19 months later and it's still garbage. It works fine if...

[drmerjay]

19 months later and it's still garbage. It works fine if I'm within 10 ft of the modem, otherwise it drops off considerably. I got on chat with a Shaw technician who decided it was "acceptable" based on the distance from the modem. Well, it's not acceptable to me! I work online and pay for 500gbps because that's what I need. I got him to re-enable the XB6 I had before onto my account, because even though it was just wifi-5, at least it was consistent throughout the house. I guess sometimes so-called improvements aren't always better.

[rstra]

@drmerjay Or get a third o look arty router. 

[mdk]

@drmerjay --  It works fine if I'm within 10 ft of the modem, otherwise it drops off considerably.

Are you using the XB7, or have you returned to use the (noisy) XB6 ?

That is definitely not normal speed. Do you (or others in your household) have more than one WiFi-using device, such as smart-phone & notebook & tablet? Do you get the same degradation on all of those devices, or just on one of them?

Do you live in a single-family dwelling, or in a MURB (Multiple Unit Residential Building) ? Inside a MURB, your WiFi is competing (and colliding) with all the other WiFi-using cable-modems inside your MURB.

I got on chat with a Shaw technician who decided it was "acceptable" based on the distance from the modem.

Nonsense.  Shaw advertises "whole home" WiFi with the XB7/XB8, not just "ten feet".

I work online and pay for 500 gbps because that's what I need.

I think you mean 500 Megabits per second, not 1000 times faster.  🙂

What speed is offered by the WiFi network-adapter inside your device? A "Wireless G" adapter maxes-out at 56 Mbps. A "Wireless N" adapter maxes-out at 400 Mbps. A "Wireless AC" adapter can exceed 1000 Mbps, but, in your case, is limited to your 500 Mbps speed level of service. 

Can you connect an Ethernet cable to your device & to your cable-modem, and then run the Shaw Speed Test, to see what speed Shaw is providing?

[rstra]

Oh man, I wasn’t paying attention when I wrote that post! 😂😂😂

[drmerjay]

• I've gone back to the XB6 while I wait for a technician to come out and run some tests. I'll hold on to both modems until they come next week.
• I believe the XB7 I received is faulty, but they need to play with it themselves before they replace it. XB6 is definitely noisy with that fan going 24/7. At least it's in the living room beside the kitchen where the fridge is similarly noisy, so it all kinda drones on together.
• haha yep, definitely meant 500 Mbps not gbps.
• I live in a rural single family dwelling. Mine is the only network my laptop and phone pick up, so it's definitely not an interference issue. At my mom's apartment in Saskatoon, I can see dozens of other networks and yet her XB7 works as expected despite the interference from other modems.
• My devices are all wifi-6 enabled. Considering both devices easily get ~400Mbps at their reasonable range from the XB6, and both my devices are similarly affected with the XB7, I know the bottleneck isn't at the device side.
• The 2nd technician I worked with yesterday said that there was some reduced signal in the cable line, but couldn't explain why that wasn't affecting the XB6 as well.
• Now that I've switched back to the XB6, I can't Ethernet test the XB7; but, I did find speeds as expected if I was right beside the modem. So it's an issue where the signal isn't penetrating the walls as it should (and as the XB6 does with ease).
• Even through NordVPN, my laptop is getting 400Mbps with the XB6, but was down to 120Mbps with the XB7 and no VPN. Rebooting and factory resetting the modem did nothing, rebooting the laptop and phone did nothing. My only other devices are a tv and a printer; the tv was turned off during the tests and the printer was idle.

[drmerjay]

Technician came today, armed with a new xb7. Pulled the old xb6 out, tested the line (didn't comment so assume it was fine), and installed the new xb7. Range was good across the house. Laptop was still defaulting to 2.4ghz and only getting about 250Mbps so we separated the bands temporarily to test 5ghz, which came in around 475Mbps no problem through a couple walls. He said that on regular bands splitting mode, the modem should learn that it's probably ok to go at 5ghz, so we merged them back under one SSID and at least initially, the router remembered the preference and kept it on 5ghz. Everything performing normally now, so I'm sticking with my assessment that it was a bad unit.

Living room is noticeably quieter now, with no compromise to the network.