Another story where the techs do not always have the answ...

[dietpepsirocks]

Another story where the techs do not always have the answer, this is my understanding of what happened.

The tech couldn't find anything wrong, replaced pretty much everything.  Speedtest.net showed normal speeds, but other websites showed poor upload yet the upload was almost correct.  What did we learn?

Techs cannot always diagnose the problem.  His friend (an engineer?) for Shaw, did tests on the node from afar (techs or senior techs cant do this) and he found the issue.  The issue was noise on the node.

The process that Shaw makes you go through needs to be changed.  The only reason it got fixed was because his friend was a Shaw Engineer?  I asked him, what would the process be if he couldn't figure out whats wrong as the tech... he said nothing.  So, if he didn't have this friend I'd be screwed.

Now remember this:  Shaw's Speed Test was less accurate than the other speed tests.  The other speed tests were reflective of what was actually happening to me while Shaw's speed test was NOT.  I argued with tech's on the phone for over 10 hours about this issue, how they wouldn't believe me, how if Shaw's speed test shows its fine that its fine...

Someone needs to change the process here, because Shaw does not allow a process where the person experiencing problems can talk to an engineer about the issue if the technician finds nothing "wrong".  The tech's could see something is wrong, but with their tools, they were unable to find anything.  And they left me hanging.  I had to argue with them on the phone for hours to convince them to bring out another tech, who also didn't find anything but had his engineer friend figure it out.  This is pretty sad.

Let this be a lesson to people, dont let Shaw tell you their speed test is the ultimate diagnostic tool.  It is not, other speed tests were more accurate than Shaw's.

[rstra]

The noise would have eventually been caught.

[dietpepsirocks]

Uh huh...

Nice reply, lol.

[mdk]

@dietpepsirocks -- Shaw's Speed Test was less accurate than the other speed tests.  The other speed tests were reflective of what was actually happening to me while Shaw's speed test was NOT.  I argued with techs on the phone for over 10 hours about this issue, how they wouldn't believe me, how if Shaw's speed test shows it's fine that it's fine...

I have a few comments:

1. Shaw's Speed Test measures from your cable-modem to their server in your city/town. So, if there are "problems", e.g., low signal-strength, noise on the lines anywhere between your computer and that server, you will see lower numbers.
2. Shaw's Speed Test real-time graph is "averaged" over a few seconds, e.g., zero Mbps per second before you start the test, and 300 Mbps at 1 second into the test shows as a "ramp" up to 150 Mps. Then, at 3 seconds into the test, the graph shows 200 Mbps (0+2*300)/3. Always open the Windows "Task Manager", and switch to the "Performance" tab, and click on the "Ethernet" icon, to see the "instantaneous" speeds of your Ethernet adapter.
3. Other "speed-test" sites can be across the country (from you in Winnipeg to Vancouver or to Montreal), or could be in the USA.  Obviously, each of those "hops" through various Internet routers introduces their own delays, and thus reduces the measured value.
4. Some of those "game-servers" deliberately throttle their output, so that every game-player gets the same "fair-to-all" speed, which could be much less that the 300 Mbps that you are paying for.
5. Some of those game-servers are overloaded -- too many simultaneous clients.

[mdk]

@dietpepsirocks -- Techs cannot always diagnose the problem.  His friend (an engineer?) for Shaw, did tests on the node from afar (techs or senior techs cant do this) and he found the issue.  The issue was noise on the node.

This morning, I had an excellent interaction with the Shaw tech for my area (within my city).

He was scheduled only to open-up the Shaw "demarcation-box", and connect 2 new cable-runs that an electrician ran last week -- from that box to the "wiring-closet" in the home, to prepare to add service into a brand-new suite (that a year ago was a totally-unfinished basement). When he opened the box, he found 2 existing cable-runs, but one of them was "noisy". So, he bypassed one of the 2 existing runs, and connected both of the new cable-runs.  He replaced the 2-way splitter that was inside the box with a 3-way splitter, and replaced the connectors on all 3 of the cable-runs -- the 4th run was the "noisy" one, and it now is just "idle" -- not connected to anything in the wiring-closet.

The house has 3 levels, with the owner on the top level, and rented suites on the middle level and the basement level. So, three separate Shaw accounts will be needed.

Then, he went "above-and-beyond", using his electronic tools (and his mobile phone) to test every existing cable-run from the wiring-closet into the "main" and the "upper" levels of the house, and properly splitting them into 2 bundles -- one for "main" and one for "upper". He determined which of the many cable-runs into the "upper" were active (2 PVRs, one cable-modem), and connected only those cables -- this gives better signal-strength to the "active" devices, and no service at all to unused wall-ports on that level.

Then, he moved the connection for the Shaw Phone unit -- it only uses 1 channel, and can be "behind" a few splitters.

He also properly labelled each cable-run, and affixed the cables/splitters to the wall, to make everything look much more tidy.

He is scheduled to return, later this week, when the new (but not yet moved-in) tenants of the new suite decide what they want (how many TVs/PVRs, where to locate the Shaw cable-modem/router, and whether they want a Shaw Phone unit).

So, some of the "extra" work he did today will result in "less" work for him, in his next visit.

From me, he gets more than a "ten-out-of-ten" for allowing me to watch, and ask stupid questions. 🙂

> Techs cannot always diagnose the problem. 

This one could, and did, and his testing & remediation prevented future problems, and resulted in better performance for the "upper" level. 

I give him 100 "kudos" !

[dietpepsirocks]

2.

What you are saying doesn't make sense in this situation.  I can see the upload speed on the other speed test sites, where it tests it for the same amount of time, and the speed test was reflective of reality when Shaw's wasn't.  I don't understand the point you're trying to make, the reality is the Shaw Speed test is not as accurate as other speed tests.  All the IT people I have talked to that are not Shaw representatives, say the worst way to test your net is through local businesses, because most of the time you aren't even connecting locally when you are on the internet.  Regardless, the app that reflected reality was not Shaw's, in fact it hid the real problem.

I had Drop Box tests done where I downloaded a dummy file, and drop box has huge upload speeds, and it was uploading at about the same rate as the Speed Tests were showing.  The gaming servers are not throttled to the point that much.  I don't know what you are talking about, the entire point of these gaming servers is to upload at a rate of 60 FPS at 1080p, it can handle I believe 10,000+ bit rate which is 10+ Mbps, which is far faster than my internet was going.  So again, no idea what you are talking about here, doesn't make sense.  We are talking about upload here, not download speeds.  You upload to the servers for streaming, not download.

And there are servers all over North America, (Canada & US) and even Mexico.  You can stream to servers in France if you want, or Asia.  The entire point of having this many servers on Twitch to stream to is to be able to access a very fast server, and I have an application telling me *my* upload speeds to all of them.  And then the application rates the "quality" of each server.  Do you know what it was before we found the problem?  About 50+ servers were rated 0 out of 100.  Do you know what most of the servers are now?  Anywhere between 90-100, mostly 100 ratings aside from Europe and Asia, Mexico in the 90's.

Shaw failed miserably here, and the process to contact an engineer is not possible, and it should be possible.  That is my understanding anyways.  We found the solution by pure fluke, because the guy called his friend, who was also a Twitch streamer, who was also some sort of engineer is my understanding.  I spent weeks on the phone with Shaw trying to convince them there was a problem and they denied it.

[dietpepsirocks]

I am not doubting there are good techs.  But, I was in a situation where they would come down, say everything is ok, and peace out.  There was no process to send my issue to an engineer.  There was no process of him trying to escalate my concern to someone who could actually help.  They planned on leaving me hanging, saying "Everything is fine on their end".

How is that a good process?  If you're a technician, and you test everything and it looks good... but the persons upload is dramatically slow in every application they test, and even on their phone, and on other speed test websites, you have to acknowledge that problem.  Any competent critical thinker will be strongly suspicious that something else is going on, especially when you have ruled out that its not the computer itself.

There should be a process to investigate that issue if the tech sees everything is OK on "his end" but is intelligent enough to see that there is an actual problem that seems to be linked to the internet somehow.  And its my understanding, there is no process like this...

And it sounds like you know more about this stuff than me, in general, but it sounds like you dont understand how these Twitch servers work, and I dont understand why you defend Speed Test when you can even find a plethora of tech websites on the internet saying that its one of the least consistent speed tests.  You realize that Shaw is sponsored by speed test and vice versa, right?  And you understand that they use this speed test as a selling point, to show off their speeds right?

And how reflective of reality is connecting to your local servers to see your actual speeds?  How often does that happen on the internet?  If we are using speed test, why arent we using the single server version, and then testing the speeds to the single servers as opposed to using multi servers and letting that number be averaged out somehow, to hide the problems its having in reality on other servers?

Its a garbage diagnostic tool, and nobody should be using it religiously.  I worked on computers for over 15 years fixing them, and I can tell you theres no way in hell, in terms of a thought process, take one or two speed tests off the internet and give them all the credibility and discount what the majority of other speed tests say.  That is irrational.  And here we learned that Shaw's speed test was NOT reflective of reality when the majority of the other speed tests WERE reflective of reality.  That is the reality, doesn't matter how much you dislike it or Shaw dislikes it, the other speed tests showed my exact problem I was having, and Shaw's speed test showed I had "perfect" speeds.

I would NEVER religiously trust OOKLA's speed test or use it as the go to diagnostic tool.  From what I understand also, it seems absolutely moronic to "test" your speeds based on the most local businesses too.  That seems dumb as hell to me.

[mdk]

@dietpepsirocks -- I can see the upload speed on the other speed test sites, where it tests it for the same amount of time, and the speed test was reflective of reality when Shaw's wasn't.  I don't understand the point you're trying to make, the reality is the Shaw Speed test is not as accurate as other speed tests.  

You are comparing apples and oranges. The traffic for the Shaw Speed Test does not leave Winnipeg, while the traffic for those other speed-tests goes across Canada, and maybe even into the USA. So, you get both FASTER and ACCURATE speeds for the Shaw Speed Test, because the Shaw server is "local" to you.

You are not saying what speed-test sites that you are accessing, and the values that they are reporting. This lack of information makes it difficult to make any suggestions or recommendations.

My point is that the Shaw Speed Test ACCURATELY reports the download/upload speed between your cable-modem and Shaw's server in the same city as you. Compare to driving between Winnipeg and Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport (using Highway 1 and Route 90) to driving between Winnipeg and Regina (using Highway 1). In both cases, your speed on Highway 1 will be the same (until you exit from Highway 1 onto Route 90), but it will take 5+ hours to get to Regina.  Similarly, if your computer is in Winnipeg, and the server is in Regina, it simply will take longer.

Also, Shaw's server is provisioned to be "ultra-fast" -- much faster than your remote servers.

Also, Shaw's server probably is serving just one connection at a time (not everybody on Shaw Internet connects to it at the same time), while those remote servers definitely are serving multiple simultaneous connections.

> I believe 10,000+ bit rate which is 10+ Mbps

I believe that 10,000 bits per second is 10 Kilobits per second -- a factor of 1000 difference from your belief.

> We found the solution

For the benefit of other Shaw users on this discussion forum, please share the solution.

I agree with the Shaw support people -- if the Shaw Speed Test is showing download/upload speeds that are congruent with your contract with Shaw, you do not have a problem within their network. When your traffic goes outside of the Shaw network (as evidenced by "traceroute" outputs which you rarely have shown), Shaw cannot be responsible for the speed on the rest of the Internet.

> There was no process to send my issue to an engineer.

Nonsense. Fake news.

>  there is an actual problem that seems to be linked to the internet somehow.  And its my understanding, there is no process like this...

To repeat, when your traffic exits from Shaw's network, and crosses-over to other networks, Shaw's responsibility ends that that cross-over point.  I do not agree with your understanding. Shaw has business relationships with other Internet Service Providers, especially with the sites that run the "cross-over" routers (where traffic from Shaw crosses-over to other networks, such as Bell & Telus & internationally to USA companies such as Sprint).  Their business could not survive if they were "isolated" from those other networks.

> You realize that Shaw is sponsored by speed test and vice versa, right?  And you understand that they use this speed test as a selling point, to show off their speeds right?

More nonsense.

Shaw and Ookla are separate companies. Ookla supplies the software that does the speed tests, and that software runs on servers on Shaw's network.

Of course, Telus and Bell and Shaw advertise their "fastest Internet speeds" in their marketing. No surprise, here.

> how reflective of reality is connecting to your local servers to see your actual speeds?  

Shaw's Speed Test accurately shows that you are getting the download/upload speeds as per your Shaw contract. Again, Shaw cannot be responsible for "speeds" across the whole Internet. Once the traffic "crosses-over" to some other network, Shaw's responsibility ends.

> I can tell you theres no way, in terms of a thought process, take one or two speed tests off the internet and give them all the credibility and discount what the majority of other speed tests say.  That is irrational. 

No, this is iirational to compare apples to oranges. Shaw's Speed Test measures "local" speeds. Other remotely-hosted servers measure "end-to-end" speeds.

> And here we learned that Shaw's speed test was NOT reflective of reality when the majority of the other speed tests WERE reflective of reality.  

The reality is the reality. To compare a "local" speed-test to an "international" speed-test is irrational. They are measuring different segments of the network.

> From what I understand also, it seems absolutely moronic to "test" your speeds based on the most local businesses too.

You are correct. Businesses "outsource" the running of their servers, because it is cost-effective for them to do so. You "outsource" your personal needs to a dentist or a barber, because it is cost-effective for you.

I would not expect a company like STAPLES to have their servers in my city. A "traceroute" verifies that their server is "remote":

   11 ms  rc1wt-be40.wa.shawcable.net [66.163.68.18]
   15 ms  six.as13335.com [206.81.81.10]
   10 ms  shops.myshopify.com [23.227.38.64]

i.e., hosting by "My Shopify".

A "traceroute" to BESTBUY shows a "co-located" server in Edmonton:

  4    10 ms  rc1bb-be20.vc.shawcable.net [66.163.75.245]
  5    16 ms  rc3ar-tge0-6-0-16.ed.shawcable.net [66.163.76.42]
  6      9 ms  a23-36-176-78.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com [23.36.176.78]

i.e., hosting by AKAMAI.

> the other speed tests showed my exact problem I was having, and Shaw's speed test showed I had "perfect" speeds.

That is my point. Your speeds "within" the Shaw network are "perfect". Your speeds when "crossing-over" to some other network are different, and outside of Shaw's control.

Please share the solution that you found.

[dietpepsirocks · Accepted solution]

And there was no process to send my issue to the engineer.  I talked to the engineer that fixed it today himself, why are you telling me its nonsense?  He actually implied that most tech's aren't knowledgeable enough to use the tools to detect the issue I had, but he seemed to imply that it was possible.  I argued with their tech support for hours begging for a 2nd tech to come out, because the 1st tech said it was all fine, it wasnt.

I did share the solution.  However, today the engineer contacted me personally about this.  There was noise on the node, within my area.  Apparently the Shaw engineer has seen this before and suspected what was going on, but he had to find out where in the node it was.  He found the problem by isolating where the noise was coming from (in a general area of my node) and then went to peoples houses, it ended up that someone had an MTS modem hooked up to Shaw equipment or something?  Anyways, he told me he had to disconnect all of their stuff and when he did that, it fixed the problem.  He was explaining how it worked, but I wasn't paying full attention, something about the MTS modem trying to send signals through Shaw's network and it basically messes it up.

So, I really was experiencing poor uploads, it had nothing to do with my application or other peoples servers.  It was essentially Shaw's problem, but caused by an MTS customer.

[rstra]

This problem is common and is usually detected by the head end or plant ops, a big part of the plant op technician’s job is to chase noise. The technician was correct, the right person can usually detect the problem as well (with the right meter).