Going back to Shaw from Telus

[Melbosa]

I did get Broadband 50... but that is the theoretical speed they advertise.  Not at any client site, nor my own connection, have I seen close to that.

We've used the 250s at Frag last year... we couldn't even get close as we overloaded the node we were on in Leduc.  Best speeds we could hope for was 150 per modem; we had 4 modems.

[Tom]

I did get Broadband 50... but that is the theoretical speed they advertise.  Not at any client site, nor my own connection, have I seen close to that.

We've used the 250s at Frag last year... we couldn't even get close as we overloaded the node we were on in Leduc.  Best speeds we could hope for was 150 per modem; we had 4 modems.

Hm, I can see close to 50mbps on my connection. upstream I get about 2.6-2.8 depending (I throttle upstream to about 2.6, so I tend not to see any more than that). I think I've seen 48mbps? Usually I think 45mbps is a good number though. The speed they advertise includes overhead, so you're not ever going to see 50mbps unless you count raw bits transferring over the docsis connection.

just now:

[Mr. Analog]

Try it again during peak hours.

[Tom]

Try it again during peak hours.

Will do

But I don't think it'll get much slower. maybe a couple mbps.

[Thorin]

Although I cannot attest to to specific download speeds during peak hours, I can say that I have downloaded the latest episode of a one-hour show (well, 46 minutes or whatever without commercials) in less time than it took me to eat supper.  Find download, two minutes, start download, one minute, eat supper, ten minutes, move file to correct place, two minutes, watch show, laugh, stop caring about exact download speeds.  At 250 that download might be down to three minutes, not giving me enough time to eat supper...

[Lazybones]

just now (with my router QoS dissabled because it reserves some of the bandwidth)

[Lazybones]

If you are looking for fast downloads there really isn't much point going to higher plans because finding a source or even an aggregated source that can fill a 25Mbit or 50Mbit + connection is REALLY Rare... When you are sharing the connection at home with other users it makes more sense for concurrent use however.

Upload speed and CAP is the true comparison factor for accounts as it makes BIG differences in interactive applications or if you upload to cloud services.
Upload matters BIG TIME to:
- dropbox / Picasa / any online storage service
- Remote desktop (can consume up to 128Kbits/sec)
- VPN
- VoIP (needs to always be free bandwidth in both directions)
- Video sharing / Plex servers viewed remotely
- Moderate impact on P2P (generally allowing a good number of upload slots and bandwidth helps in the Tit for tat calculation or just your RATIO in general on some trackers)

[Tom]

Yeah, the main benefit when going to a higher shaw plan is the higher upload. Some lucky people in edmonton and st. albert already get the 50/5mbps plan, sadly out here where everyone is super cheap, not everyone has switched over to digital cable yet, so they can't reallocate the bandwidth to the internet and hd channels. so all we get is 50/3mbps.

[Thorin]

I find connecting peer-to-peer with Swedish users, there's always spare upload on their end.  Keep in mind Sweden has easy access to 100/100 plans (yup, same speed both directions).

As for people connected, well, it's not unheard of in this house to have four Youtube streams going for everyone to watch their shows, plus downloads, plus my work connection, plus plus plus all the other things that grind up bandwidth.  I used to really notice it on Telus if we were taping one HD stream and watching another, any work uploads or downloads would drop down to very slow (well, still faster than dialup).

[Lazybones]

I find connecting peer-to-peer with Swedish users, there's always spare upload on their end.  Keep in mind Sweden has easy access to 100/100 plans (yup, same speed both directions).

As for people connected, well, it's not unheard of in this house to have four Youtube streams going for everyone to watch their shows, plus downloads, plus my work connection, plus plus plus all the other things that grind up bandwidth.  I used to really notice it on Telus if we were taping one HD stream and watching another, any work uploads or downloads would drop down to very slow (well, still faster than dialup).

Shaw 50 should be enough for those uses easy but you probably need some QoS to prevent a single system from consuming all of the upload bandwidth.

Also regardless of the connection havinnmore than one BitTorrent client on the network can cause problems. Using a client like Transmission or Deluge on a central computer can really help since you can set some reasonable caps on it. QoS per IP or MAC can also work to limit P2P so there isn't saturation. 

[Melbosa]

Here are results from various sites in Edmonton.  So I got up there which is nice to see!

[Tom]

I find the terabyte server is the fastest and most consistent server in the area. Telus's is probably the worst. 4web isn't too bad.

[Lazybones]

I am surprised how high your ping times to the Edmonton servers are.

[Tom]

This is low believe it or not. A couple years ago you were lucky to get below 80ms. Then a bunch of people brought up the issue when they were doing the customer outreach stuff, and the latency dropped to 40-60ms.

In my case, its almost always caused by one of the first shaw routers.

Code Select Expand

root@lisa:/home/moose# traceroute google.ca -n
traceroute to google.ca (74.125.141.94), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1  192.168.1.1  0.227 ms  0.379 ms  0.418 ms
2  * * *
3  64.59.185.117  20.294 ms  21.306 ms  22.273 ms
4  66.163.70.38  17.799 ms  18.764 ms  18.760 ms
5  66.163.78.181  35.290 ms  36.256 ms  36.246 ms
6  66.163.76.134  40.901 ms  41.776 ms  41.728 ms
7  72.14.195.246  37.352 ms  26.947 ms  26.996 ms
8  66.249.94.214  28.011 ms 66.249.94.212  29.453 ms 66.249.94.214  28.437 ms
9  66.249.94.197  47.289 ms 66.249.94.199  27.854 ms 66.249.94.197  34.207 ms
10  216.239.46.208  40.146 ms  40.282 ms  37.968 ms
11  64.233.174.127  37.938 ms 64.233.174.125  39.851 ms 64.233.174.99  35.162 ms
12  * * *
13  74.125.141.94  38.224 ms  34.544 ms  34.842 ms

append: everything from #2 through #6 is shaw.

[Melbosa]

Yeah it has to do with the convergence of Videotron and Shaw infrastructure and the "work" that has been put in over the years as the city has grown.  Pretty much the city is one large Patch Job!