Internet Shaw300 why not to upgrade.

[#1]

I have tried everything also and my Shaw 300 struggles to break the 100mbps over wifi using the 5g signal. After my 5th call to shaw techincal help, they have agreed to send a tech to my house and told me there will be no fee for the service. I hope the tech can fix this Shaw 300 problem.

Here is our only protection if you signed a 2 year contract like I did....and sadly, doesn't seem like promised internet speed is something I can pursue to leave my contract. Internet Services for Canadians | CRTC 

[bogdancan]

Had the same tech checking the modem today. Since my troubleshooting with support, the speed reached the 300 Mbps barrier at the modem, when you are hard wired directly into it and....is NOT in the bridge mode! This is not making any sense! As soo as the XB6 is se to run in Bridge mode, the DLD speed drops almost to half and one of the 2 back ports is useless....not working.

The tech told me that this new XB6 will have both ports available ONLY when in non bridged mode...so acting as a router. Is amazing that Shaw decided to get this Arris device and make it their flagship gateway. Accordingly to the tech this is just the beginning and soon the same device will handle the phones too (this is the reason for the 2 tel jacks in the back). An upgraded version of XB6 will have a backup battery in it and hopefully all the bugs worked out. They closed the case, because I got 325 Mbps DLD and 23 Mbps UPLD at the modem, hard wired...

[#3]

I have a service tech dropping by my house tomorrow. My Shaw 300 the last couple days struggles to get 75 mbps of 5ghz wifi on any device.....and I have alot of devices to test with. The hitron modem on shaw 150 had everything connecting at 160. The noticeable speed loss is huge. But plugged into the router I can get 300......I fear they gonna test only hardwired and tell me that's all that's promised with shaw 300.

[#4]

I had the Shaw Tech come by today and there were some improvements. My speed now reaches 150 mbps on average on my Shaw 300 after a couple changes were made.

Firstly the the Arris XB6 modem was replaced because the old one was continuously dropping connections and the tech could see it on his screen.

Secondly he installed a Moca filter on my  cabe line in and to my phone connection.

Thirdly he disabled the Moca on my XB6 modem

Lastly he changed my SSID to just one name. He said its a smart modem and by configuring only one SSID it can move back and forth between the best connection a device is able to get from the modem.

I am averaging about 150 mbps on the XB6 Shaw 300 internet now and 20 mbps upload. He told me that Shaw 300 isn't a speed you can reach on wifi, its more so just a bigger connection that lets more devices run at high speed at the same time. So I then connected another router to it and bridged it to the XB6 and that router is actually allowing me to reach speeds of 300 mbps over wifi......

[corbin]

bogdancan wrote:

Ss soo as the XB6 is se to run in Bridge mode, the DLD speed drops almost to half and one of the 2 back ports is useless....not working.

The tech told me that this new XB6 will have both ports available ONLY when in non bridged mode...so acting as a router.    

Not correct. Your account is likely set to have 1 CPE IP address. When you turn a computer or router on, it grabs an IP address from our DHCP server. When a 2nd device comes online... it cannot get an IP address. If support enable another IP address, another computer will come online. In bridge mode the 2 ports at the back act as a switch (as they do in gateway mode). In gateway modem the modem will hand out up to 250+ IP addresses to connected devices, but in bridge mode, if your account only has one CPE IP set, our DHCP server will only hand out one IP, and that will be bound to one device until you reboot the modem. I hope that helps clarify.

[corbin]

Nerd time!

The XB6 has a 802.11AC 8x8 MU-MIMO wifi chip. So with a 4x4 MIMO client it could probably reach close to 1 Gbps if the two devices were right next to each other. The PHY rate would be 1.3 or 1.733 Gbps depending on the wifi chipset in your device (at 4x4 MIMO) and after you take out the losses from signalling, half-duplex, re-tranmissions, other devices... should be very speedy.

My iphone X, which supports a maximum PHY rate of 866 Mbps has hit 350+ Mbps to XB6, as has my Macbook Pro (4x4 MIMO). So it's possible, but wifi as a standard isn't very standard... and devices don't always interoperate very well.

Here is a wifi Modulation/Coding Scheme index.

MCS Index, Modulation and Coding Index 11n and 11ac 

The maximum rate the XB6 wifi could hit at the PHY layer, with a compatible client, would typically be 6.933 Gbps (MCS9, 160MHz channels if available, 8 spacial streams). I don't think you'll find a client that will support that, so a more realistic best case would be 4 spacial streams, MCS7 and 80Mhz channels: 1.3 Gbps PHY rate. Cut that down to a typical 1/3 or 1/2 of PHY rate as optimal throughput rate and you could see 433 to 650 Mbps throughput. That is being pessimistic but realistic. It can, however, easily handle 300 Mbps if the signal is good, and the clients are compatible, and have 2, 3, or 4 spacial streams support. 

[#7]

 i think  firstly the the Arris XB6 modem was replaced because the old one was continuously dropping connections and the tech could see it on his screen.

Secondly he installed a Moca filter on my  cabe line in and to my phone connection.

Thirdly he disabled the Moca on my XB6 modem

[#8]

Wahidovic, Welcome to the English Version of Windows 10. I am glad to see you have learned the cut and paste option. Really impressed with your spell checking abilty and how you proof read everyone’s blog posts    

[mat_kleis]

I am also having the dropping connections with the XB6 - never had issues when I was on 150.

This only seems to be an issue while I am gaming - I will lose connection for a split second which is actually causing me to DC from some games.

Did replacing your modem fix the disconnecting?

[#10]

The modem replacement improved the speed issues I was facing, but I am still experiencing drops in connection. While the devices remain connection to the wifi connection, the internet it self stops working, Sometimes Netflix will buffer to blur, security cameras stop remote access freezes and my laptops won't load sites until I hit refresh. So speed problem was improved a bit, I still don't hit 300 mbps, I usually average 140 mbps but the connection is not stable at all.