We had our Shaw internet hooked up today, and our Telus internet isn't disconnected yet, so I decided to do an actual head-to-head of the two services.
Shaw Broadband 50:
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1658104918.png)
Telus Optik:
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1658106576.png)
Quite the difference, eh? Same server, done via wireless from laptop to wifi modem, both modems sitting side by side so the distance from laptop to modem is the same.
It's sad that my Telus Optik results are still considered faster than 52% of Canadians.
Of course, different servers make things different, here's a server right in Edmonton (Speedtest.net didn't pick it because the ping was a little higher):
Shaw Broadband 50:
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1658120261.png)
Telus Optik:
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1658118161.png)
Three to four times as fast. I'll try and remember to do another test tonight during "peak" hours (7:00pm - 10:00pm).
I've been quite happy with Shaw for the most part.
I've been even happier since dumping Vuze for ?Torrent... WORLD of difference.
Yes, I've been using uTorrent for several years now - I siwtched when Vuze was still called Azureus. It's memory and CPU footprint is so much lower.
No surprises there...
The problem is that Telus Optic TV is cheaper for multi-room especially since you can use an Xbox, but internet wise I can't see any advantage to Telus.
For torrents I run Transmission daemon, if you want to serve more than one person in the house off of one program it is VERY handy and is low on resource use. Hell I was running it on my NAS till recently.
Quote from: Lazybones on December 19, 2011, 02:57:32 PM
No surprises there...
The problem is that Telus Optic TV is cheaper for multi-room especially since you can use an Xbox, but internet wise I can't see any advantage to Telus.
We got six months of discounted bills with Telus. When I got my first real Telus bill, I can tell you it was within a few dollars of what we were paying for Shaw's services. There's two ways you can go with Shaw - regular terminals, or Gateway. The Gateway works the same as Telus's Optik TV, with one big PVR and satellite portals to play the content on. I've seen the Gateway on sale for the same price as Telus's equipment now ($378 for PVR + portal compared to $199 + $179 for Telus's equipment).
Shaw is now giving us three months cheap and 3 months regular price, with no contract signing required. I'll see what the bill is after three months.
Quote from: Thorin on December 19, 2011, 03:39:45 PM
The Gateway works the same as Telus's Optik TV, with one big PVR and satellite portals to play the content on. I've seen the Gateway on sale for the same price as Telus's equipment now ($378 for PVR + portal compared to $199 + $179 for Telus's equipment).
The point was that some of the Telus promo's where including the PVR, and possibly a satellite... Also if you already have an Xbox 360 you had an additional satellite already.
I have been on Shaw for years now, don't plan on changing any time soon, they have been upping their caps and upload speeds just enough to keep me happy.
I've been pretty happy since they replaced my drop, and fixed the trencher's bad hookup job. Stable as a rock \o/. seeing 6MB/s is pretty whicked. Too bad I'll have to downgrade in january. Can't afford the $80-90 they want for it. But 25/2.5 is still nice.
While I agree the Shaw internet solutions are the better (in cost per speed and service), I think your comparisons aren't being a bit fair to Telus. Your Optik is the basic plan that Telus gives with the TV. Speed wise even the higher plans compare as Telus doesn't even offer a 50mbps speed internet account. It kinda like comparing Telus to Uniserve, which doesn't offer plans that match Telus (even though they are a "high-speed" provider, and then posting speed comparison charts. I would instead compare the plans and cost; there Shaw wins on speed alone.
If I could, I would change to Shaw, but as Lazy pointed out, the deals I got switching to Telus for the 3 years has save myself good amounts of money (and if Shaw had not reworked their plans with the new 50s, I would still save a lot of money per month). But now I must suffer with my limited internet, but my pocket book is still ok at the end of the month. Switching now is not a luxury I have, unlike Thorin that could. Would cost me more, even with the $300 visa cards counted in, to break my contract.
I dunno, I think the comparison is fair. If they just don't have the same speeds, that's a pretty big downside. Lets see telus try and support 100mbps or 250mbps any time soon ;D
My point was that once Telus stopped discounting the bill I had to pay $150+ per month. My wife switched us to Telus because there was a show on a channel that Shaw doesn't carry that our youngest really likes. I was okay with it because it cost less than Shaw ($165 a month). Now 8 or so months later, I'm switching back because Shaw is cheaper: $60 a month for three months, $120 a month for three months, $300 in prepaid VISA cards = $240 for six months, compared to Telus's $900 for the same period.
It's not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison - Shaw will give me less channels than Telus did. However, the channels I got from Telus had a lot of repetition, to the point where usually I could only find one interesting show to watch out of 100+ channels. Also, Telus was a multi-room pause-live-tv system, where the Shaw system is a PVR only on the main TV.
When it comes to internet, though, speed is king. If I can get four times the speed for roughly the same cost (or cheaper, in this case), well, then I'm gonna point that out to friends and family.
So, I'm recording an HD show (the hockey game), and it's 9pm so still in prime time for internet usage, and here's the stats:
Shaw Broadband 50:
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1658532350.png)
Telus Optik:
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1658533674.png)
So much for cable internet getting slow because you have to share it with others.
And the funny thing is, if Telus had kept their bill down to around a hundred a month, we wouldn't have considered switching...
Quote from: Thorin on December 19, 2011, 09:11:01 PM
So much for cable internet getting slow because you have to share it with others.
That was fixed years ago when they switched to DOCIS, and started rolling out upgrades faster.
I think locality still matters, the fastest down I can get is 25Mb/s
I'm moving back south in Feb or March and I was pretty sure sure I'd be going back to Shaw (now that my 6 month discount has ended). Happy surprise to see this kind of fact-based discussion right now, I just gotta say...
(http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/11/26/128722257326024508.jpg)
Southside eh?
:sigh: yes...
Go ahead, bring up what I said early this year when I moved north...
;)
Quote from: Mr. Analog on December 20, 2011, 06:52:41 AM
I think locality still matters, the fastest down I can get is 25Mb/s
That seems odd:
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1659924093.png)
And thats with my firewall doing some traffic shaping.
Is that all they'll offer you? Or are you only testing over wifi?
Mr. A., is it possible that you're on the Extreme plan (25Mb/s) and not the Broadband 50 plan (50Mb/s)? It goes:
| Lite | 1Mb/s down | 0.256Mb/s up |
| High-speed | 7.5Mb/s down | 0.512Mb/s up |
| Extreme | 25Mb/s down | 2.5Mb/s up |
| Broadband 50 | 50Mb/s down | 3Mb/s up |
| Broadband 100 | 100Mb/s down | 5Mb/s up |
| Broadband 250 | 250Mb/s down | 15Mb/s up |
They're also advertising gigabit internet to the home now: http://shaw.ca/Internet/Gigabit/
Cra-zazy
Some of the prices are pretty high, though.
Quote from: Thorin on December 20, 2011, 03:01:38 PM
Some of the prices are pretty high, though.
Even through it has no SLA those prices are CHEAP compared to what we have been paying for years for business class connections. Hell those top speeds clobber the line we use to serve the whole company.
Yep, still on Extreme, don't know how I forgot it lol
Quote from: Lazybones on December 20, 2011, 03:33:34 PM
Quote from: Thorin on December 20, 2011, 03:01:38 PM
Some of the prices are pretty high, though.
Even through it has no SLA those prices are CHEAP compared to what we have been paying for years for business class connections. Hell those top speeds clobber the line we use to serve the whole company.
The prices now are better than they were a year ago. Basically the bare (no tv) 50mbps plan is about where extreme used to be. And extreme without tv is 40-50. Which I think is reasonable.
The downside to Shaw is that they now have bandwidth caps that they are enforcing (they bump you up to the next package for the month, if you go over your limit, then move you back down at the start of the following month). With that wonderfully-fast connection, it's easy to hit those caps. ESPECIALLY when you find out about a 48-hour freeleech period on your favourite torrent site :)
Check out Dec 23 - 31 (8 days) vs Jan 1 - 3 (2 days). Guess when the freeleech period was :)
Quote from: Thorin on January 05, 2012, 03:26:08 PM
The downside to Shaw is that they now have bandwidth caps that they are enforcing (they bump you up to the next package for the month, if you go over your limit, then move you back down at the start of the following month). With that wonderfully-fast connection, it's easy to hit those caps. ESPECIALLY when you find out about a 48-hour freeleech period on your favourite torrent site :)
Check out Dec 23 - 31 (8 days) vs Jan 1 - 3 (2 days). Guess when the freeleech period was :)
If you stick with the old plans, there is no enforcing unless you go /way/ over the limit (which is 250G for Extreme).
But to be honest, I have a 400G limit, and I download quite a bit. I haven't once gone over afaik, and most months I'm under 200GB. I can forsee that going up in the future, but for now, 250-300GB is probably my max.
Quote from: Tom on January 05, 2012, 06:07:46 PM
If you stick with the old plans, there is no enforcing unless you go /way/ over the limit (which is 250G for Extreme).
But to be honest, I have a 400G limit, and I download quite a bit. I haven't once gone over afaik, and most months I'm under 200GB. I can forsee that going up in the future, but for now, 250-300GB is probably my max.
Yeah, so, I also have the 400GB limit, and I also download quite a bit...
207GB in
two days combined down and up. 207GB in two days equals 103.5GB in one day equals 4.3125GB in one hour equals 71.875MB in one minute equals 1.1979MB in one second, all averages. Given that at the start of freeleech I was over 4MB/s for hours, but by the end I was at a mere 0.7MB/s (damn seeders capping their upload :-P ), a continuous combined down+up of 1.2MB/s sounds about right.
Going the other way, 207GB in two days equals 724.5GB in one week equals 3,208.5GB in the month of January. So, my average speed was only a quarter of maximum possible (48Mbit/s = 6MB/s, and I saw peaks of 4.79MB/s and 4.8MB/s down + 0.4MB/s up), and at that speed I could have still downloaded over 3 terabytes, or 8 times my cap!
Good lord, I'd have to buy three more drives to put in the Drobo just to store it all!
Extreme (no longer offered):
down: 25Mbit/s = 3.125MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 8,370GB/month
up: 2.5Mbit/s = 0.3125MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 837GB/month
max down+up: 9,207GB
cap: 250GB (2.72% of max down+up)
High Speed 20:
down: 20Mbit/s = 2.5MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 6,696GB/month
up: 0.512Mbit/s = 0.064MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 171.42GB/month
max down+up: 6,867.42GB
cap: 200GB (2.91% of max down+up)
Broadband 50:
down: 50Mbit/s = 6.25MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 16,740GB/month
up: 3Mbit/s = 0.375MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 1,004.4GB/month
max down+up: 17,744.4GB
cap: 400GB (2.25% of max down+up)
Broadband 250:
down: 250Mbit/s = 31.25MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 83,700GB/month
up: 15Mbit/s = 1.875MB/s * 2,678,400s/month = 5,022GB/month
max down+up: 88,722GB/month
cap: 1,000TB (1.13% of max down+up)
Phew, that's a lot of math! Note how small of a percentage the cap is of the total theoretically-possible speed, though. It would be surprisingly easy to go over your limit in a couple of days (if my usage stayed the same I would have cracked the 31 day cap in 3.5 days).
It also shows that they're still expecting people to only use their internet at full capacity _some_ of the time, or else they have a _crapload_ of extra bandwidth available that's not being tapped!
Anyway, the point of my post about caps is that Telus hasn't been able to separate its internet and IPTV packets properly, so can't measure, so doesn't enforce caps for anyone with Optik TV. Whereas Shaw has figured it out and will bump people up to more expensive plans to cover the extra data usage.
Do you really see yourself going over the 400GB/mo on a regular basis? I thought I was going to use a lot more than I do. And I download quite a bit.
Remember, two desktops, two laptops, three smartphones, two iPod Touches, and a DS that all use the wireless, used by six different people. And when the kids can't use the main TV to watch TV, they do it on one of these other devices, at as high as possible a resolution as they can find on Youtube or TV sites like Hulu. And at least one plays online a whole bunch, and all of them Facebook (and many of the Facebook games aren't exactly nice to your bandwidth).
Do I think I'll go over the 400GB limit? No, but only because I'll be watching the usage and managing it. However, I'm not downloading whole seasons of TV shows for the next couple of weeks, to manage it. Which sucks if there's a series I really wanna see from scratch. I'm at 217GB after four days now (so gained 10GB over two days).
EVERYBODY TO THE LIMIT
Quote from: Mr. Analog on January 06, 2012, 08:34:10 AM
EVERYBODY get in the habit of insta-switching to 360 from 480+ on Youtube
^ ez solution to your problem ;)
Heh. I have my XBMC box set to pick 720p by default. >:D
If it's lower than 720 I don't watch it (j/k) lol
Hmm, or maybe I will crack the limit... I stopped leeching on Jan 3, I stopped seeding on Jan 8, Jan 9 I'm still 47GB higher than I was on Jan 3. That's 47GB in 6 days, or roughly 8GB/day. Mind you, 35GB of that was seeding, so 12GB in 6 days means my household uses 2GB/day not including any downloading or torrenting.
And it's probably all Youtube videos and Facebook games.
Hm, I hit 306G so far this month. A bit more than I was expecting. But then I think something large has snuck into my backups. I'll have to figure out what that is.
I can't find anything about the Bump-Up program on the Shaw website anymore... I wonder if they decided to cancel that, or something?
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 01:52:11 AM
I can't find anything about the Bump-Up program on the Shaw website anymore... I wonder if they decided to cancel that, or something?
They seem to have removed all of the interesting stuff. The page with the new plans and availability dates of the new speeds (Is that going to happen now? is 50mbps ever going to get 5mbps up now??), and then removed the old plans? That sucks, they said they were keeping the old plans.
My tentative hunch is maybe they can't give the originally announced upstream speeds, and can't manage the bump-up program properly so they are dropping all of that? I dunno.
Plans: http://shaw.ca/Internet/Compare-Plans/
They still have High Speed Lite, High Speed, and Extreme. Although looking at the prices why would you ever pick High Speed when High Speed 10 is cheaper with a faster download? Or for that matter, why wouldn't you switch from Extreme to Broadband 50 as it's three dollars more and double download and upload speed and 150GB more monthly data allowance?
Anyway, this page shows the upload speeds, which match the stuff that's in Google Cache from when they first announced the new packages.
My problem is more that I might go over my monthly data allowance and I want to know what'll happen. They used to say that we would get bumped up to the next package and what the order of the packages was, but now I can't find any information on that anymore.
Hey Mr. A., you should call up Shaw and switch your internet package from Extreme to Broadband 50. I'm sure three bucks a month more won't break ya :)
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 08:58:20 AM
Plans: http://shaw.ca/Internet/Compare-Plans/
They still have High Speed Lite, High Speed, and Extreme. Although looking at the prices why would you ever pick High Speed when High Speed 10 is cheaper with a faster download? Or for that matter, why wouldn't you switch from Extreme to Broadband 50 as it's three dollars more and double download and upload speed and 150GB more monthly data allowance?
Anyway, this page shows the upload speeds, which match the stuff that's in Google Cache from when they first announced the new packages.
My problem is more that I might go over my monthly data allowance and I want to know what'll happen. They used to say that we would get bumped up to the next package and what the order of the packages was, but now I can't find any information on that anymore.
Hey Mr. A., you should call up Shaw and switch your internet package from Extreme to Broadband 50. I'm sure three bucks a month more won't break ya :)
The 3mbps for the BB50 plan was supposed to be temporary. They were going to upgrade that to 5mbps when they finished upgrading the network (and the 100 plan would get 10mbps upload). I should fish out the information packet they gave us at the community meeting thing I went to.
Quote from: Tom on January 12, 2012, 09:13:54 AM
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 08:58:20 AM
Plans: http://shaw.ca/Internet/Compare-Plans/
[..] this page shows the upload speeds
The 3mbps for the BB50 plan was supposed to be temporary. They were going to upgrade that to 5mbps when they finished upgrading the network (and the 100 plan would get 10mbps upload).
Okay, maybe you missed it or maybe you didn't click the link. Check the image, BB50 is 5mbps up, BB100 is 10mbps up, BB250 is 15mbps up (or
faster up than Telus is down).
Darren, when you move and get Shaw hooked up, please consider using Refer-a-Friend from Tom. He'll get credits on his bill, $25 per service you sign up for. And I'm sure Tom wouldn't mind getting some credits on his bill :)
https://shaw.ca/Secure/Refer-A-Friend/
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 01:23:31 PM
Quote from: Tom on January 12, 2012, 09:13:54 AM
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 08:58:20 AM
Plans: http://shaw.ca/Internet/Compare-Plans/
[..] this page shows the upload speeds
The 3mbps for the BB50 plan was supposed to be temporary. They were going to upgrade that to 5mbps when they finished upgrading the network (and the 100 plan would get 10mbps upload).
Okay, maybe you missed it or maybe you didn't click the link. Check the image, BB50 is 5mbps up, BB100 is 10mbps up, BB250 is 15mbps up (or faster up than Telus is down).
Weird, It said three for me :o It still does. You set your location to St. Albert I assume? I guess that explains that, you guys got your upgrade.
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 01:29:38 PM
Darren, when you move and get Shaw hooked up, please consider using Refer-a-Friend from Tom. He'll get credits on his bill, $25 per service you sign up for. And I'm sure Tom wouldn't mind getting some credits on his bill :)
https://shaw.ca/Secure/Refer-A-Friend/
That would be awesome actually. As it is, its incredibly pointless now to drop down to Extreme, and they don't list the prices without TV so I don't know what I'd save by doing that, probably only $10. Savings used to be $20 for sure. But $10 isn't really worth it, specially since I have to go down to a shaw store to return the hd box.
Oh damn... Yeah, I set my location to St Albert. I keep forgetting about their stupid location-based changes to their site. I'm guessing Edmonton will eventually go up to the same as St Albert.
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 02:32:19 PM
Oh damn... Yeah, I set my location to St Albert. I keep forgetting about their stupid location-based changes to their site. I'm guessing Edmonton will eventually go up to the same as St Albert.
It's being done neigbourhood by neigbourhood. When they have all the people using analog cable chopped down to only /basic/ analog channels (or all digital) then they turn off all analog channels above like channel 30, and use the freed up bandwidth for internet and phone.
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 01:29:38 PM
Darren, when you move and get Shaw hooked up, please consider using Refer-a-Friend from Tom. He'll get credits on his bill, $25 per service you sign up for. And I'm sure Tom wouldn't mind getting some credits on his bill :)
https://shaw.ca/Secure/Refer-A-Friend/
k.
Prolly gonna be lazy and bring Telus with me at first, then hook up Shaw at same time to do some comparorizing like you did, before giving Telus the pink slip. Will be internetz only, Tom, no telly, sorry but one timesink is enough for me ;)
Quote from: Darren Dirt on January 12, 2012, 03:35:27 PM
Quote from: Thorin on January 12, 2012, 01:29:38 PM
Darren, when you move and get Shaw hooked up, please consider using Refer-a-Friend from Tom. He'll get credits on his bill, $25 per service you sign up for. And I'm sure Tom wouldn't mind getting some credits on his bill :)
https://shaw.ca/Secure/Refer-A-Friend/
k.
Prolly gonna be lazy and bring Telus with me at first, then hook up Shaw at same time to do some comparorizing like you did, before giving Telus the pink slip. Will be internetz only, Tom, no telly, sorry but one timesink is enough for me ;)
You won't save much not getting "PTV". On the old info, it was a whole $10. But hey, thats still $10 saved. Also the internet packages /come with/ PTV, so you have to explicitly un-request tv.
I guess I forgot that Peasantvision might be different now that it ain't analog-over-the-air. But tbh I and the kids are used to using YT + streaming sites for the occasional TV episode fix, and they have Netflix at their house apparently so if I can avoid the "I'm bored what's on click click click" temptation that I used to engage in, that's worth more than the "value" of a low $ cost. But good to know.
Quote from: Darren Dirt on January 12, 2012, 04:11:38 PM
if I can avoid the "I'm bored what's new on the web click click click" temptation
FTFY :D
Quote from: Mr. Analog on January 12, 2012, 04:51:17 PM
Quote from: Darren Dirt on January 12, 2012, 04:11:38 PM
if I can avoid the "I'm bored what's new on the web click click click" temptation
FTFY :D
I think worldwide productivity would be WAAAAAAY higher if Youtube never had the "related videos" algorithm so wonderfully evilly perfect.
But at least it's got "alternative" points of view! TV is filtered thru The Big Five Media Companies!
-Seriously though, it's kinda worse for clickclickclicking than Internet, cuz TV has regular, repeated stuff... with characters you learn to love/hate/relateto... YT has clips of those TV shows, with the occasionally funny comedian's standup or late night talk show interview. And not much else.
irony, just found this short Alan Watt rant... "Never watch the television" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmBymKXgrV4
Well, you're still just passively watching television, just you have slightly more control of what's on the next channel ;)
Actually it might be worse than television because instead of getting into a 20-40 minute story you're only seeing disconnected snippets.
YouTube: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
You: left elbow on desk, hand on face: *nods sagely*
Anyways, I'm pretty happy with my current internet service, but I guess I should check out what new packages may be out there, maybe I could be getting a better deal.
Shaw pricing differs a little between provinces.
At current rates my bare Extreme can be upgraded to the new
Bare 50 plan for only $5 /mo but reading thr fine print that becomes $10/mo more after 6mo.
I actually don't see much need for more download speed. It takes a lot to pin 25Mbit.
Quote from: Lazybones on January 13, 2012, 09:37:45 PM
I actually don't see much need for more download speed. It takes a lot to pin 25Mbit.
More is always better? I mean, for instance, with 25Mbps the download speed for a new episode is around 2MB/s, or 100 seconds. With 50Mbps the download speed is around 4MB/s, or 50 seconds. Imagine, not enough time to make popcorn or grab chips, thus you'll actually not be snacking while watching TV, thus you'll have a better diet. See? More speed equals better lifestyle!
"Five second bacon? Awww, but I want it now!"
Quote from: Thorin on January 13, 2012, 10:45:07 PM
"Five second bacon? Awww, but I want it now!"
Made me think of this http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/squeez-bacon.html
Quote from: Lazybones on January 13, 2012, 11:17:53 PM
Made me think of this http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/squeez-bacon.html
Q: BaconGumballs>BaconMints? or vice-versa? http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/bacon/