Should Gigabit and Gigabit+ be connecting using the OFDM Channels?

[drkcrix]

Good day,

Just upgraded to Gig 1.5 and have been having very inconsistent speeds.  I have a tech coming first week of October to look at things but before they come on site I am trying to determine if I should be seeing OFDM channels in the Shaw network status page of my XB7 modem.

Right now it looks like I am only connecting using the 32 QAM channels (which cannot support higher than 1 Gigabit) 

If anyone that is on gigabit or faster check there modem stats section (its found by logging into the gateway, going to connection and then Shaw Network) and see if you see OFDM channels listed in the Downstream section.

Cheers,

Chris

[mdk]

@drkcrix -- is the 1.5 Gbps service being provided by "bonding" some of those 32 channels?

Do you have computers that have network-adapters that are just 10/100/1000, instead of "faster than 1000" ?

That network-adapter could be the bottle-neck, even when you connect to the 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port on the XB7.

[drkcrix]

Hi mdk,

Looking at the DOCSIS specs, 3.0 would cap out at 1216 MBit/s which is still less than the 1500 MBit/s that is being offered.  That is by using all 32 downstream channels (assuming they aren't using EuroDOCSIS standards) and also assuming a Max of 42.88 Mbps per channel.

Digging deeper it looks like my channels are 6Mhz apart which is DOCSIS 3.0 standard.  So maybe they haven't turned on 3.1 support in my area?

Testing was done 2 ways.  The first was by using the 2.5gig port on the XB7 and connecting it to my 2.5gig port on my motherboard and the 2nd was using 2 clients with 1gig cards.

I saw the highest speeds with the 2.5gig card, but those test where just over 1gig down.  The 2 clients would combine for 8-900Mbps

Cheers,

Chris