Fibre optics apartment complex

[Marg5]

Hi, hoping someone can provide some guidance.

My mom who lives in an apartment complex was recently told she would need to switch to fibre optics or lose connection.

The tech has come out 3 times now for various different issues he didn’t realise he needed to do and the problem was not found until he left.

I have a some questions I hope someone can help with:

1. She now has 2 white boxes and 1 black one attached to her wall. Is this normal?

2. She’s been told she can no longer have her home phone connected to her intercom to let people in and she has to connect her cell phone. Is there no option to continue using her home phone? Cell phone is not a great option for her for various reasons.

Thanks.

[Nighthawk]

Eventually all copper lines will be taken out of service, removed, and people will need to switch to fibre. 

1. Depending on her setup and plan, yes that is one possible hardware combination.

2. It's really going to depend on the type of intercom in the building. If your mother has home phone over fibre and the intercom is the type that dials a number when someone buzzes, it should still work as it did before.

[Marg5]

Thanks Nighthawk.

The intercom is one that dials a phone number.

I’m not very tech savvy, when you say that the home phone is over fibre optics, does it need to be a special phone that is specifically for fibre optics?

Thanks.

[Nighthawk · Accepted solution]

Telus would have to have a tech switch over the landline to be over fibre. I had it done at my place some time ago. The one white box with the lights on it should have two standard RJ11 phone jacks on the back. Either the whole house would be wired into one of them, or your mother's existing regular phone would be.

For me it was the latter since I have a multi-handset cordless phone with a single base station connected to the ONT/white box with lights. The only thing I did add was an UPS battery backup for the white box, the black box, and my cordless phone. Specifically this UPS. So far on the rare occasions that I've lost power, the phone stayed working, as did my internet.