Shaw Broadband 50 not up to speed

[Buzzard]

I just rejigged our Shaw services and in the process ended up getting broadband 50 internet in the deal for a better price than slower speed (High Speed - 7.5) before. It's a slight bit faster it seems with just casual surfing and whatnot, but any speed tests I take only max out at around 19-20 mbps. I spent a half hour or so going over it with a Shaw tech but he couldn't figure out why the slow speed so he's sending over a tech, but not until Sunday.

Anyhow I'm just wondering if anyone has an idea why I'm not getting faster speed on Speedtest.net, etc. I know a lot of you probably know more about this stuff than the techs themselves and was hoping maybe I could get things up to snuff without waiting till Sunday. Thanks for any help/suggestions.

[sclitheroe]

Are you on wired or wireless when running these tests?

Are you using their router or your own? If it's theirs, which model? The SMC or the Cisco?

[Rathji]

Assuming you are testing a wired connection, and bypassing your router gives you the same degraded speed, then the best guess is that either your building wiring is bad or your signal noise ratio is off. SNR being off is reasonably common when you tweak services, at least from my observations.

The tech will almost certainly check the SNR when he comes, but there isn't really any way you can fix it before he arrives. Although I seem to recall you can check your SNR by using some funky browser magic, but I am probably out to lunch.

[photon]

Which speedtest.net site are you using? The results vary wildly depending on which one you choose.

I just tried my 100Mbit on the 3 from Seattle and got ratings of 40Mbit, 68Mbit, and 83Mbit.

But it's not impossible to have a poor connection somewhere which can drag things down.

[Rathji]

As Photon mentioned, if you use the default speedtest.net site in Calgary it is usually Platinum Communications, which in no way can support anything higher than 20-25Mb/s. Try the Shaw speed test (http://speedtest.shaw.ca/) to rule out a problem with the speedtest server.

[Buzzard]

Cisco DPC3825.

I tried the tests wired and wireless with the desktop. Also wireless with a separate laptop. All tests were consistently well below 20 mbps.

[Buzzard]

Yeah I've tried all kinds. Speakeasy, Speedtest, Shaw, etc. All pretty consistently the same. I just did the three Seattle servers on Speedtest...13.90, 13.90, and 12.94

[Eagle Eye]

I am seeing the same thing at my house, between 10 and 17 mbs (just got the new modem on the weekend). I am also having a problem with my wireless speeds (only showing 2-3 mbs), my old modem and wireless router worked better.

Any reasons why this may be?

This is the cisco modem with built in wireless router.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Some areas of the city simply have node saturation, which means you won't get advertised speeds. Shaw doesn't seem to GAF either -- I ran into this same problem when I tried going to BB100 from BB50. BB100 was giving me slower speeds, BB50 runs fine for me. So it can be dependent on your area of the city, too. Try calling them (haha) to see if they know about node saturation in your area. They may suggest a service call, but if you've been as diligent in your speed testing as you say, the service call won't accomplish anything.

The only other thing I can think of is testing during off peak times to see if you get better speeds then. The advertised speed is always "up to", and almost never represents the continuous speed you should expect.

Try the Brooks server on speedtest, it is often good at giving an accurate response. I've also had good luck with Winnipeg and with SmugMug in San Jose. Just got 50, 45 and 36 with those three, respectively on my wireless connection.

[3 Justin 3]

You guys are bitching about 20mbps downloads? I barely get 7 if I'm lucky. Shaw is bending me over.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

Wireless: 27.33Mbps
Wired: 32.00Mbps

SpeakEasy Seattle
Cisco wireless router/modem
Broadband 50
Kingsland

[Buzzard]

Yeah.

Looks like a common theme going on here. Digitalhome.ca seems to suggest it's more common than not.

http://digitalhome.ca/forum/showthre...136374&page=10

Well, I'll see what the tech comes up with on Sunday I guess. If it's not satisfactory for me they can belt sand. I'll either be paying less, or moving on.

Not good enough Shaw. Fix it.

[photon]

Yeah the one time I had consistently bad speeds was when the node where I was was saturated, and they even gave me an approximate date as to when it was being upgraded.. sure enough a few days after that date my speeds shot up.

This was way back though.

[Buzzard]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

You guys are bitching about 20mbps downloads? I barely get 7 if I'm lucky. Shaw is bending me over.

I'm not bitching about 20mbps speed.

I'm bitching because I'm now paying for something that I'm not getting. I did a speednet test on Dec 28 and got 11mbps when I was on the 7.5mbps (High Speed) plan. I'm barely past that now on a plan that supposed to be 6x faster.

[OzSome]

how old is your place? My house was built in 1989 and the old cable from my house to the box had to be replaced. My internet was slow before they replaced the cable and sometimesI lose connection and my digital TV actually will freeze up once in awhile too. Once my cable got replaced, i see a huge difference between my Internet connections and my Digital TV.

[Buzzard]

Originally Posted by OzSome

how old is your place? My house was built in 1989 and the old cable from my house to the box had to be replaced. My internet was slow before they replaced the cable and sometimesI lose connection and my digital TV actually will freeze up once in awhile too. Once my cable got replaced, i see a huge difference between my Internet connections and my Digital TV.

Might be part of it I guess. This house was built in 1981.

My upload speed is as advertised though. Wouldn't that be slow as well if the old cable was an issue?

[psyang]

Another possibility based on personal experience. When I upgraded to BB50 from extreme, the tech came over and installed the a new SMC modem/router. It took over an hour as he ended up having to swap out the new modem with another as the first was deemed faulty. After he left, I noticed my speeds were capped at my old extreme speeds. I called Shaw support, they immediately saw that my account hadn't been set up for BB50 and made a change on their end. My next test at speedtest.shaw.ca showed my speed in the 48-49Mbps range.

Strange aside. I have since swapped my smc for the cisco router/modem. Speed tests at speedtest.shaw.ca always hover around 25Mbps. Speed tests at speedtest.net are always in the 48-49Mbps range. No idea why, but I do feel better that I get my rated speeds at a 3rd party site.

Anyways, it's worth a call to at least ensure your account is set up properly at Shaw's end.

[La Flames Fan]

Originally Posted by OzSome

how old is your place? My house was built in 1989 and the old cable from my house to the box had to be replaced. My internet was slow before they replaced the cable and sometimesI lose connection and my digital TV actually will freeze up once in awhile too. Once my cable got replaced, i see a huge difference between my Internet connections and my Digital TV.

Question for you...

I just bought an old house and I'm in renovaton hell. Needless to say, I have this weird situation where my internet will drop off for 2 minutes and then back on again. Kills me when I'm uploading video, watching Netflix etc.

Anyway, my question...who did the cable replacement?

Thanks

[keratosis]

Originally Posted by psyang

Another possibility based on personal experience. When I upgraded to BB50 from extreme, the tech came over and installed the a new SMC modem/router. It took over an hour as he ended up having to swap out the new modem with another as the first was deemed faulty. After he left, I noticed my speeds were capped at my old extreme speeds. I called Shaw support, they immediately saw that my account hadn't been set up for BB50 and made a change on their end. My next test at speedtest.shaw.ca showed my speed in the 48-49Mbps range.

Strange aside. I have since swapped my smc for the cisco router/modem. Speed tests at speedtest.shaw.ca always hover around 25Mbps. Speed tests at speedtest.net are always in the 48-49Mbps range. No idea why, but I do feel better that I get my rated speeds at a 3rd party site.

Anyways, it's worth a call to at least ensure your account is set up properly at Shaw's end.

Sort of the same with me. Had my Cisco modem switched to bridge mode
because wireless kept dropping off. After everything was done I couldn't get online.
The tech I spoke with said, that the original tech forgot to reactivate my modem. A reboot(of the modem) later I was online
but at Extreem speeds. Another call , one more reboot of the cisco and now consistent 48-49.
Go figure.

[Lithium]

I got 25.5mbps on my iPhone 4S with shaw BB50 WiFi, and 48-49 when I use the server from Brooks, AB. on my PC.