Looking for a SIMPLE Overview of how TELUS Purefibre is run inside your house

[DK-YYC]

In our neighbourhood, TELUS ran fibreoptic overhead to our house. What is frustrating is that TELUS is not able to describe, even in a simple fashion how the fibre connection is run within the house. All I'm told is to make an appointment and the technician will sort it out. I would like to understand a little bit about the process beforehand. The house was built in 1997 and has copper connections (I believe) with a termination strip in the basement near the electrical panel. The basement was developed and wired in the 2013 - 2014 timeframe.

My general questions are:

1)  How does the connection run in the house? I hear of something called an Optical Network Terminal (ONT). Where is this installed?

2)  Does new cable need to be pulled to the location in the house where the router is to be installed? We have a basement home office which isn't that far away but is on the opposite side of the house. If there is CAT 5 cable from the panel to the basement home office is that good enough?

3)  If one goes with TELUS TV as an add on to Purefibre are the connections wireless or can other connections such as coaxial be used or CAT 5.

It would be really helpful if TELUS had some type of document that gave some basic understanding and details on how wiring is done in the house. I know every situation is unique but some high level direction would be great.

Thanks for any input!

[DK-YYC]

One other comment; are the home phone lines left on copper or is this converted also?

[Nighthawk · Accepted solution]

If the aerial fibre line has been run to the house, basically the installer will just install a fibre terminal box and a small hole is drilled to get the line inside. Once inside what happens can vary from house to house. There is no guiide or document out there that will be able to explain every possible scenario for installation.

Many cases the ONT is installed right where the fibre line comes in, and there is a power source for the ONT. From there the gateway/router is connected via ethernet. Sometimes next to the ONT, and sometimes elsewhere in the home depending on the wiring.

In some installs they are installing a Telus Hub gateway in place of the ONT. It's basically a standard router with a fibre connection. If you have existing ethernet, that will definitely be used since it's just plug and play. If rare cases if there is a need to hardwire something elsewhere in the house and coax is available, it can be used.

The wiring inside the house itself is the homeowner's responsibility. Telus does not own the lines inside the house with the exception of the fibre that would come in. Installers will try to get everything working within reason.

Phone lines may be left as copper but eventually they will be switched to fibre as the copper network is slowly being retired.