3200M was replaced with the "White Trash Can". The installer had me do a speed test with my phone and got 650 Mbps connected to the WiFi 6 network. Technician said that was the expected speed.
I did a speed test with my computer, that has a 2.5Gb network card. I got over 900 mbps. The Technician said that was normal.
After the Technician left, I checked the cabling and found that the WiFi 6 "Trash Can" was connected to the 10Gb port and my computer was connected to the 1Gb port. I can see this making sense in an installation that is mostly wireless, but I prefer wired connections. I swapped the ports and now I consistently get just over 2300Mbps, up and down.
After that I replaced the network cables with new Cat 8 ones.

YYJMSP
Organizer

We ordered an upgrade to 3G service back in Oct 2023.  It's been nothing but a nightmare over the last 4 months trying to get this service.

 

We have repeatedly had techs not show up, techs show up on the wrong day, tech swap out all of the equipment after saying it's all wrong and the previous tech didn't know what he was doing, techs saying the other side of our connection wasn't plugged into a 3G capable port, techs saying the back office hadn't provisioned us on the right 3G profile, etc

 

During this period, we had 4-6 weeks of 450/60 throughput, nowhere near the 1.5G that we previously had or the 3G we had upgraded to.

 

Now, we are seeing 1050/950 throughput, still nowhere near the 2300/2300 the previous poster sees or the 3000/3000 we are expected.

 

We have a number of support tickets outstanding to deal with the speed, billing issues (instead of upgrading our existing account, they opened a new account so we have months of double-billing!), no-show service call fees where we are being charged when it was the tech who didn't show up, etc.

 

We're hanging on because the bundled 3G package price ends up being the same as what we were paying for 1.5G service, so we're not losing any monies, but we aren't getting what we ordered.

 

We have the Nokia ONT with their cable between it's 10G port and our 10Gbps switch, and our 10Gbps equipment connected to that.  We have tried plugging our 10Gbps equipment directly into the 10G port on the ONT.  Everything is showing a 10Gbps link, just not the expected 3G throughput.  Any ideas on what we can try while we wait for them to respond to our latest tickets and send out yet another tech?

 

Nighthawk
Community Power User
Community Power User

Nokia ONTs don't have 10G ports on them. Are you sure you don't have a different device there? Do you possibly have the Arcadyan NH20A or the Technicolor FXA5000? They're the white square ones.


If you find a post useful, please give the author a "Like" or mark as an accepted solution if it solves your trouble. 🙂

Black rectangular box says "Nokia" on the front. Back says model is XS-250X-A.  Definitely a 10G port...

I just ran a speed test and here are the results:

15891992581.png

I checked and found the following.

System Info (1).jpgTransceiver.jpgPorts.jpg

Any idea how to login to the Nokia ONT that's in bridged mode?