Shaw Throttling (or not up to par as they say it is)

[chippyuser285]

Since march 22nd I have been in contact with shaw support over twitter DM's. I have been on shaw 300 since 2016, I've rarely had connection problems in that time, and its usually fixed with some troubleshooting.

however since march I have noticed a significant drop in my speeds, consistently, every single day without fail. 

the graph for download speed is all over the map, jump to 240 and plumetting to 1.6 in the same test, while upload is bottlenecked at around 1mb/s or less.

I have been doing every troubleshooting steps imaginable with shaw for the past few weeks, after every single troubleshooting option was expended, they sent me a replacement modem. During a speed plummet I decided to switch out the modems, an initial speed test showed normal speeds, though 1 hour later they were back to poor. 

I have expended absolutely every option with shaw regarding this, and they deny thru and thru that they are throttling speeds during peak hours. they also gloat about how their infrastructure is more than capable and ready to handle the massive influx of internet usage and still maintain our quality of service that we pay for. its been 3 months with terrible speeds and they refuse to admit their infrastructure is not up to the quality they advertise. I am now looking over my options as many others are, there are other companies available that are either 1: not throttling their customers or 2: have infrastructure that is working as advertised. 

I am pretty fed up with this now and the only response I get from shaw support is to re-run the same troubleshooting steps I've done 10 times over since march. This is not an acceptable response, they are advertising that their infrastructure can handle this influx of usage and they are not delivering. on top of that, im still paying my ridiculous bill amount of $104/month with no promises to offer compensation for the MONTHS of poor quality service.

Ive seen many other threads experiencing this problem, many others moving their services to new ISPs. 

If no solution is made that will also be my only option as I rely on my upload speed for work.

[rstra]

I see no evidence of speed throttling on my connection, even if they were, it would not jump around like what you are seeing. 

[SP3CTRYS]

Chances are if the new modem is experiencing the same issue there is an underlying problem.

To determine if it is localized to your home, I would ask your neighbors if they have been noticing any kind of "throttling". In particular similar to your situation. Another thing to test (maybe already have) is bypassing any splitters or additional equipment and plugging directly into the line feeding your home.

Someone else on this forum was having irregular internet problems and turned out to be a faulty splitter. And considering you have had internet 300 and been a Shaw customer since at least 2016, chances are it could be as simple as a faulty splitter 🙂

Another thing is to check the service outages page and see if there are any reported outages or maintenance's.

[chippyuser285 · Accepted solution]

i made an inquiry to novus entertainment the day i made this post, they were at my house the next day installing 1GB fibre internet, i now have 1GB/s download AND upload, constantly with no issues. im also paying $60 LESS than my shaw 300/15up

best decision i ever made, and i recommend all others do the same. the incredible amount of speed boost ive experienced is something i could never go back from. i thought 300 down would be utilizing absolutely everything these servers have to offer, in terms of game ping, download speed on game servers etc...

with my new novus internet these are the boosts ive seen:

SHAW 300 VS NOVUS 1GB

Steam: 30mb/s -> 145+mb/s

origin: 20-40mb/s -> 220+mb/s

ping in WoW: 48ms -> 18ms

Price: $110/month shaw -> $61/month Novus

never been happier, no stupid speed issues that some uneducated support agent cant fix 🙂

[rstra]

I have heard good things about Novus, but really, they are only available in a few hundred MDUs in the lower mainland. If Shaw only had to service condos and apartments, they could probably offer service at a lot lower price, but when you have to run cable to farms that are half a kilometre apart, then costs rise. 

Enjoy your new service.

[chippyuser285]

true, but for this price couldnt they invest SOMETHING into new infastructure? they rave about how next-gen and super stable it is, when in reality its the weakest internet on the market. Having to run cables to farms doesnt excuse charging $110/month for internet that was "next-gen" in 2006

they need to make some upgrades, companies like novus are quickly moving to new areas, them along with others also do custom installs for houses and/or neighbourhoods for those farm folk, Novus is going to my place of business now after a simple inquiry when i got my personal net. it takes a bit longer as its not as simple as just going in the house and playing with wires obviously, but it can be done.

All ive seen from shaw is them raving about their "new internet 600" which still has the exact same bandwidth and upload that 300 has, i saw no difference when i briefly upgraded to 600.. its just a complete scam

[rstra]

Shaw’s network is vast, so yes there is a cost in building out this network. Same could be said for Telus, which also invests billions in their infrastructure. If Novus every expands out of the lower mainland, they would certainly have to raise their prices. Could Shaw prices be lower? Maybe, I don’t know, but comparing a small company with a tiny footprint to that of a company the size of Shaw really is apples and oranges. 

[chippyuser285]

telus is a prime example of what shaw SHOULD be. massive company that still manages to pump out the new tech into their system and early might i add. i personally would never go to  a big company again, but telus has gigabit up/down fibre optic for the same price as shaw 600...

so they really are the bottom of the market

[mdk]

@chippyuser285 -  "new internet 600" which still has the exact same bandwidth and upload that 300 has, i saw no difference when i briefly upgraded to 600. it is just a complete scam.

No difference? It could be your computer?  What numbers do you get from the Shaw SpeedTest? Note that this test does not run at full speed on any dual-core processor system that is less than 2.0 Ghz -- it gives lower numbers.

The "Internet 300" should give up to 300 mbps for download and up to 15 mbps for upload, while the "Internet 600" should give up to 600 mbps download and up to 20 mbps for upload.

Of course, it is very difficult to find web-sites that can "push" data towards your computer at a sustained 600 mbps.  And, if you are trying to store the incoming data, you need a fast SSD (Solid State Disk) to keep-up with saving the stream.

[cjjohnst738]

I suspect that MANY MANY Shaw customers have these low speed problems but do not bother to report it . Or ,in fact we ,as customers do report it and Shaew do NOT report it publicly . I am waiting until my contract expires and I am going back to telus . At the very least telus did TRY and fix things . Shaw does NOT give a **bleep** . People like me are paying ove $2500 per year ,FOR WHAT . A couldn't care less attitude and POOR SERVICE.