Comparing ISPs

Telus Offerings Telus offers the Lite, Essentials and Elite business internet packages for $45.95, $65.95, and $85.95 respectively, and with advertised download/upload speeds of 6/1, 15/1, and 25/5. Although advertised, the Elite plan is not available in Trail due to the age of the Telus infrastructure.  Copper phone lines were meant to carry voice-grade analog signals and DSL performance is highly dependent upon line quality.  Shaw Offerings Shaw has more offerings with the Business Internet 5, 15, 25, 50, 50, 100, and 250 packages priced at $44.95, $56.95, $82.95, 104.95, $259.95, and $359.95 respectively.  Download/upload speeds are 5/0.5, 15/1, 25/2.5, 50/5, 100/5, and 250/15.  Broadband 250 is not available in the region. Shaw is doing upgrades in the region and the availability of the Broadband 50 and 100 packages is currently unknown.   What About Telus Fibre Optics? Telus is installing fibre optics in Trail to provide Optik television and internet services to residential customers. The Fibre network is what is known as a GPON, or Gigabit Passive Optical Network.  GPON is the most cost effective way for service providers to deploy fibre as one fibre is shared to service many customers.  By comparison, the Trail fibre is an AON, or Active Optical Network. PON –Passive Optical Network.    Unpowered optical splitters allow a single fibre to serve up to 128 customers. Telus is currently installing GPON (gigabit PON) to service 32 customers per fibre.  Each customer receives the same downstream television, voice and data with encryption at the terminal (ONT) to block channels and prevent eavesdropping. Upload speeds are usually much slower than download speeds as data can only travel in one direction at a time so uploads must wait to avoid network collisions. AON -Active Optical Network.  Powered equipment sends network traffic only to the customer it was intended for.  In the Trail fibre network the upload and download speeds will be the same speed, or symmetrical.