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I had always thought that the hivemind opinion on the reasonably tech-versed parts of the internet was that Telus was running a reasonably modern network, and Shaw's was pieced together with coat hangers? I now of course can't find a single post anywhere to back that up. Surely the lovely speeds in peak times has nothing to do with my local wiring though, right? Telus has been beating the "shared neighbourhood bandwidth" thing into my head for like 15 years now.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:15
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TELUS has been better than Shaw for me at all the places I've been. It's really a YMMV thing. Neither is the clear "most reliable/fastest home network in the lower mainland"
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Feb 1, 2015 02:30
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About 10 years ago I called shaw's support line because my cable modem was crapping out. The tech asked me if it was raining there. I said "is that important?" He said yes it sometimes causes problems with their equipment. What kind of fuckin $5 tarpaulin are you idiots using to cover your central office equipment there Shaw.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:42
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priznat posted:About 10 years ago I called shaw's support line because my cable modem was crapping out. The tech asked me if it was raining there. I said "is that important?" He said yes it sometimes causes problems with their equipment. That's standard diagnosis for older homes with bad cables in the ground.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:46
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Sprawl posted:That's standard diagnosis for older homes with bad cables in the ground. Do they run cable hookups underground? I've only seen them have overhead wires. Besides this was in a fairly new concrete high rise. Plus it was in Vancouver so it's always loving raining.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:50
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priznat posted:Do they run cable hookups underground? I've only seen them have overhead wires. Depends on the house i know my parents cable hookup goes under the ground same with their telephone both have been replaced in the last 10 years because of this exact problem.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:50
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Speak of the devil, TELUS just had a nationwide outage of both Internet and cellular data! 
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Feb 1, 2015 03:06
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i think it's because their was a power outage by gastown just a few minutes ago. that's next to the telus office i believe. e: http://globalnews.ca/news/1805078/part-of-east-downtown-without-power-after-car-crashes-into-pole/ not sure if it's connected to be honest Acer Pilot fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 03:15
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Acer Pilot posted:i think it's because their was a power outage by gastown just a few minutes ago. that's next to the telus office i believe. That says 4:30 though? Also Down Detector had people all across the country complaining.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:25
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priznat posted:About 10 years ago I called shaw's support line because my cable modem was crapping out. The tech asked me if it was raining there. I said "is that important?" He said yes it sometimes causes problems with their equipment. It's not the central office, but the lines going to your house. If they get damaged, water can get in when it rains and it affects the radio signal in the cable, and it can go back to working fine when it dries up. For above ground lines, a big issue is squirrels gnawing on lines, since they work really well for wearing down their teeth. Asking if it was raining was just to narrow down if it was a line issue outside or something else. It's not really a matter of Shaw's or Telus' infrastructure being better than the other, as they're both pretty similar and one or the other may be better depending on what the upkeep is like in your area. A fiber line goes out to your neighbourhood and hits a node, where it gets to your residence using either coax or telephone wire, both of which have their own upsides and downsides. If you're in a Shaw or Telus neighbourhood that has fiber to the home/premise, it just skips that last step of converting to coax/twisted pair and terminates at the ONT in your home. Any damage to the wiring is going to cause issues, whether it's coax, twisted pair or fiber. When I used to be tech support, I've had to set up maintenance calls for all sorts of issues as simple as trucks snagging lines to people not calling before they dig, to birds building nests on taps outside or bees making a hive out of a pedestal. The connection to the ISP still has to go from your house to the node/headend, and there's a lot along the way that can go wrong even if everything is set up perfectly. Kreez posted:I had always thought that the hivemind opinion on the reasonably tech-versed parts of the internet was that Telus was running a reasonably modern network, and Shaw's was pieced together with coat hangers? I now of course can't find a single post anywhere to back that up. The difference between coax and twisted pair is that coax can carry an order of magnitude more bandwidth, but you're sharing that bandwidth with everyone on the same part of the coax network as you up to where the line converts to fiber to the headend. With DSL, you have your own line to the DSLAM, but I believe a single run of twisted pair is limited to a relatively low amount (30-40Mbps?), and the quality of the connection is dependant on far away you are from the DSLAM (I work for Shaw so I'm more knowledgable on the cable part of things, so anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything on the phone side). As far as what causes saturation, I'll just copy a post I made earlier: Coxswain Balls posted:That sucks. I've seen way less saturated nodes in the past year due to the progress we've made with analog reclamation, but there's still a lot more that can be done to free up bandwidth to keep ahead of it recurring in the future. Shaw's set to be getting rid of all analog cable in Vancouver in the near future, so that will hopefully improve things a lot there. Hybrid fiber-coax is still a pretty future-proof solution compared to fiber to the neighbourhood DSL, but that all depends on the ISP having a good handle on subscribers per node and efficient usage of the bandwidth cable has to offer. The vast, vast majority of the cable signal is being used for TV, but as more people cut the cord or upgrade their television equipment, more of that cable spectrum can be dedicated to internet, or at least getting rid of redundant analog/standard-definition channels.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:26
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less than three posted:That says 4:30 though? wild rear end guess but maybe the telus office in vancouver is some important hub for their service.  i think their office was in that red part. i really hope it was this because lol if a power outage in vancouver kills all of their service
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Feb 1, 2015 03:28
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Acer Pilot posted:wild rear end guess but maybe the telus office in vancouver is some important hub for their service. Yeah that knocks out the ah Harbour Center sometimes but that should have all the backups because its a backbone of the internet type building.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:36
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Coxswain Balls posted:With DSL, you have your own line to the DSLAM, but I believe a single run of twisted pair is limited to a relatively low amount (30-40Mbps?), and the quality of the connection is dependant on far away you are from the DSLAM (I work for Shaw so I'm more knowledgable on the cable part of things, so anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything on the phone side). The limit keeps getting pushed higher, much the same as it does with the various DOCSIS standards: http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2015/01/bt-confirm-uk-rollout-1000mbps-g-fast-ultrafast-broadband-2020.html
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Feb 1, 2015 03:50
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Coxswain Balls posted:As far as what causes saturation, I'll just copy a post I made earlier: Is there any way to check what node one is on, and whether or not that node has saturation issues? Seems like the sort of user generated database that would be sitting around somewhere out there.
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Feb 1, 2015 07:33
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If you PM me an address, I can look into it further for you when I get into work tomorrow. There isn't a customer-facing database available, since the node you're on often changes as upgrades are done to the infrastructure, but I can pull up usage reports to determine whether or not your current node is saturated. If the area utilization percentage isn't high, then barring any additional issues, you should be getting your rated speeds when wired directly to the modem and monitor inbound/outbound traffic directly from the NIC.Thanks Ants posted:The limit keeps getting pushed higher, much the same as it does with the various DOCSIS standards: That's really cool. I'm always pleasantly surprised about how far you can actually push that older infrastructure, and I can't wait to see more of that kind of stuff in North America. Coxswain Balls fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 07:52
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Thinking of doing a switch from Shaw to Telus due to Speed switch and also TV Plan. How is Telus Speeds on Vancouver Island, especially in Nanaimo?
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Feb 3, 2015 05:23
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Out of curiosity to those people talking about switching to Telus, why wouldn't you just use Teksavvy DSL in those places?
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Feb 5, 2015 20:02
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slidebite posted:Out of curiosity to those people talking about switching to Telus, why wouldn't you just use Teksavvy DSL in those places? I'm one of those people. Teksavvy has huge up front costs - $140 modem + shipping, $40 dry loop activation, $75 service activation Unless the service fees can be waived, it's not worth it (for me)
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Feb 5, 2015 20:48
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Teksavvy is not in Nanaimo so I have limited choices and I do actually want a TV service cause Sports. And Shaw's channel line up for sports is kinda of grabage
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Feb 5, 2015 21:36
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Mantle posted:I'm one of those people. Teksavvy has huge up front costs - $140 modem + shipping, $40 dry loop activation, $75 service activation Personally, I'm happy paying a premium to them just so I can tell Telus to gently caress off and screw their regressive practices.
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Feb 6, 2015 04:53
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slidebite posted:Yeah, that's true but you do get a discount for a new client... $20 or something..? Not like that would probably make a difference to you in your situation. You can probably pick up modem for a bit cheaper though if that helps. Well the only reason to go with teksavvy is to get unlimited internet for a reasonable price you have to go with telus/shaw to get tv.
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Feb 6, 2015 07:36
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Sprawl posted:Well the only reason to go with teksavvy is to get unlimited internet for a reasonable price you have to go with telus/shaw to get tv. Even then Telus doesn't care if you exceed the bandwith allocation. Or if you're in ETTH/FTTH they literally don't track your bandwidth usage. My main reason is that I have TV and 50/10 from Telus. Teksavvy isn't (allowed?) to sell 50/10 yet, their max is 25 down. Even when I plan to ditch TV soon I'll stick with Telus because the 50/10 works out to about the same as Teksavvy's 25/5 after the dry loop fees etc. In summary, the regulated rates Teksavvy has to pay to their last mile is too high for them to compete. less than three fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 07:50
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less than three posted:Even then Telus doesn't care if you exceed the bandwith allocation. Or if you're in ETTH/FTTH they literally don't track your bandwidth usage. Well you can get 50 down from teksavvy on cable even 100 from what i recall depending on the area.
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Feb 6, 2015 08:12
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If i had a choice on TekSavvy I'd probably go with them but they aren't in Nanaimo. And I really want 10 upload cause even on 50 I'm starting to notice slow down on Shaw's network. And yeah I actually want TV too
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Feb 6, 2015 09:15
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less than three posted:Even then Telus doesn't care if you exceed the bandwith allocation. Or if you're in ETTH/FTTH they literally don't track your bandwidth usage. This is changing soon. I think by end of March Alberta and BC customers will be charged for going over. You'll be able to pay $10 extra a month or something to have unlimited bandwidth. They track bandwidth usage already for everyone.
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Feb 6, 2015 09:19
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I want 15 up and I don't care about down. I asked Shaw cable for their 15/15 fiber and they quoted $1000/mo in downtown Victoria.
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Feb 6, 2015 09:19
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less than three posted:Even then Telus doesn't care if you exceed the bandwith allocation. Or if you're in ETTH/FTTH they literally don't track your bandwidth usage. TV is an obvious reason and I certainly understand that. I cut the cord 4-5 years ago so it's meaningless to be but I understand. The issue with Telus and their bandwidth though is they made it clear they have lowered caps and can enforce it if the deign to.... so who knows. Once they do start enforcing it all bets are off. And that attitude pisses me off. I am nowhere near a cap, but I pay Teksavvy unlimited on principal more than anything.
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Feb 6, 2015 15:26
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Mantle posted:I want 15 up and I don't care about down. I asked Shaw cable for their 15/15 fiber and they quoted $1000/mo in downtown Victoria. That's a pretty insane price for 15/15.
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Feb 6, 2015 16:14
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Mantle posted:I want 15 up and I don't care about down. I asked Shaw cable for their 15/15 fiber and they quoted $1000/mo in downtown Victoria. Is that for a business account? People in FTTH areas are able to get gigabit fiber, which I've seen on the odd residential account for a bit over $100/month. It's not advertised anywhere, so I don't know what the process is for actually getting it other than calling in and asking for it, or if it's some limited offer while they test future feasibility. The only time I ever saw it was from people who wanted to try it out, but never used it to its full potential and downgraded to something cheaper.
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Feb 6, 2015 17:50
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Coxswain Balls posted:Is that for a business account? People in FTTH areas are able to get gigabit fiber, which I've seen on the odd residential account for a bit over $100/month. It's not advertised anywhere, so I don't know what the process is for actually getting it other than calling in and asking for it, or if it's some limited offer while they test future feasibility. The only time I ever saw it was from people who wanted to try it out, but never used it to its full potential and downgraded to something cheaper. Actually, I was mistaken and it was $1000/mo for 25/25, not 15/15. But they also wanted a $1000 installation fee. Anyways, yes it was a business account and when I called in to ask about residential fibre they said no. Which residential regions are you seeing with FTTH? I can't find ANY residential FTTH in the Greater Victoria region at all. I will literally move to a building that offers residential FTTH in Victoria.
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Feb 6, 2015 20:26
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Mantle posted:Actually, I was mistaken and it was $1000/mo for 25/25, not 15/15. But they also wanted a $1000 installation fee. Too bad we're not out where you are... We do 75/25 business packages for 1/3rd the cost... Install fees vary depending on contract length. Do you know what their delivery method is? (GPON, dedicated, etc..) Some of our contractors have done work out there and I'd be curious to see what they say about the prices you're seeing.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:02
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In my experience, the places with residential FTTH are brand new housing developments or condos where there is no infrastructure to speak of, so why not run fiber while it's all being done and the trenches are open. They're usually in suburbs on the far reaches of the city, so the tradeoff in having awesome internet is your overpriced house by the city dump and an hour plus commute every day. As far as cable upload goes, I definitely hear you and a lot of us on the technical side make a point of being vocal about it whenever a bunch of VPs come around to our office for their quarterly meetings. The current scuttlebutt is that executive bonuses this year are going to be tied to whether or not we improve our upload capability and percentage of saturated nodes, but I'm so far away from that side of the business that it could just be something to quiet us down. Something definitely needs to be done, because with stuff like twitch streaming and Shaw's acquisition of a cloud services company, the need for faster upload is only going to increase further.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:25
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Question I've been meaning to ask about upload/download speeds.. not necessarily  specific but just in general.Why is upload generally so much lower than download. Is it a technical limitation? Is xDSL in particular more limited? Those who really want high upload speeds, what do you use the high up speeds for?  ? Is there a real benefit to the casual browser/game player as long as it's not stupid low and laggy?
slidebite fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 22:32
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One of the reasons why upload is usually so much lower than download (At least with cable) has to do with how the transmitting equipment at the ISP's headend is much more powerful and expensive than the transmitter in the $100 modem at your residence. Using a radio analogy (Which isn't too far off the mark, since that's what cable is), a broadcast tower is able to send a signal to your handheld receiver 100km away, but if you try to use your handheld device to transmit back to that base station 100km away, the signal isn't going to be anywhere near as clear. Upload is really nice for things like game servers, sending HD video to people, or for doing online file backups. I want to give something like Crashplan a try, but things will take forever with my current 5Mbps upload.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:43
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slidebite posted:Question I've been meaning to ask about upload/download speeds.. not necessarily :canada; specific but just in general. I don't see how a mainstream user would want anything more than 1mbit up at this point. They just want to consume YouTube and Netflix. I want faster up in order to do content creation like live streaming, have better access to my file server and workstation in my home when I'm remote.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:45
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bigmandan posted:Too bad we're not out where you are... We do 75/25 business packages for 1/3rd the cost... Install fees vary depending on contract length. Do you know what their delivery method is? (GPON, dedicated, etc..) Some of our contractors have done work out there and I'd be curious to see what they say about the prices you're seeing. Where are you located? I'm interested in the Vancouver market as well. I don't know anything about the delivery method other than they said is all on-net.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:47
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Coxswain Balls posted:One of the reasons why upload is usually so much lower than download (At least with cable) has to do with how the transmitting equipment at the ISP's headend is much more powerful and expensive than the transmitter in the $100 modem at your residence. Using a radio analogy (Which isn't too far off the mark, since that's what cable is), a broadcast tower is able to send a signal to your handheld receiver 100km away, but if you try to use your handheld device to transmit back to that base station 100km away, the signal isn't going to be anywhere near as clear. I've heard this and that Upstream coming from people homes creates a ton of noise on the line if people have older cable wiring in their house or whatever on their lines. Upload also becomes saturated much quicker then download for reasons that were never explained to me, that's why ISPs will limited filesharing uploading, but not downloading. If DOCSIS 3.1 ever makes it to mainstream that would solve the majority of these issues.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:49
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Coxswain Balls posted:One of the reasons why upload is usually so much lower than download (At least with cable) has to do with how the transmitting equipment at the ISP's headend is much more powerful and expensive than the transmitter in the $100 modem at your residence. Using a radio analogy (Which isn't too far off the mark, since that's what cable is), a broadcast tower is able to send a signal to your handheld receiver 100km away, but if you try to use your handheld device to transmit back to that base station 100km away, the signal isn't going to be anywhere near as clear. I'm not quite sure the radio analogy is a good one. According to the principle of reciprocity, the base station should be able to pick up the handheld signal just as well as it can transmit to it. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_(radio)
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Feb 6, 2015 22:53
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Coxswain Balls posted:One of the reasons why upload is usually so much lower than download (At least with cable) has to do with how the transmitting equipment at the ISP's headend is much more powerful and expensive than the transmitter in the $100 modem at your residence. Using a radio analogy (Which isn't too far off the mark, since that's what cable is), a broadcast tower is able to send a signal to your handheld receiver 100km away, but if you try to use your handheld device to transmit back to that base station 100km away, the signal isn't going to be anywhere near as clear. With the cable plant, if you want to get technical, it's because docsis channel widths (in 1.0 and 1.1) upstream are half as wide as downstream channel widths, because they (rightly in my opinion) designed the format for an end user who's not going to use as much upload as they use down. They've since made a 6.4Mhz channel width in docsis 3.0 (which is what shaw uses) but since Shaw tries to model the QAM channel allocation around the average user (Mantle for instance with a 1 mbit upstream) They will allocate a lot more downstream channels than upstream in any particular chassis. Also, 1.0 mbits up is going to constrict downloads after a certain point because you do need some way to acknowledge your 500mbit downstream data flow. As far as xdsl, I'm not sure why the difference in upload and download, but I can only assume that it's due to the scarcity of (reliable) frequency that they can pipe over a pair (or 2 pairs in the case of vdsl or whatever) of wires.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:55
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Mantle posted:I'm not quite sure the radio analogy is a good one. According to the principle of reciprocity, the base station should be able to pick up the handheld signal just as well as it can transmit to it. I'm still studying for my amateur radio license man get off my case! (Thanks for the correction; most of my recent interest in radio is from building RC aircraft. As I keep learning more about radio, I consistently keep getting blown away by how awesome the physics behind it are, and try to apply that knowledge whenever possible)
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Feb 6, 2015 23:12
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