Problems with Shaw internet speeds

[Blintok]

having issues with shaw and the high speed internet.

anyone else in Vancouver area having problems? the problems are...

I have had the shaw people out to my place 3x so far.
I had the 5M package but was getting DL speeds of less than 1M and frequently less than 512k. They confirmed i was experiencing massive packet loss.
First time they did some work in buildings cable room. speed was back..for a week.
2nd time they moved me to a different branch in cable room and changed all the connections in my place (cable ends in wallplate and a new cable to my modem)

that worked again for about a week. then slow again.
3rd time they came and replaced the modem. Each of the above times they checked the lines with their little meters and all checked ok.

after i got the modem i switched to the 10M service and that was great..again for about a week. Using speedtest.net for testing..i had been getting 10M plus with a burst up to and over 30m.

Now on speedtest..checking the Vancouver link i get anywhere from 3M to 5M and if i go outside of Vancouver i get 512k - 1.5M or less

each time i called they had me do that whole song and dance. plug modem direct into computer. plug cable direct into modem(by-passing the Shaw supplied splitter) no change in speed.

could my setup in anyway be causing this?
I have a new Linksys WRT54G router.
a dell Laptop
a dell 8400 desktop
a homebuilt last yr desktop(Asus mb. Intel 6300)

This slow down seems to occur over a weekend. the only time i use the laptop wirelessly. other times its hardwired to router. actually the laptop is only really used on the weekends.
no one else in my building is complaining about speed. so is why i think maybe its something on my computers. computers were checked for virii and spyware and i run several apps from Comodo. (anti virus, spyware etc)

all computers run XP - frustrating. now i have to call them again.

[Luis_A51]

I know my shaw speeds here in calgary vary wildly from week to week and are almost always dissapointing. I have the "high speed" and never get more than 700kb/s. Usually significantly less.

[jshel101]

Originally Posted by Luis_A51

I know my shaw speeds here in calgary vary wildly from week to week and are almost always dissapointing. I have the "high speed" and never get more than 700kb/s. Usually significantly less.

Where do you get this speed? Did you test your speed using speakeasy or something similiar? When I was downloading with Shaw high speed from newsgroups, i was getting 500 to 700kb/s, which is quite good for Shaw. I switched to extreme now i get around 1400kb/s.

[nobsplease]

about the whole download speed thang. I pay for high speed access and I have never seen a download speed much higher than 600k. I don't understand the bafflegab thrown around about server traffic, bandwidth availability blah blah blah. What I do know is that I'm paying for a service of which I am apparently using only a tiny fraction. I am reasonably technically minded; I will understand an explanation in English. Please 'splain to me why there is such a huge discrepancy between the stated number and the actual, before my eyes number.
Just to clarify - I do get 5m verification from speedtest sites. Download box usually says approx. 500k.

[technut]

nobsplease, you may be getting confused by the difference between Bytes per second vs. bits per second.

A Byte is 8 bits, so a speed measured in Bytes will appear to be 8 times smaller than a speed measured in bits, even though they are really the same. It's kind of like comparing 50 miles per hour and 80 kilometers per hour... same speed just expressed in two different ways.

File transfers are typically expressed as KBps. The capital B indicates this is a measurement in Bytes.
Speed tests are typically expressed as Kbps. The lowercase b indicates this is a measurement in bits.

A file transfer at 500 KBps (KBytes/sec) means your connection speed is at least (8x500) = 4000 Kbps (Kbits/sec) which is the same as 4 Mbps.

[nobsplease]

There is a distinct possibility that I'm an inattentive idjit. I appreciate your reply Technut and I will pay attention to the distinction next time I'm checking my speeds.

[technut]

I hope it is as simple as that. It's very easy to mix them up since the only difference is B or b. Kind of a silly and obscure notation really.

[nobsplease]

Yup, I'm an idjit. Thanks for setting me straight.

[Superbad]

I am of the mind that shaw is throttling the torrent speeds. Bell has set the precedent in Canada and I believe that it is likely that other ISPs are going to be following suit, with Shaw being the first.

In one day I have seen my torrent speeds drop down to <30 kB/s

I pay a hefty fee for Xtreme High Speed and I believe that I am getting ripped off with throttled torrent speeds.

[Udowish]

r u using encryption? Did you change the default port?

just two things that 'could' fool your ISP from thinking it is torrent traffic. I do both and can get extremely good download speeds. Have also gotten really poor ones as well but I am inclined to think that while I am fairly confident Shaw IS throttling torrent traffic, you can 'defeat' it ...for now.

[wertheimco]

Please how can I get faster downloads for my torrent from Shaw. Have gone to the fastest service and now find things have really slowed down. How about encryption? How do I activate this?

[Dimkom]

As I know, Shaw deployed a deep packet inspection (DPI) platform (Ellacoya Networks Inc.), and it allows the provider to know which subscriber used which application for how much bandwidth at what time throughout the day or throughout the year. So, using that equipment, they can throttle the torrent speeds as much as they want. They declare, that they don't do that. But seems to me, too many customers have same problem with speed.

[Cockroach]

I don't think Shaw goes by past behaviour. I went to a friend's place earlier this year who has never d/l'd any torrents. Tried utorrent with encryption and changing ports. Never got a speed on what should be well-seeded torrents of over 30 KB/s.

[Moose57]

Great deal 5Mb gets to 7.5 Mb for free, but...
So OK, torrents are throttled.
Fair enough, a bit so you neighbor gets a little bit of bandwidth, BUT
why is my whole pipe throttled back!!!

I call about slow speeds and they call back, wife answers, they tell her to disconnect the router from the modem, see it's fast now, plug it back in, it's slow again. Not a lot of help there.

Yea OK, I've got a few BT's running, about 30Kb total. Max they will give me.
I try and web surf, remember, I'm supposed to have a 7.5 Mb pipe.
Slow, timeouts, can't reach Google.

Reboot router, check DNS, test ping to IP's.
Run speedtest.shaw.ca, speedtest.net, speakeasy.net/speedtest and DSL reports.

When NOT torrenting, I get my 7.5 Mb and then some, due to turbo boost.
BUT when doing a throttled torrent, Speeds tests all show ~ 1/2 Mb or 500Kb.
This just doesn't make any sense at all if only the BT & P2P is supposed to be throttled.
I can barely surf the web.
Even torrent uploads are faster and I heard a while back from an ISP tech that UPLOADS will slow DOWNLOADS.
That's the asymmetrical nature of docsis.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Shouldn't I at least have the balance of the pipe available to me?

Is their gear mis-configured or this is the way they do things?

That would be very bad, 'cause I'm in the midst of a ~ 70GB torrent.
At one point, it said it would take over a year.
I've been at it several weeks now.
Almost worth it to order a 2nd connection and let it idle a way while I use the other pipe.

Have I got a leg to stand on here?

So what are we supposed to do?
I'd switch as I'm doing with my TV and phone, but the other guys port block my server and their 1-6 Mb DSL likely isn't very good in my 'hood as they can't even offer IPTV.

[Dog Byte]

You don't have a leg to stand on and your Internet connection isn't a pipe. Connections to a server are always two way: the server sends a packet of data, you send an ACKnowledge, the server sends another packet, you send another ACK... Bit Torrent sends thousands of packets and completely clogs the router and modem with data. Your browser sends a few requests and those get queued up behind the hundreds of BT requests. Of course it's slow.