I pay for 150 Mbps. Really, Shaw?
imgur.com/gallery/yTozoPosted Apr 3, 2018, 3:44 AM UTC · locked
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imgur.com
Post a speed test from a wired pc or gtfo
13
So do I, and i'm currently pulling down 156 mbps. (full disclosure, I'm also an employee)
If you're in a big building, you can call in to tech support and ask them to help you change your channel, which might bypass some of the noise and help you get closer to your 150.im also in a big apartment building, and everybody here is on Shaw. So if all your modems are on the same channel, that can cause grief.
Also, your phone might be throttling your speed since it's nearly dead.
But I know that we try our best to overprovision. Give em a call and they'll try their best to get you up to your actual service level.
7
I did this with chat support on Thursday afternoon last week. Took about an hour to try all the different channels for both 2.4Ghz/5.0Ghz, but ended up tripling my effective speeds on all of my devices fortunately. Went from 25-30Mbps blips throughout the day to 80-110Mbps on them.
6
Glad that worked for you.
Telus will go around telling people that it's 'congestion'. Truth is, we fixed most of our congestion ages ago... Wifi noise is a different issue though.
In an apartment like mine with 50 wifi routers all screaming into the same frequencies it's gonna get messy. Doesn't matter of your packets are coming to the modem via cable, fiber or hand delivered by half naked women (or men), once your modem starts spewing em into the air they are at the mercy of whatever diety is in charge of that stuff.
I always ask people to test a wired device... 99 times out of a hundred the wired device is getting 150, which helps us to figure out the wifi channel needs to be changed.it almost always fixes the issue.
4
I recently signed up for Can-Com, a Shaw reseller. They offer the 150/15 plan at $70/month, no contract which is pretty awesome. However since they are a reseller, I am running on Shaw's infrastructure and I've been having issues all day today, and over the last few weeks that are super strange.
Basically my internet becomes slow to the point of unusability, can't watch youtube, can't watch any streaming video, webpages take forever, etc. However while this is happening if I go to speedtest.net, I get blazing fast results of 175+ download, and 15+ upload. If I use testmy.net, which seems to be more reliable, I can download 10% of a 3.0MB file, before the download just stops and nothing happens.
HOWEVER if I connect to my VPN, everything works completely fine. I can watch youtube, twitch, netflix etc. but strangely, my speedtest.net results DROP by 10Mbps down and 1-2Mbps up. On testmy.net it works fine and I get around 110Mbps down/8Mbps up.
I have no idea what is causing this, calling the Can-Com support they said it is because Shaw is currently upgrading infrastructure so there can be slowdowns. I could see going from like... 150 to say, 120 or so, but going from 150 to <1.0Mbps, that doesn't make sense. And WHY do my problems suddenly disappear when I connect to a VPN.
My theory is Shaw is throttling users who get their internet from resellers, but who knows. They say they don't do that but I reallllly don't trust any of the telecom companies.
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The resellers only use part of Shaw's network, at some point they have their own you'll be on. Some of them have really low capacity, which would explain your issue.
4
Does it really explain it? Just seems strange that a VPN would fix it. If I'm getting a certain amount of data through a low capacity network, and it takes forever to get through, why would a VPN fix it? I'm still getting the same amount of data through the same network, except now I get it faster.
4
It might be that the reseller is not using Shaws DNS server which is faster but you are using their own DNS server. (A DNS server is what turns the text you enter into an actual server address. Eg. Google.com=167.384.160.135) So if their DNS server is crappy then websites will take a really long time to load and everything on them will take a long time to load but when you test the actual speed it will be 150 Mbps. The VPN fixes that because it is using its own faster DNS server.
1
I guess I'm one of the few that gets excellent speeds and service consistently. I'm in an old ass apartment in Vic West and I have 150/15, but I'm usually at 170-190 down and steady 15 up with a wired connection.
6
Luckier than the rest of us!
0
That's probably completely down to your WiFi, and possibly your router.
For comparison, I ran the test three times on different network connections in my home -- on 802.11n, 802.11ac, and directly wired (cat 6 from computer to switch, switch to router, and router to modem), on a (grandfathered) Shaw 100 plan:
Notes:
- Modem is in bridge mode. I run my own router.
- The router runs the 802.11ac wireless network.
- A secondary router, wired to the first, runs the 802.11n portion of the network from a different room and floor. Much of the wiring is in-wall cat 5e, but there is a 2000gbps power line segment between the floors.
- Each test was done in the same room as the relevant router.
- The tests were run three times each, with a representative sample chosen for the screenshot.
As you can see, wireless network conditions are everything. Being wired by high quality cat 6 with proper gigabit routers/switches is important. Testing on a wireless network with a cellphone is not a good way to test your connection speed (note that while I'm on a 100 plan, I actually get 120mbps on the wired connection).
5
Bridge mode is outstanding. ISP supplied modem/router combos aren't known for being good. A proper dedicated router will go a long way, BUT the OP is then going to be responsible for their own troubleshooting regarding any issues that may arise.
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Sure -- but with a good router/access point that isn't terribly difficult to do. For the most part, you set them up once and then forget about them, and let them silently do their thing.
1
I have Lightspeed, on 75mbps I get anywhere from 5mbps to close to the max, but usually not.
Oh they also never respond to emails and their phone number doesn't work a lot of the time, so yeah.
3
I used to be an employee as a TSR here in vic and half my calls were speedtest calls. I'm not defending them because seriously, their management sucks. But, I do have to say people are really quick to blame shaw for their "slow internet" when it's their own fault.
Are you doing your troubleshooting? Checking with a wired connection? You're using an iphone so have you restarted your iphone or powercycled your router? (hint: every router can slow down eventually. Powercycling should be your first thing to do)
Are you using the correct wifi connection? 5GHz seems to be less congested than regular 2.4GHz. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING uses 2.4GHz so congestion/interference will cause slowdown. That, and also you won't get your full 150mbps speed with 2.4GHz, anyway.
The saturation issue(s) have been corrected largely so thank goodness for that, but I suspect you're not troubleshooting enough to figure out what the cause is.
3
It's UP TO 150 mbps.
3
Boom! Marketing department wins with this....
2
Yep, I know.
I lived on Quadra street before (for 7 years) with a wired connection, and never got above 60% of the advertised speed. I’m not expecting a big boost when we try the wired connection tomorrow.
0
Getting about 90 on my supposed 150mpbs plan, laptop's about fifteen feet away from the router.
Not too antsy about being faster than this. I mean, I'm not calculating orbital decay rates or anything.
3
It's very likely either a router/receiver/software problem rather than an issue with Shaw itself. The only time I haven't got at least 150 Mbps down was after the Windows 10 Anniversary update. For whatever reason it messed up a lot of the common wireless adapters (specifically ASUS USB, but lots of laptop adapters affected also), but after a quick manual driver update I'm back to >150 Mbps.
3
If you're not locked into a contract, look up TekSavvy. Same lines, just more accountable... and cheaper.
2
I pay 50.90 for 70 from Lightspeed and I usually get it, sometimes 10 MB/s.
Tonight though, I can't get past 200kb/s, something is messed up
2
There's a thread on the Vancouver Sun reddit about lightspeed being ducky tonight. I phoned them and they confirmed a massive outage
3
Also a Lightspeed customer, I was wondering why our speeds were a joke. Thanks for the info.
3
Thanks for the heads up, couldn't find the map that one poster mentioned but Shaw's website says no outages
2
Do you have access to a VPN? I posted a comment above, but I am also on a reseller and lately I have been having crazy slowdowns except on speedtest I will always get insane speeds of 175/16, but one tab over I can't watch a youtube video. But if I connect to my VPN, all of the problems disappear and everything works normally. I wonder if Shaw is throttling resellers and somehow the VPN allows you to circumvent that.
2
I was wondering that too but my VPN doesn't make it any better.
2
Weird, well good luck! I actually just checked and it turns out telus fibre is on my street, so signed up to be connected in a few weeks, hopefully that will fix my issues.
2
They were down early for me, had been okay the last hour or so.
2
Yeah I usually get 10MB/s on Steam but right now it starts at 300kbs when downloading something and within a minute it drops down to nothing and stops. They just charged my credit card today so I'm gonna try calling them tomorrow I guess
2
Good luck with that.
1
I pay for Telus 100 and usually test around 103. No complaints about the speed
2
Your actual speed depends on many different variables such as the modem/router, your geographic area, and your neighbours who may be transmitting data through a specific frequency.
2
I have had 150 for about a year now. Started out great. Past couple months it’s been notably slower here in oak bay. This past couple weeks it has been horrible with minutes at a time of downtime. Tough to get cloud based work done.
I have reset modem a few times and called call center twice but hung up after 20 min of waiting. Talked to my Neigbor. He having the same issues and is going to switch to Telus fiber. My bundle contract up next month and thinkin of switching over too.
2
I pay for 150 as well and rarely see over 50 while plugged in. Right now is 43.
1
call and get it sorted. This is not normal.
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Yup. Normal download on the 150 plan is 170-180 Mbps.
2
There should be some kind of disclaimer before people can post to this subreddit about using wired speed tests. you could have google fiber (the dream) and still have shit speeds if you use wireless. it also localizes the problem real fast if you have poor wireless but great wired. troubleshooting 101.
*Edit, shit I thought it was the shaw subreddit, nvm
1
Yes, yes, and yes. Thanks. My wife is bringing her laptop from tomorrow so we can test a wired connection.
1
No ranting allowed, thanks.
1
That's just the limitation of your WiFi. Try a speed test on a wired PC.
https://i.imgur.com/cmdfWu2.png
Here is my N 2.4ghz VS AC 5ghz speed test
My router: https://www.linksys.com/ca/p/P-EA6900/
Or get an AC1900 router (or faster).
And make sure you're using a good quality gig cable.
And the hard drive you're writing to isn't a POS.