New Shaw Gateway Experience

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

I recommend having cat5e (or higher) ran everywhere you are putting a cable outlet. As more "Smart" Tv's come out and technology shifts away from hdmi to Ethernet you will be happy to have the accessibility all ready there.

I agree with this, I would also push for cat 6. You will get more life out of it, is Gigabit rated, and is almost the same price. If your guy gives you a jacked up price for cat 6, tell him to go to monoprice.com.

By the time cat 6 is too slow, wireless will have caught up. Even the new AC standard has hardware out this fall. If current indications are correct, you should be pretty close to cat 5e speed for everyday use. Just imagine 10 years out.

[Rathji]

5e is also Gigibit rated. If I recall correctly,and I often don't, the main difference for cat6 is that the twist of the pair is different (tighter, often with glue, done with various degrees of 'tightness') to reduce the influence of external interference. This also makes it a PITA to manually terminate.

That said, I would still get cat6 in a situation like this, as the extra cost would be minimal, and the potential for it making a difference is there.

Originally Posted by fundmark19

I recommend having cat5e (or higher) ran everywhere you are putting a cable outlet. As more "Smart" Tv's come out and technology shifts away from hdmi to Ethernet you will be happy to have the accessibility all ready there.

Always do 2+ runs, especially in a situation where there is the potential for several devices to connect. The extra cost is minimal as pulling up to 4 cables is roughly as hard as pulling 1 cable, not counting terminations.

[Save Us Sutter]

Anyone else have trouble trying to connect a TV to this thing wirelessly?

First time I tried it froze everything on my TV... took about 3 weeks for a repair guy to come, decide my television needed a new main board, order the part and then fix it.

So today I try to connect the wi-fi again and same thing happens. I call Toshiba, figuring this is a known issue with their TVs and getting pissed at the guy on the other end. He tells me to call my local repair guy again. I get them on the phone, tell them it happened again and this time she asks me "are you with shaw?"

Turns out their crap Cisco modem/router blocks up data lines on smart TVs. Panasonic, Toshiba, LG, Samsung... she said it happens all the time. Not sure where that info was a month ago, but I contacted Shaw and they are bringing me the SMC modem on Wednesday.

I have no complaint of the actual Gateway product... love it actually. But if Shaw is having this trouble with their modem they should do more to let people know. I was ready to demand a new TV from Toshiba! Never in a million years would I have suspected it was the router's fault.

Anyway, just posting in case anyone else is sitting around waiting for parts for their TV when all they need to do is call Shaw.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by Save Us Sutter

Anyone else have trouble trying to connect a TV to this thing wirelessly?

First time I tried it froze everything on my TV... took about 3 weeks for a repair guy to come, decide my television needed a new main board, order the part and then fix it.

So today I try to connect the wi-fi again and same thing happens. I call Toshiba, figuring this is a known issue with their TVs and getting pissed at the guy on the other end. He tells me to call my local repair guy again. I get them on the phone, tell them it happened again and this time she asks me "are you with shaw?"

Turns out their crap Cisco modem/router blocks up data lines on smart TVs. Panasonic, Toshiba, LG, Samsung... she said it happens all the time. Not sure where that info was a month ago, but I contacted Shaw and they are bringing me the SMC modem on Wednesday.

I have no complaint of the actual Gateway product... love it actually. But if Shaw is having this trouble with their modem they should do more to let people know. I was ready to demand a new TV from Toshiba! Never in a million years would I have suspected it was the router's fault.

Anyway, just posting in case anyone else is sitting around waiting for parts for their TV when all they need to do is call Shaw.

You see, the internet is like a series of tubes...

[GreatWhiteEbola]

LG TV here and I have no SmartTV connectivity issues with the Cisco router. Either with the wireless dongle or hard-wired.

[Save Us Sutter]

Originally Posted by fredr123

You see, the internet is like a series of tubes...

Ok... Be a dick because I don't know the ins and outs of shaw modems? All I did was repeat what the repair lady told me, in the hopes of maybe saving someone else the trouble I went through. That's how she explained it over the phone... Maybe there's a better way to articulate what is technically going on... But spare me the nerd elitism.

Some of us aren't obsessed with this stuff. We turn off our tvs and go outside instead of worrying about our CoD game streaming flawlessly even with 6 different episodes of Star Trek being recorded in HD.

Their router does something where it jams the TV and makes it unresponsive. It makes even a toshiba repair man think that there is a problem with the TV. People are spending time and money fixing the wrong problem and I hoped to cut down on that. The lady at Southland said they were seeing it with all different brands of smart TVs. I previously had Telus Optik and it was not an issue. It became and issue when I switched to Shaw Gateway, which is what this thread is about, no?

You wanna explain it better , that would be more helpful then your clever lesson on where internet comes from.

[Barnes]

Relax. He was making a reference to the US Senator Ted Stevens meme. Your modem/router problems are not related to the Gateway.

[Save Us Sutter]

Ugh. Too much Internet crap to keep track of these days.

I'm perfectly relaxed, just didn't understand...obviously. Seemed like he was making fun of my not-so-great way of explaining the problem. Hahaha... man, I really couldn't figure it out.

My apologies for not being up to date.

But the problems are related to the gateway service. Maybe not the Gateway itself, but they are 100% related to their crappy modem they installed with it.

[OldDutch]

Anyone else having to reboot their system at least once a week? Driving me nuts, I have it hidden down in the basement, because that it an advantage. Now I have to make a special trip just because I get "You do not subscribe.." message.

Honestly, how hard is this issue to fix? Their modems can run year without reboot, their TV a week. Arg.

[Rathji]

I had to reset my portal the first week I got it, nothing since then though. Been over a month.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

I have heard there will be a big firmware update starting April 1st. I didn't get any details, and that is just here say, so take it with a grain of salt...

[GWSurvey]

I heard differently.

April 12th supposidly is a gateway upgrade, and april 16th is the portal upgrade. Two stage upgrade.

[Old Yeller]

Any idea of what exactly is getting fixed in the new firmware upgrade?

[boosterjuice]

Any more reviews on the Gateway??

I'm currently on Bell Sat and am thinking about switching to Shaw. It will save me almost $100/month if I bundle all my services.

Have most of the bugs been worked out?

[GreatWhiteEbola]

I rid myself of the system 6 weeks ago, and I made a profit...

I liked it and I am going to get it again. For $100 a month savings, it's a no brainer.

[Rathji]

the biggest thing is getting used to the new UI compared to the old Shaw PVRs. The first week or so I was literally raging whenever I tried to do something. Once you learn the nuances, you realize that it is not nearly as bad as the old system.

I have had to powercycle my Gateway 2 times in the 3 months I have had the system. Once was in the first week I had it and the second time was a couple days ago. So not perfect, but not as bad as it could be I guess.

Overall I am very happy with it. A week after I got it, I was really pissed at the interface, as was wanting to return the whole thing.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

Originally Posted by Rathji

the biggest thing is getting used to the new UI compared to the old Shaw PVRs. The first week or so I was literally raging whenever I tried to do something. Once you learn the nuances, you realize that it is not nearly as bad as the old system.

I have had to powercycle my Gateway 2 times in the 3 months I have had the system. Once was in the first week I had it and the second time was a couple days ago. So not perfect, but not as bad as it could be I guess.

Overall I am very happy with it. A week after I got it, I was really pissed at the interface, as was wanting to return the whole thing.

I faced the same situation. There initially seems to be a steep learning curve, once I got familiar with the system it was a good experience.

[OilKiller]

I was ready to throw the damn thing out the window the other day...taking so long to respond to commands and then not responding at all. It seemed to get worse and worse until I was ready to blow up and toss it.

Then I remembered batteries die in remotes after a while...

[Mazrim]

I powercycle my PVR once a month to keep it from having errors. Probably not a bad idea for the gateway or any generic PVR really.

[boosterjuice]

ok, I'm going to get it. Thanks for the reviews. I'll let you know you how it turns out.