Shaw Internet - Magical New Speeds and Lots-o-bandwidth, fickle geeks appeased

[Flacker]

Swapped out my modem and upgraded to Broadband 50 and am quite happy with it. Getting high 30 low 40 Mbit/sec consistently.

The SMC router/modem was easy to set up and I had no issues getting connected (Wireless/router disabled). My only complaint would be that the SMC device is rather large, I wish they still just had the DOCSIS 3 motorola modem available.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Originally Posted by kermitology

The Calgary server for speedtest.net is hosted by Platinum Communications and it's slow as molasses. Same thing with their service.. I was a customer of theirs until I got Shaw.

Yeah, Platinum consistently sucks ass on speedtest. Try using the Edmonton, Vancouver, or Seattle servers to get a good idea of what your speed is. Brandon used to be good, but the ping on it is super slow lately, and the dl speed is similarly slow.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

And Thneed - that's exactly what we did. Extreme with a static to Broadband 50 with the static included.

Getting 3-4 times faster downloads, and 5x faster uploads now for the same price.

It will be great for our field guys checking their email and logging in to our database. (we host everything ourselves)

Yeah, I was logging into Eastern Irrigation District Server, that was the problem.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

I stopped in at Shaw today and swapped my modem for the office. I asked about getting just the modem only (sans wifi) as we already have that taken care of, and she informed me that the Motorola modems are no longer available, and everyone gets the SMC combo modem/router. The can, however, disable the wifi at the account level so that it can be disabled from the get go.

The other small problem is that, because our office is already behind a VPN router/firewall, the modem's built-in router wants to hand out IP addresses, which is obviously a bit of a problem. Somehow, after doing a couple of power cycles and connecting my PC directly to it, it eventually started to act like a dumb switch instead of a router. Then I plugged my router back into it and life is good... and fast. Unfortunately I wasn't able to log into the modem/router throughout all of this despite trying, so whether or not I'll be able to tweak any settings on it if I need/want to remains to be seen. I prefer my modem to be just that, and leave the routing to my router.

I'm in the calback queue with Shaw right now as I need to get my old Static IP address back (hopefully), but other than that, things seem to be working properly.

I called in to upgrade our service at the office today and he had no problems when I insisted we has the Docsis3 modem.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I called in to upgrade our service at the office today and he had no problems when I insisted we has the Docsis3 modem.

Interesting. Are you picking it up or having it delivered? The girl at the Macleod Trail location was where I got that info - maybe just that location is out?

Regardless, the SMC version seems to be doing the job nicely, especially after I allowed it a bit of time to boot up, get acquainted with its new surroundings, etc.

[La Flames Fan]

SUPER POWER POSTING !!11!!!!1

Picked the modem up at Shaw on McLeod today, love the speed. Absolutely LOVE it. What to do with my Time Machine now? External drive I guess.

Named my network BILLYMAYSHERE.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Interesting. Are you picking it up or having it delivered? The girl at the Macleod Trail location was where I got that info - maybe just that location is out?

Regardless, the SMC version seems to be doing the job nicely, especially after I allowed it a bit of time to boot up, get acquainted with its new surroundings, etc.

It is being installed Monday midday, so maybe the guy on the phone was misinformed. Either way, I am sure it will be fine.

[eyipyip]

Has anyone test out the Wifi function of the router/modem yet? How's the speed and signal? Thinking to remove my wireless router in between the PC and SMC modem to make my wired connection faster.

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by Russic

Damn, that'll be the boat I'm in then. Pretty sure my promo runs until September as well.

Me too, and also September, but I have such a sweet deal I can't really complain. Makes me wonder if we all have student promos.

[Jimmy Stang]

Semi-related question to the group: Do you use Shaw's DNS servers, or a different one? If so, which one? Do you do so on a per-PC basis, or at the router level?

The reason I ask, even though I upgraded the office's internet yesterday, I have a colleague complaining that sites are taking too long to load. Upon further inspection, it seems to be taking a long time while "looking up" pages. Switching her DNS to Google or Open DNS improved things somewhat, but it still seems that her PC is slower to look up pages than mine, even though I'm still on Shaw's default DNS servers.

[Rathji]

I assume you tried to flush the dns cache as part of the procedure?

Other than that, the only suggestions I have involve tweaking your DNS server, which I am guessing you dont have.

[Jimmy Stang]

I did try the flushing, to no avail, but I downloaded a free DNS benchmark tool (http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm), and it found that Shaw's DNS were by far the fastest to respond (compared with Google, Open DNS, 4.2.2.x, etc.). I think the problem is when the router acts as a DNS server, it drops to near the bottom of the list in terms of performance, so that's likely the source of my lag.

I think that I'll change each PCs network settings to hit the Shaw DNS directly instead of using the router as a middleman and see if that helps.

[Rathji]

You have DNS forwarders in the routers DNS? if so, verify they are right.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Rathji

You have DNS forwarders in the routers DNS? if so, verify they are right.

Yep - they're pointing to Shaw's DNS servers, but at much poorer performance. After setting each PC's settings to include Shaw's DNS servers, things do indeed seem faster, and the complaining party has stopped complaining. It looks like the router was doing the job, just poorly.

Thanks for the troubleshooting!

[The Yen Man]

I'm pretty excited actually to get hooked up with Broadband 50 this weekend. Considering I've just been using Shaw's high speed since around 1997, the speed increase will hopefully be a huge jump up for me.

[ZedMan]

Wow unlimited lite is a ripoff. Even if you downloaded 24/7 at max speed you wouldn't top 400gB in a month.

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by ZedMan

Wow unlimited lite is a ripoff. Even if you downloaded 24/7 at max speed you wouldn't top 400gB in a month.

Yeah when you break it down at top speed 1mbit/s which you probably wont get.

360MB/hour
8.64GB/day
259.2GB/month

gross

I prefer Unlimited 100

600MB/minute
36GB/hour
864GB/day
25.9TB/month

I cant believe I did the math on the second numbers instead of just moving the decimal point. IRDUMB

[Aegypticus]

I got my BB 50 activated today with that SMC monstrosity (I honestly think it's greater in volume than the Shaw phone modem with the battery backup). The guy that brought it knew absolutely nothing about it and neglected to tell me that all the routing features were disabled by default so I spent 45 minutes attempting to log in to the administrator account, connect to the wireless, and just generally trying to get it to do anything before giving up. Glad I checked this thread before sitting on hold with tech support.

Can anyone say for certain that, when compared straight across acting as just a modem, this SMC unit is inferior to the alternative? If so, in what ways is it worse? Does the routing circuitry add any extra latency? Although I went from regular high speed to BB 50, my pings to various gaming servers across multiple games seems noticeably worse, and my computer is currently hooked directly to the modem.

When he showed me that SMC unit my initial reaction was anger, but if it's equal in performance then I can live with it.

[photon]

Not sure, I didn't notice any difference in pings in TF2 with my regular servers wtih the SMC acting just as a modem.

[Aegypticus]

I spoke too soon. I disconnected my computer from the modem and hooked my router up to it as if the SMC unit was just a modem. Cannot get an internet connection no matter what port I plug it in to and I don't have time to call tech support now. This is opinion now, but I'm not surprised. Every time Shaw offers me something nice, they #### it up in some way so they lose all the goodwill they earned in the first place.