Shaw is throttling and cutting my internet

[Ankh]

I am a Shaw internet 300 customer, and nearly every day for the past 2 months, I have been experiencing internet outages consistently from around 8:00pm to 10:30pm (my time). I have had a technician check my line from the outside, then I had a technician come into my home and check my router and line from the inside. They installed a MOCA filter and a signal attenuator, which did not solve the issue. Shaw then sent me a new modem, which I installed on July 21, and my internet went down that SAME DAY.

In talking with the very unhelpful support person, they had me factory reset my modem, wait a full 20 minutes for the light on the modem to turn white (which it did not), after which he suggested that they send a technician down again. I requested that perhaps he should escalate this to someone more qualified to handle this problem, and he said that he would call me again at 3:00pm to see if I was still experiencing issues. Nothing, no call, and no support. The same issue occurred again on July 22 as expected, and when I asked the support person about the guy from the day before, he apparently left no records of these issues on my file.

At this point, I am absolutely ready to end my business with this disfunctional company, and the fact that these issues seem to pop up at the exact same time every day makes me certain that this must be deliberate on Shaw's part. Otherwise, how could such an issue occur every day at the same time without fail? My internet right now is at 34.9 Mb/s down and 11.0 Mb/s up at 11:18pm July 22nd, connected directly to my modem with a Cat 6 ethernet cable.

[rstra]

Do you subscribe to TV and have either BlueCurve or Gateway cable boxes? Shaw is not throttling or cutting your internet, usually when people see time of day outages or interruptions it is usually because that is when they are using the services. The node could be saturated, have the tech support people check if that is the case. I am curious as to the need for an attenuator, as that would indicate that your line has high signal levels.

**Edited, it’s late** 🤪

[mdk]

@Ankh -- I have been experiencing internet outages consistently from around 8:00pm to 10:30pm (my time) ... nearly every day for the past 2 months.

What has the weather been like just before 8 PM? Starting to cool-down, after the heat of the day? Perhaps, there is a heat-related intermittent problem somewhere "outside" of your home, for some of Shaw's outdoor equipment (up the telephone pole, or up-and-down your street).

Have you talked to any of your neighbours, to see if they have outages at the same time as you? This would imply a problem with Shaw's infrastructure, i.e., something not fixable by changing your cable-modem, as you have done.

> I have had a technician check my line from the outside, then I had a technician come into my home and check my router and line from the inside.

So, Shaw technicians are trying. What did they find? At what time of the evening did they do their testing?

> Shaw then sent me a new modem, which I installed on July 21, and my internet went down that SAME DAY.

You also said "nearly every day". So, changing the cable-modem did not solve your problem.

Do you have another active cable-outlet in a different room in your domicile? Experiment: connect your cable-modem to that outlet, and run the Shaw SpeedTest on a computer connected via CAT-6 cable to your cable-modem. Post the results.

Contact Shaw again (online-chat is currently given priority over telephone) and get them to do more trouble-shooting. Maybe, they can check their database for Shaw Internet customers on the same block of your street, and then remotely logon to those cable-modems, to check each modem's statistics, including "signal strength" around 8 PM.

[Ankh]

@mdk 

Let me try to address your comment point-by-point.

> What has the weather been like just before 8 PM? Starting to cool-down, after the heat of the day? Perhaps, there is a heat-related intermittent problem somewhere "outside" of your home, for some of Shaw's outdoor equipment (up the telephone pole, or up-and-down your street).

Yes, that would be an apt description of the weather. Though, I do doubt this problem is heat-related, as you suggest. On other days where I have recorded these issues, the weather was hovering around 20 to 15 degrees celsius.

> Have you talked to any of your neighbours, to see if they have outages at the same time as you? This would imply a problem with Shaw's infrastructure, i.e., something not fixable by changing your cable-modem, as you have done.

I have not spoken to any of my neighbours. However, throughout my many calls and chats with Shaw support, I have asked about whether there have been similar reports of outages in my area. Each time I was told that no other reports had been made, and that no scheduled maintenance was being performed in my area during these times. Evidently, my modem is absolutely not the issue here.

> So, Shaw technicians are trying. What did they find? At what time of the evening did they do their testing?

On the first technician call, the technician handling my issue was supposed to call my phone number and coordinate with me from the outside to check for any issues with my home's external and internal line. Instead, the technician came late, did not call me, and supposedly replaced a faulty part on the external infrastructure. This did nothing to resolve my issues. The second time, the technician came into my home, checked the modem, found no issues, and told me that he added a MoCA filter and signal attenuator, saying that because I had received my modem through the mail, and that if a tech had come and installed it, they would have added those two attachments. This was two weeks before receiving the second modem. Both technicians came at around 3:00pm - 4:00pm, so there is no surprise that they would not have found any issues. My internet connection runs pretty much perfectly before it cuts out at around 8:00pm.

> You also said "nearly every day". So, changing the cable-modem did not solve your problem.

Yes, if my issues have persisted after replacing the modem, then the only logical conclusion is that the modem is not the cause of any of these issues.

>  Do you have another active cable-outlet in a different room in your domicile? Experiment: connect your cable-modem to that outlet, and run the Shaw SpeedTest on a computer connected via CAT-6 cable to your cable-modem. Post the results.

I must not have mentioned this in my OP, but my internet speeds are absolutely fine outside of these specific outages. Running a speed test long after the issue has resolved itself would not provide any useful information here. The reason I posted those specific speeds, was to show my internet speed shortly after a connection is re-established when the issues stops persisting (around 10:30pm). This is also one of the main issues that the on-site technicians have been mostly unhelpful, as they are never here when this issue presents itself. 

[Ankh]

@rstra 

I sincerely doubt that 8:00pm to 10:30pm would be the time when Shaw would experience the highest network use in my area. Furthermore, the techs are never available to check the node at the time that the issue presents itself. The tech did not install the signal attenuator for any justifiable reason, other than that they normally add them when they install Bluecurve modems in-person (I received mine in the mail).

[rstra]

Those hours would absolutely be a time of high network use, people home from work, Netflix and etc. As I mentioned in my other post, get tech support to check for saturation, they are available by phone or chat all night. Techs don’t install attenuators when installing BlueCurve, unless the signal is to high, and a moca filter is only installed if there are gateway or BlueSky tv boxes present.

Good luck.

[SP3CTRYS]

An exact 2.5hr chunk of time with no internet everyday, unless everyone on your block decided to stream a movie at exactly the same on every single one of their devices, and then decide "Yup, time for bed" I do kind of agree with you that it is unlikely to be saturation. I am not dismissing saturation being the culprit, it just seems unlikely. Have you checked for any outages in your area around the same time? I know Shaw is actively doing network upgrades on the street, but they are supposed to be at night when most people are sleeping.

I actually wonder if your modem is having difficulty applying a firmware update? Can you login to your modem and check the firmware version to make sure it is up to date? The latest version is 4.0p11

Another thought is, just prior to the modem going offline or slowing down, what is your household generally doing on the network? To be clear, I am not suggesting you or your household is doing anything wrong. 

As for the attenuator, they are generally used to bring signal levels down when the tap at the street is too "hot". However, I have read reports on here from other users indicating that the BlueCurve system is finicky and requires a very particular db range for the best (proper?) results. For this reason, the tech may be right in putting the attenuator in.

36Mb/s download is pretty dang concerning. By reading your posts, I can tell you are pretty frustrated, heck I would be too, but might I suggest you message Shaw using the app or website? The troubleshooting is little slower because the techs are essentially "texting" multiple customers, but they aren't bound to having call times being x long. So the tech could spend more time troubleshooting and checking the node saturation for you. And then, because of how many service techs you have had come out already, request a senior service tech do a thorough on-site look of your network. They probably can not come at 8PM, but a senior tech should be able to provide a pretty good diagnosis. 🙂

[rstra]

I agree that node saturation is not likely, Shaw has been very proactive doing node splits and upgrades, but it has to be ruled out.

[mdk]

@Ankh --  I do doubt this problem is heat-related, as you suggest. On other days where I have recorded these issues, the weather was hovering around 20 to 15 degrees Celsius.

Yes, it may be doubtful, but it is possible. Walk barefoot on a beach at 8 PM, when the maximum heat-of-the-day has reduced to the 15-to-20 range, and you'll find that the sand/rocks are still warm. So, the Shaw infrastructure may be "recovering" from the heat-of-the-day.

It has to be "something", and Shaw needs to fix it, to keep you as a monthly-paying customer.

> I have not spoken to any of my neighbours. However, throughout my many calls and chats with Shaw support, I have asked about whether there have been similar reports of outages in my area.

I still think that it would be useful to survey a few neighbours; it might reduce the "bubble" from "one side of your street" to "just your home", which would be good information to give to Shaw. Unless the Shaw person is really diligent, i.e., searching their database for customers with approximately the same street-address as you, I think that you were given a dismissive & inaccurate response.  Sigh.

An on-site technician could "climb" the telephone-pole, and unscrew the coaxial-cable from one socket, and connect it into another socket, as an experiment.

Contact Shaw, via online-chat, at 8 PM. You'll probably get connected very quickly. Get the technician to remotely logon to your modem, to view the modem's statistics.

[Skol264]

Shaw and rogers have blatantly come out and said that they do throttle the internet for certain services ....soooo ya, they do. Time to switch providers.