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Getting fibre for your business

What to ask for

Dedicated fibre or business broadband?

PON or dedicated fibre?

Most fibre to homes and small businesses is a passive optical network (PON): one fibre from the provider is split, typically 32 or 64 ways, and everyone on the split shares its capacity. GPON carries 2.5 Gbps down and 1.25 Gbps up for the whole split; XGS-PON carries 10 Gbps each way. Dedicated fibre is a strand from the provider's equipment to your building alone: the capacity is yours, it's usually symmetric, and it comes with an SLA. A "gigabit fibre" plan can be either, so ask which.

copper (DSL) office or cabinet speed drops past ~2 km coax (cable) node shared by every home on it fibre (PON) splitter office shared at the splitter dedicated fibre office one strand, yours alone

Four rows, one per wire. Top: a copper line runs from the phone company's office or cabinet to a home and fades along its length; past about two kilometres, speed drops sharply. Second: one coax line runs from a neighbourhood node past several homes, each tapped off the same line, so they share it. Third: a PON fibre line runs from the provider's office through a splitter, which branches it to several premises that share it. Bottom: a dedicated fibre strand runs from the provider's office straight to one business building, with no splitter.

Four last-mile wires. DSL runs copper from the phone company's office or a roadside cabinet, and its speed drops with distance. Cable runs coax from a neighbourhood node, shared by every home on it. Most fibre is a passive optical network (PON): glass to the building, but split, often 32 or 64 ways, so everyone on the split shares it. Dedicated fibre is one strand from the provider's office to your building alone. Illustration

If an outage stops your business, price dedicated fibre.

One path out of town town: all offline fibre to every home cut city Two paths out town cut second path town stays online city

Two panels. Top, one path out: a town with fibre to every home has one backhaul line to the city; the line is cut, and the line and every home in town are shown faded, offline. Bottom, two paths out: the same town has two lines to the city; the straight one is cut and faded, and traffic runs over the second path instead, so the homes stay online.

The middle mile. With one path out of town, a single cut takes everyone offline, however good the fibre to each home. With a second path, traffic can take the other one. Illustration

Who to call

Start with your town's community page. The official map may show fibre no one will sell you (reading the government map).

Dark fibre and municipal networks

Dark fibre is glass with no equipment: you lease strands, often as an indefeasible right of use (IRU), and light them yourself. Municipal networks are fibre a city, town or utility owns. Brooks built a municipally owned open-access network that lets multiple providers sell service.

Dealing with the gatekeepers

This is our advice, from experience, not a rule.

  1. Know your building. "On-net" buildings are faster and cheaper to connect.
  2. Get past the first answer: ask business sales for a quote with build cost.
  3. Get everything in writing: speeds, SLA, install date, construction charges, term, automatic renewal and early-termination fees.
  4. Ask more than one provider. Competing quotes bring build charges down.
  5. Bring your neighbours. Five businesses on one street are a business case.
  6. Know the rules. Since the CRTC's 2024-180 decision, competitors can sell service over the phone company's existing fibre. It's still the same fibre (wholesale explained).
One wire, many brands Brand A Brand B Brand C incumbent the incumbent's line central handoff as few as 1 per province A B C each brand's network brings its own internet connection, support, billing

Four homes in a town, three of them buying from different brands A, B and C and one from the incumbent itself. All four connect to the same single incumbent line, which runs to one central handoff point. From the handoff, three separate lines lead to the networks of brands A, B and C.

Several brands sell service in town, but every home rides the incumbent's one line. With aggregated access, the incumbent carries all of it to a central handoff (as few as one per province), where each brand's own network takes over. Each brand supplies its own internet connection, support and billing. The CRTC calls this wholesale high-speed access (HSA), over DSL, fibre-to-the-node and fibre to the premises; on cable networks, third-party Internet access (TPIA). Illustration

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