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ZShakespeare posted:Oh, I'm getting unlimited internet from TSI. It was Shaw who was trying to sell me on a $45/10Mbit/150GB (we'll never charge you for overage, but won't provide a promise in writing, also TSI lies about their speed it's actually 7Mbit) as an alternative to TSI's $45/25Mbit/Unlimited plan. Shaw TSR here. The last time we touched on the usage limits was last year during the UBB mess. The official policy was to be if you hit your usage limit for your current plan, you would be bumped up to the next level of service and billed the difference. So, say you hit the allotted 400GB limit for Broadband 50, you would be billed $10 more for the one billing cycle, but you would be getting the Broadband 100 speeds on top of the higher usage cap. In practice, I've never, ever seen that happen with any of the heavy usage accounts I've run across. I think we only really intervene if it becomes an ongoing problem and the node is saturated or something, but I've yet to see it happen. If you want me to check for cable saturation, I don't think it'll be a problem if you PM me with your details and I can look into it. As far as that plan with Teksavvy goes, that's not bad at all. It's exactly the same as our Extreme speed package for $17 less, and the difference is probably due to the fact that you're purchasing a modem instead of leasing it, and due to their service calls not being free. I think we have a six month promo going on for the High Speed 20 at $29.95 with a free wifi modem right now ($55 after six months), but I'm not a big fan of the High Speed 10 and 20 packages due to the low upload cap on them (0.5Mbps). The Extreme speed is the best package we carry before hitting the DOCSIS 3.0 speeds for heavy internet users, in my opinion. Coxswain Balls fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Aug 21, 2012 |
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Aug 21, 2012 20:11
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Tagra posted:[edit] I'm reading that Shaw is raising their prices at the same time but I don't think I saw that in this thread... is it also true? The April rate increases are for people with older grandfathered rates, primarily ones with bundled TV packages to reflect new channels and such that have been added over time. priznat posted:Sooooo shaw's 100Mbs plan is kind of tempting me, except the 500GB/month worries me. Streaming a lot of hi def movies from Netflix (spoofed into thinking I am in a super HD zone) and iTunes which add up significantly. Take this with a grain of salt, but I've only ever seen us take action on accounts where you consistently go over the stated usage limits by very large amounts, like doubling or tripling it, month after month. And even then, only on really saturated nodes. Just the other day I upgraded someone who was on our most basic bundled plan, which has a 0.5Mbps connection and a 5GB usage limit, and they were hitting the 100GB mark each month and I didn't see any action taken. They were in a smaller town and were getting double what I had upgraded them to after testing it, so that probably had something to do with it, as well. The way it was supposed to work is that if you hit your usage limit for, say, the 100GB plan, for that month you would be bumped up to the 250GB plan and get the speed and new monthly limit that that would entail. I've never, ever seen it in practice, though. Standard disclaimer saying that I work for Shaw and that any opinions are my own unless otherwise stated.
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Feb 18, 2013 15:35
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Out of all the cities in Canada, Winnipeg has the most saturated nodes right now, unfortunately. It very much depends on where you are; when I was living in Colony Square right downtown I didn't have any problems with my 25/2.5 plan, but my co-worker in the same building with the 100Mbps plan was having issues getting his full stated speed. I'm in St. James right now and things have been alright on the 50Mbps plan. The thing that will help the most with the saturation is the Digital Network Upgrade we've been doing across the country, where we're finally getting rid of the analog television signal and forcing people to go digital if they don't have a cable box already. This frees up a ton of bandwidth for internet, and also allows us to start offering 250Mbps internet in those areas. I know we've done the St. Vital hubsite so far, but I can check what other parts of the city have been done or are scheduled for the near future when I get in to work today. If anyone is moving or thinking of switching, if you PM me the address you're going to be at, I can run a saturation report on your node, which is more info than you'll get by calling in. At this point we'd rather be upfront about it rather than have people get services with us, only to get pissed off and cancel a month later.
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Feb 19, 2013 13:30
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Demon_Corsair posted:That looks like you need to sign up for more then one service to get it, and all I want is internet. Guess I will just have to cross my fingers and hope that my new area isn't as saturated. If you know where you're going to be moving to, I can check the area saturation with Shaw if you PM me the new address.
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Apr 15, 2013 17:46
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Sprawl posted:If you can get shaw cable Internet in the 50/50 or 100/100 range they are by far the best ISP you can get. Unless you like in downtown cores with fire to the home Internet. The highest our upload goes is (I think) 25Mbps in areas where every single analog channel has been switched to digital, and even then that's with the 250Mbps plan. In those same areas, the 100Mbps plan has 10Mbps upload. In a perfect world we could free up even more bandwidth and increase those speeds further/reduce saturation by getting rid of all the duplicate standard definition channels and switch every station to MPEG4, but that won't happen any time soon for a whole host of reasons. We do have some areas with gigabit FTTP service, but it's a specific team that handles that out of Calgary, I think. Right now fiber seems to get rolled out in new neighbourhoods or buildings that have no previous infrastructure and are close to a headend, so there's no reason not to set it up with fiber if we're getting the construction permits and such anyways. I have no idea how much the 1Gbps service actually costs, since I think it's still under trial and I think it's offered for free for the people who buy these new homes while we're testing it, but I could be completely wrong on that. Unless something drastic happens like Google Fiber launching in Canada, I'd imagine the final price being pretty excessive, unfortunately. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.
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Apr 16, 2013 03:15
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Sprawl posted:The 50/50 or 100/100 are small/medium business plans not residential ones we have 50/50 at our work . Ah, gotcha. I assumed you were just talking about residential services. Edit: I think Shaw Business Solutions might be what you're thinking of, but they're their own arm of the company. They offer symmetrical services like you're describing, but I don't think they deal with residential or even small business accounts. Coxswain Balls fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Apr 16, 2013 |
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Apr 16, 2013 16:26
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Vintersorg posted:Shaw is loving up big time here in Winnipeg! All afternoon today it's been super slow or non-responsive. Used to be one of the best companies and this past while it's all loving poo poo. Not even their main site will load up so I can login. What a goddamn joke of a ISP. Issue is DNS related, as far as I can tell. Switching to alternate DNS servers will get things working, but we're aware of the issue and working on it. Sorry about the inconvenience.
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Apr 17, 2013 00:13
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Rawrbomb posted:1 day of downtime is loving up big? Sometimes poo poo happens, sometimes it takes time to fix. To be fair, Winnipeg has been on the top of our saturated cities list, and it's only in the past few months that we've started making headway in correcting that. If Vintersong is in one of the saturated areas, he's got every right to be frustrated. As soon as I noticed some sites weren't loading I called in to let them know what was going on, and during the span of the call the TSR queues went from nothing to a hundred, so hopefully it's resolved ASAP. Switching to Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) will get you up and running for the time being. Coxswain Balls fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 00:21
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Veinless posted:Shaw Cable in Winnipeg continues to be a piece of poo poo. Paying for 100 down / 5 up, lucky to get 5 down most evenings. Their twitter help said to let them know every time it is a problem. Been doing that but it seems pointless. At any time when using your connection do you hit 100Mbps? If not, and if you're not on a grandfathered plan or a promotion, you can downgrade to Broadband 50 to lower the rate, but still take advantage of the DOCSIS 3 multiple channel bonding to mitigate the saturation. If you don't mind me asking, would it be okay if you PMed me your account info so I could take a look at it? Sometimes our frontline staff see the saturation alert and blame the issue on that when it turns out the issue is due to something we can fix if they get in touch with their higher-ups to do some further investigating. I've fixed slow speed issues for a few folks in Winnipeg by simply digging a bit deeper. The higher ups here have been taking the saturation in Winnipeg pretty seriously; the analog reclamation typically cuts down saturation a huge amount, which should eliminate it in the short term. Node splits have to be planned about a year out, which is why we track usage and plan them to be done before it becomes an issue. Ironically enough, the problem is due to our company doing really well in Winnipeg due to MTS' infrastructure being old as balls, so we've had tons more people switching over to us since launching the Broadband packages than I think we were expecting. The most recent number is something like 7% of monitored nodes/modems being saturated, and considering our average in all the other cities across the country is 0%-1%, it seems like we were pretty blindsided by the huge influx of broadband subscribers in the past year or two. Disclaimer saying I'm a Shaw employee, and that any views or opinions expressed here are my own, yadda yadda.
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May 5, 2013 15:43
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El Scotch posted:5/1 Fibre? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Bell's Fibe and Telus' Optik aren't true fiber-optic all the way from the plant to the residence. The names are more for marketing purposes and I believe if you look closely for both of those services, it never actually says it's a full fiber-optic service. Bell and Bell-Aliant's FibreOP is more what you're thinking of when you think of gigabit fiber to the premise.
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Sep 22, 2013 18:52
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priznat posted:Aha. I could have sworn I saw it on there before, or in the pdf version of the paper bill I downloaded. Shaw also has usage caps that are exactly the same as Telus', but they're not strictly enforced unless you're in a saturated area. Who knows if that'll change in the future if UBB becomes an "industry standard", though.
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Apr 5, 2014 05:16
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priznat posted:Yeah I knew that Shaw has the caps too I was just wondering if they had any deals to entice new signups these days. My Telus contract was up in Feb so I'm a free agent for the right deal. Shaw doesn't really do promos though since they don't have contracts, I guess. We've got some six month promotions, but I'm not seeing anything on the site right now for our 50Mbps package. I can dig around when I'm in at work tomorrow and get back to you, though. We also have 2 year contracts and 3 year purchase plans, but that's more for getting free rental PVR equipment, or paying for said equipment in monthly installments.
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Apr 5, 2014 05:24
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sick zip everywhere posted:I lost Teksavvy service a month and a half ago and they've just put me through a support loop and they've finally said that they can't do anything. What kind of problems were you having with your Shaw services? If you PM me your details, I can take a look at any issues that may still exist in your area, or at least do something about the problems you were having with your services before.
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May 9, 2014 00:01
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Squibbles posted:Shaw's always been good to me but I just moved and I've never seen congestion this bad before. I'm paying for a 100mbps which I get in the mornings but in the evening the speed drops to 5mbps. Have you called in yet to confirm that it's an area saturation issue? If not, I can look at it in a bit more detail for you if you want to PM me your info.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:32
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Squibbles posted:Yeah I talked to two different people who said so. One checked if the area was scheduled to get upgraded and apparently it is but there's no eta on it. 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. Fiber/coax hybrid internet works with a fiber line going into your neighbourhood (Or node), then it switches to the coax lines that were originally used for TV; that coax part of the network is where the saturation comes in. A cable signal is split between different QAM channels, which were originally used for analog TV stations way back in the day. These QAM channels can be utilized much more effectively by switching over to digital TV (You can fit a handful of HD channels in the same QAM space a single SD analog channel takes up), or my using them for data (One QAM channel is analogous to 37Mbps of downstream throughput, and I think 27Mbps of upstream). Your node has a specific amount of QAM channels set for downstream and upstream use, and that bandwidth has to be shared between everyone on the node. If your node has 24 channels set for downstream, that's 888Mbps available for use at any given time (37*24=888). If your node has 50 people on it, but 4 of those people have a 250Mbps connection and are downloading at full speed all at the same time, that 888Mbps is completely saturated for the period of time they're all simultaneously using the connection. One of the solutions for this is getting more channels used for downstream and upstream through more efficient use of the signal. Right now in a lot of places channels are being broadcast three times, in analog, digital standard definition and digital high definition. Shaw's removed non-Basic, analog cable in most areas across the country and repurposed them for data, but there are still a few places where it's still around due to Reasons, and those are more often than not the places that are susceptible to saturation. Future upgrades would hopefully be getting rid of standard definition channels once everyone has high definition capable equipment, so only one feed of a channel is being carried on the signal. The other solution is splitting a node by running a new fiber line into the neighbourhood. This splits those 50 people in the first example into two nodes of 25 people, and each new node will hopefully be able to handle the load. The difficulties with the first option are the old holdouts who don't want to upgrade to digital TV, but that becomes less of an issue as time goes on. There's still tons of standard definition equipment out there, so I don't imagine that going away any time soon, however. Problems with the second option are infrastructure related, as permits need to be acquired, trenches need to be run and agencies need to cooperate, so it can take a lot of time from start to finish. And if all four of those heavy users end up on the same node after the split, you're right back at square one. (Sorry for the nerd-out. I've done the training for saturation stuff at Shaw and think network infrastructure is some of the coolest poo poo ever). less than three posted:Particularly when Shaw decided to copy Bell and Rogers and charge overages on data caps, instead of the usual "To align with the competition we're now also..." they said "Nawh, gently caress that." Shaw doesn't charge any overage fees. In fact, Telus' website explicitly states that overage charges may apply when going over. In my experience, if someone goes way over their limit month after month (Like, 100% over), you get a call from the bandwidth team to give you a heads up. If it's only a bit over and your node isn't saturated, you'll have a much better chance at being left alone. At least in Shaw's case, the usage limits are more of a mechanism to get ahead of any possible area saturation that would affect other customers. We're a big incumbent ISP so this can always change in the future, but for now I know that's definitely not the case. (I'm a Shaw employee and all of the opinions expressed in this post are my own, etc. etc.) Coxswain Balls fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 15:36
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When less than three said overage charges like Bell and Rogers, I was under the impression that meant per GB usage based billing. With Shaw, if your usage is affecting the area, that's when you'll get a call from us going over the options, either cutting down usage or upgrading the package. I do agree that there should be better ways of managing heavy users to cut down on saturation, such as throttling speeds at certain times of day or when you hit certain amounts of usage. Having a cap that may or may not be enforced depending on area factors that aren't public isn't the greatest experience, especially when you see some people saying they can constantly go quadruple over the cap with no ill effects while others don't get that luxury. That's way above my pay grade though, unfortunately.
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Sep 24, 2014 20:00
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mewse posted:Does shaw throttle upstream bittorrent? I'm seeing one tenth the speed that I see in any speed test tool. The traffic management policies in our terms of use state that upstream P2P traffic may be throttled if there's congestion on your node, but I'm not seeing that as being the case. That's not to say that there might be some other traffic shaping going on that I'm not aware of, though. I'll try setting up a torrent on my home computer later to see whether or not I can max out my upload. At least that'll tell us if there might be anything funny going on in regards to torrents.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:36
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Acer Pilot posted:I can't seem to connect to Twitter on Telus right now. Anyone else getting this? Belkin router? http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/10/07/belkin-router-outage-belkin-routers-unable-to-connect-to-internet/
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Oct 7, 2014 18:29
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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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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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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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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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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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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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The Dark One posted:Our internet is being periodically DOS'd by some lovely kid who got in a skype argument with my roommate. I called Rogers and the tech told me that their DHCP solution is incapable of provisioning us a new IP address unless we leave the modem unplugged for a whole day or exchange the CGN3 for another at a Rogers store. If you're getting DoS'd, that's something that the network operations center usually picks up on and blocks right away, at least with the cable ISP I work for. Changing the DHCP IP address shouldn't be necessary, as that just offloads the issue to the next person who gets that IP address.
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May 6, 2015 06:23
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:Quick question. The stock Shaw modems have a bunch of features either locked down or completely excised from their interfaces. If I get the modem changed over to bridge mode and get a third party router, will the equivalent features on the third party router work fine? What I mean to say is, there won't be some poo poo still lurking on the Shaw modem going "We're going to block/intercept X feature on the router from working because we don't allow it to work on our modems." If you bridge the modem and use your own router those features will work fine, no MAC cloning or other workaround needed. Stuff like the USB port aren't disabled because we're vindictive assholes, but because of the additional support burden that would place on our technical support reps. We couldn't care less what you do with your own router, because at that point if something isn't working properly it's not our problem to deal with.
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May 15, 2015 19:20
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StealthArcher posted:So do you ever plan to bring unlimited back or is that part of "following industry trends" out because gouging for bandwidth in 2015 is loverly? I work on the technical side of things, so if you're looking for a real answer you're asking the wrong person. I understand the rationale of usage caps as a way of mitigating saturation, but I still believe there are better ways of doing it that need to be investigated. Here's an old post I made that still applies today. Coxswain Balls posted:
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May 15, 2015 20:17
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The current standard procedure is that if you're consistently going over your usage to the detriment of others in the area, your account will be flagged for the bandwidth management team to give you a call. They'll try to get in touch with you over email/phone and leave voicemails to get in touch, and if there's no contact in a certain period of time, your modem gets temporarily suspended to prompt a call in. What is discussed is methods of cutting down usage, be in intentional or unintentional (eg. a senior whose usage goes from 50GB to 1TB in a month due to malware, open wifi, etc.), and options for upgrading your internet plan if you consistently require that level of usage. What you've now got me interested in is how you were charged for going over your usage in March. Shaw has no mechanisms in place for UBB, and I've just spoken with our bandwidth management people who confirmed that the only way charges are incurred is with the above procedure involving a service upgrade. If you're okay with PMing me your account, I'd like to take a look at those charges to see what's going on, because that seems highly unusual. I know a lot of our frontline staff would be pissed if something like UBB was rolled out without them knowing, because ultimately it's them who get to deal with the brunt of the fallout, which is no fun without any prior knowledge.
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May 15, 2015 21:50
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slidebite posted:I've been checking into this a bit more and I really like the idea. Not so much because of If your concern is privacy when using public networks, you can do this for free on a lot of home routers that are capable of running an OpenVPN server. I've been doing just that on an Asus router for a few years, and it also gives you the added bonus of being able to securely access resources on your home network.
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May 17, 2015 19:50
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but I travel and use hotel/public access a lot. While I try not to be super anal and 
I'd be lying if I said security never concerned me on a public network.
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With a VPN service that you pay for, the server is hosted by a third party company. While you're out travelling, your client device makes an encrypted connection to that VPN server; this is the appeal of a VPN service, since even though you're on an insecure wireless hotspot, any traffic between your device and the VPN server cannot be inspected with any great detail. If having the general public sniffing your traffic on insecure public networks is your primary concern, you can skip the third party server altogether and run the VPN server yourself. In my example, my home router is running the VPN server, so when I'm out in public, the VPN client on my phone is making the encrypted connection to the VPN server running on my home router. The beauty of this is that even while you're not physically at home, you actually are on your home router, and can access things like filesharing and remote desktop stuff through a safe and secure encrypted connection. As far as your phone or laptop is concerned, it's accessing the internet through your home network. This is why VPNs are used so much in business, because having business-critical information flowing from one jobsite to another through the public internet is overall a terrible idea. This is how when you're working from home, your computer thinks it's connected directly to your workplace intranet. The third party VPN services people are talking about in this thread are for encrypting all of their traffic so even the home ISP is unable to see what's being done with it, and traffic can't be pinned to one specific person. When a copyright holder is scanning other people who are on a torrent, all they'll see is the IP address of the VPN server that multiple people may be using at any given time, so they don't have anyone to harass unless they go through a lengthy subpoena process with them, which may not even come up with anything usable.
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May 17, 2015 20:34
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slidebite posted:Thanks for the reply. Without hijacking this thread any more, is there a link you can recommend so I can read up on setting one up? It depends on the router you have, although if your stock firmware doesn't have it, you can probably install a custom firmware that does. The stock Asus firmware has OpenVPN included, and SmallNetBuilder seems to have a decent article on getting it set up. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/other/security/security-howto/32538-setting-up-and-using-openvpn-on-asus-routers I'm using ASUSWRT-Merlin on my router, which is just slightly modified from stock firmware, and I've had no complaints. When I'm out in public it's just a matter of running a small app on my phone/tablet/laptop to tunnel into my home network and it works great. I had no issues doing it from across Canada when I had a 3Mbps upload, including RDPing into my home desktop with a laptop. Granted, I don't do stuff like stream HD content from my home fileserver, so depending on your usage habits you might need more upload. If it's something you're interested in checking out and want to learn more, the Home Networking thread would probably be a great place to ask more questions. Kind of related, but I think those copyright trolls have put network security more at the forefront of people's minds. In just the past month tons of people have been calling in with questions about "vee pee enns" and what they do, where to get one, how to set it up and so on; prior to that it'd just be the odd call from someone who is having issues with working from home due to a messed up VPN config, or wondering why all their websites think they're from the states when all they wanted was their American Netflix. Of course, none of this is anything we officially support outside of making sure your internet connection is working, but it's at the point where I might have to write a short training module about it for our frontline staff who aren't as well equipped to answer basic questions about them.
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May 19, 2015 20:30
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The CRTC is going to be launching a program later today to measure broadband speeds across the country, and to compare with other countries across the world. It's being done by SamKnows, so hopefully we get a detailed document out of it like what the EU got a couple of years ago. http://measuringbroadbandcanada.com/ Keep an eye on that link for registration to open up. If you're chosen, it looks like the measurement and testing device is a custom TP-Link router.
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May 21, 2015 09:32
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crtc-says-big-telecoms-must-share-high-speed-networks-with-competitors-1.3163132 Looks like ISPs will now have to have agreements with third party internet providers for fiber as well now.
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Jul 23, 2015 02:57
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Sixfools posted:There is shielding around the braiding. Either way it is utilized currently and wont be once all analogue channels are off air. conversation done with. Installers giving people plausible but wholly incorrect info make me  . It's like, I don't want to throw you under the bus guy, but when you're giving people this level of misinformation it's really hard not to. Analog channels don't utilize the braiding at all, just other parts of the RF signal that could otherwise be put to use with more important stuff, such as digital TV or data. Go ahead, if you disconnect a coax line and leave just the center conductor loosely hanging out of the hole, you'll still get a signal and a return path, albeit a potentially lovely one. I just did it to mine, and I still get my full download and upload (120/6) even though my RF levels are probably garbage.originalnickname posted:The reason why upstream is slower is because the modem is a low powered unit, it's dealing with a lot of noise headed upstream, and it simply can't put as much signal upstream as down with most cable plants because the signalling equipment at the node end has way more signal strength than what your little wall-wart powered modem can muster.. Therefore it gets placed on the lower end of the coaxial spectrum that is going to be most noise resistant and be able to transmit farther with less power. (lower frequencies are like that). Someone brought up the principle of reciprocity earlier in the thread, but I ended up learning that it only applies when the transmitter and receiver are broadcasting at the same power output, which isn't really the case with cable communications.
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Oct 7, 2015 08:02
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The answer is no for residential, yes for business.
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Jan 21, 2016 15:25
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Antioch posted:Aww, I was just talking with her yesterday about a billing issue and she was really nice. She's a billing and sales rep, so it's not surprising for them to not know what IPv6 is offhand without some assistance. I'll let her know you appreciated her help!
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Jan 22, 2016 00:08
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Yeah, it's for enterprise business using fiber. Small or medium businesses just using cable are in the same boat as residential accounts. Sorry for not making that clear earlier.
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Jan 26, 2016 20:24
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http://business.financialpost.com/investing/market-moves/bce-to-buy-manitoba-telecom-services-in-3-9-billion-deal I heard from some friends working there that they were doing poorly, but I didn't realize it was that poorly.
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May 2, 2016 14:28
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Yeah, that was more along the lines of what I was seeing with pay cuts and layoffs/"restructuring". I wasn't really following the business much more than what I've heard through the grapevine, since they've been around since forever ago and I'd just assumed they'd stay as a constant.
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May 2, 2016 15:32
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TheOtherContraGuy posted:My wifi with Shaw drops out a lot and is generally slow. Can I fix that by turning my modem into a bridge and using a real router for wifi? Which modem and Internet plan do you have? The dual band modems can only be bridged with the 120Mbps plans, but if you have one on a lower speed plan you can swap it out for a single band WiFi modem that can be bridged.
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May 15, 2016 18:22
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