Shaw Wide Open Internet 300 is out now!

[rage2]

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Judging by the number of people that complain about almost daily slowdowns on Shaw in the evenings in many areas, would 300 really be any better? At least with fiber, your speeds should be quite consistent or at least I have seen so on my fiber connection. And if ping times are important to you, then fiber usually trumps coax.

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right now we only stream movies and tv shows with our internet. and hardly play anymore games. When i say slowdowns they dont exactly happen too often, once in awhile with the kodi box depending on where the stream is from. i was pretty sure i was going to swap to telus before shaw rolled out the 300 download, if it is 50% faster instead of 100% faster im sure it would eliminate the issue i am having entirely. I know that having telus fibre 150 will probably eliminate my problem however for the same price i can get a 300mbs download which even if it worked 95% of the time it would be better in my case. So i guess my biggest question is would only having 20mbs upload make a big difference to me

If you’re in an area where you’re getting slowed down during peak times, upgrading to 300 probably won’t help. This is assuming you’re already on their newer cable modems. With that being said, Shaw has improved dramatically over the last 5 years in fixing these hotspots. They cancelled the 250 service back then because they couldn’t cope with the usage and made things worse prior to their upgrades. Based on what my Shaw buddy tells me, a large portion of the NE as well as central areas that share with NE are still pending upgrades and are most susceptible to slowdowns, both from a density perspective as well as usage patterns. So if you’re anywhere near that area, don’t hold your breath anytime soon for good Shaw performance.

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True, but you can't choose your latency. I've had both services, and my pings were always lower on the Telus fibre. Anecdotal, I know.

Plus, higher latency can affect the throughput, so I'd rather have more to work with.

I'm sure somehow who does networking for a living can chime in and tell me if my theories are crazy

In a perfect system, cable has more overhead than fiber. There’s a bit more processing overhead involved between your cable modem to the termination point than fiber setups. Somewhere in the range of 10-15ms penalty. While it won’t affect throughput for downloads, it will affect gaming, as you’ll always have a 10-15ms penalty compared to fiber.

[Gman.45]

My father has fiber through Sasktel at his place in SK, 260mbit, and he had the 150 Shaw package simultaenoulsy for a couple weeks until the contract was up when he switched. I ping tested a few games on my gaming laptop when I was there, Sasktel's fiber did have a noticeable ping advantage across the board, nothing staggering, but enough to make a difference in CS Go or other FPS games where 25ms, going from say 50 to 75/80, can make a pretty big difference.

Sorath, IMO, as others have said, it depends on your area and how saturated Shaw has it. If it was me, I'd go Telus/fiber, but gaming is priority 1 for internet connex for me.


Friend of mine has the 150 package, and the standard package/discount deal they sold with it, which is $110 retail, and $30.10 discount, so it's $79.90 for 2 years of 150mbit. When that discount expires in January 2019, she'll be back up to $110 for 150. That's when I advised her to switch to the 300, as it's only $10 more, but there is a discount deal for it for $105 as others have said, which will make it actually 5 bucks cheaper than the 150mbit for a while, then only $10 more for twice the speed rate after that, a pretty easy call.

I do wonder if Shaw is prepared for this - like Rage2 said, when 250 came out they shut that shit down pretty quickly as they were NOT prepared for the popularity it had, and how many users were using it for torrent site hosting and other bs which really, really saturated the available bandwidth in many areas. I was fortunate, at CFB Moose Jaw there is mostly old people who aren't "power users" of the internet, and my area there even when 250 was available and not grandfathered, never gave me any issues, I would speed test it every week or so, and it always maxed out, and I've never had an issue with that. Now, with many on 150 seeing the value of getting 2x the mbits (rated) for only a finsky more...heh, we'll see what happens. 50/50 that 300 will be "grandfathered" again in 6 months, hah.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Have any existing BB150 customers with an expired 2yr contract been successful getting the BB300 with the first 6 months at the $55 promo pricing? A very unpleasant lady told me that is for new customers only, but I wasn't a new customer when they gave me the $50 6-month promo for BB150 2 years ago.

Am I SOL or did I just get a bad rep? I went as far as I could online without hitting the purchase button and it looks like it might let me order the promo but I am not sure - it's probably treating me as a brand new customer.

- - - Updated - - -

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But TELUS is selling 150 fiber? Which I have and it regularly tests out at over 170 up and down.

The rep was an idiot, as soon as he told me that I knew he didn't know what he was talking about and was wasting my time. I asked him why Shaw has had 250 in the past and he didn't have an answer for me.

Apparently I do not live in an area accessible by Telus Fiber, but that is what that same idiot told me so I have no idea if it's true or not. I don't want it anyway because it's quite a bit slower than Shaw's BB150 which is actually ~175, and now they are offering 300.

[rage2]

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Have any existing BB150 customers with an expired 2yr contract been successful getting the BB300 with the first 6 months at the $55 promo pricing? A very unpleasant lady told me that is for new customers only, but I wasn't a new customer when they gave me the $50 6-month promo for BB150 2 years ago.

Am I SOL or did I just get a bad rep? I went as far as I could online without hitting the purchase button and it looks like it might let me order the promo but I am not sure - it's probably treating me as a brand new customer.

I tried 2 reps, couldn't get the 6 month promo price. Wasn't worth my time to pursue further. I haven't been on a contract in forever, grandfathered on the BB250 plan for years. Only have contacts at Shaw on the tech side, none on the sales side to help me weasel a better deal.

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Apparently I do not live in an area accessible by Telus Fiber, but that is what that same idiot told me so I have no idea if it's true or not. I don't want it anyway because it's quite a bit slower than Shaw's BB150 which is actually ~175, and now they are offering 300.

It's too bad Telus took the maps down, it'd be nice to see where PureFibre is available today. Last map they had, it was something like 15% of the city. Barely any coverage. You can check your address on the Telus Purefibre page.

I wouldn't be surprised if Telus ups their Purefibre plan to 300/300 within a week, or maybe even launch their Gigabit service that they offer in BC. They've been holding back on the 250 and Gigabit plans in Calgary because they didn't feel their backhaul could handle it. It's just unfortunate that so few houses can get it here.

[403ep3]

My 2yr ends in August and hoping to get a deal with Shaw for this 300. I wanted Telus 150, but it's not available in my area

[Mitsu3000gt]

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I tried 2 reps, couldn't get the 6 month promo price. Wasn't worth my time to pursue further. I haven't been on a contract in forever, grandfathered on the BB250 plan for years. Only have contacts at Shaw on the tech side, none on the sales side to help me weasel a better deal.


It's too bad Telus took the maps down, it'd be nice to see where PureFibre is available today. Last map they had, it was something like 15% of the city. Barely any coverage. You can check your address on the Telus Purefibre page.

I wouldn't be surprised if Telus ups their Purefibre plan to 300/300 within a week, or maybe even launch their Gigabit service that they offer in BC. They've been holding back on the 250 and Gigabit plans in Calgary because they didn't feel their backhaul could handle it. It's just unfortunate that so few houses can get it here.

I'm trying retentions right now...if they won't give me the promo price I'll just take the $105/mo. Still a good deal considering my BB150 would raise to $95/mo this month anyway as that contract expires.

If I remember correctly, the guy told me my area can't get Telus fiber, but could if we all banded together and asked Telus lol. It sounded ridiculous to me but I don't know how that works.

[rage2]

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I'm trying retentions right now...if they won't give me the promo price I'll just take the $105/mo. Still a good deal considering my BB150 would raise to $95/mo this month anyway as that contract expires.

If I remember correctly, the guy told me my area can't get Telus fiber, but could if we all banded together and asked Telus lol. It sounded ridiculous to me but I don't know how that works.

Go here and check: https://www.telus.com/en/ab/internet/fibre/new

Telus upgrades is slow in Calgary because not only do they have to lay fibre to the house, they have to upgrade the backhaul to handle more traffic. It's a huge cost and will take a while for Telus to get there. Shaw's lucky in that they owned/acquired enough commercial internet providers over the years to provide them with so much bandwidth on the backhaul to handle the majority of the internet usage in the city.

Just went to check Telus PureFibre out at the MIL's in Kamloops, so jealous. They fibre'd the whole city a couple of years ago so this is city wide.



I'd blow through that 1000GB in no time haha.

[HiTempguy1]

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True, but you can't choose your latency. I've had both services, and my pings were always lower on the Telus fibre. Anecdotal, I know.

I just came to comment this. Telus Fibre absolutely has lower average pings overall from any setup I've seen.

Also, just wanted to come in and say I'm fascinated by how much bandwidth some of you guys are using. And here I thought I was a power user

I'll stick with the no-contract PikTV 25mbps telus fibre and tv combo I just got for now that I just got for $65/month. I don't have a 4K TV yet, and 1080p streams perfectly on 25mbps. I am definitely intrigued for the future once I am back in the city full time and have a 4k TV though.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Go here and check: https://www.telus.com/en/ab/internet/fibre/new

Telus upgrades is slow in Calgary because not only do they have to lay fibre to the house, they have to upgrade the backhaul to handle more traffic. It's a huge cost and will take a while for Telus to get there. Shaw's lucky in that they owned/acquired enough commercial internet providers over the years to provide them with so much bandwidth on the backhaul to handle the majority of the internet usage in the city.

Just went to check Telus PureFibre out at the MIL's in Kamloops, so jealous. They fibre'd the whole city a couple of years ago so this is city wide.


I'd blow through that 1000GB in no time haha.

The Telus link says it is not available in my area.

I'd love the upload speed of fiber for the few times I use that, but only if I could also get high download speeds for a reasonable price. For now it seems like Shaw is still the best option.

Shaw retentions gave me BB300 for $85/mo for the entire 2yr duration (cheaper than the 6mo promo then $105 thereafter) without putting up any kind of fight, they seemed happy to do it. Maybe I could have got better if I pretended to cancel and whatnot, but that is too much effort. I basically just asked them for a deal and they gave it to me with no resistance haha. Every other department wouldn't even entertain the idea, but they did offer to not raise my BB150 price if I just stuck with that.

[lamp_shade_2000]

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The Telus link says it is not available in my area.

I'd love the upload speed of fiber for the few times I use that, but only if I could also get high download speeds for a reasonable price. For now it seems like Shaw is still the best option.

Shaw retentions gave me BB300 for $85/mo for the entire 2yr duration (cheaper than the 6mo promo then $105 thereafter) without putting up any kind of fight, they seemed happy to do it. Maybe I could have got better if I pretended to cancel and whatnot, but that is too much effort. I basically just asked them for a deal and they gave it to me with no resistance haha. Every other department wouldn't even entertain the idea, but they did offer to not raise my BB150 price if I just stuck with that.

Thanks for posting this. I just called as well as my BB150 just expired and they matched your deal without headache.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Thanks for posting this. I just called as well as my BB150 just expired and they matched your deal without headache.

NP, glad it worked for you

I went to pick up my modem and the guy there said he's getting 330Mbps or so at his house. Seems consistent with their underrated BB150 (175-180Mbps) which is a nice bonus. Upload only jumps to 20Mbps though (from 15).

[Agent_Oorange]

$164/mo with large TV

[rage2]

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6ms ping to Telus? Are they actually running on DOCSIS 3.x now to get that?

The Fibre latency advantage just went away.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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6ms ping to Telus? Are they actually running on DOCSIS 3.x now to get that?

The Fibre latency advantage just went away.

The guy at Shaw downtown mentioned something about a DOCSIS upgrade when I asked if they had to upgrade anything to get 300Mbps to everyone now, I didn't catch a version though.

[rage2]

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The guy at Shaw downtown mentioned something about a DOCSIS upgrade when I asked if they had to upgrade anything to get 300Mbps to everyone now, I didn't catch a version though.

Yea, the new modems are DOCSIS 3.1. They need to get everyone up to at least 3.0 to be able to flip the switch to go fully 3.1, where they'll have better latency and ability to do 10gbps down and 1gbps up per connection. Basically cable's answer to fibre, and the requirement to actually start moving to 4K distribution on the TV side.

From what I'm told, if you have old TV equipment, they won't move you to 300 unless you get new TV equipment to try to maximize adoption.

[killramos]

Docsis 3.0 has been around for a while at Shaw no? At least 2-3 years?

[J.M.]

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The Telus link says it is not available in my area.

I'd love the upload speed of fiber for the few times I use that, but only if I could also get high download speeds for a reasonable price. For now it seems like Shaw is still the best option.

Shaw retentions gave me BB300 for $85/mo for the entire 2yr duration (cheaper than the 6mo promo then $105 thereafter) without putting up any kind of fight, they seemed happy to do it. Maybe I could have got better if I pretended to cancel and whatnot, but that is too much effort. I basically just asked them for a deal and they gave it to me with no resistance haha. Every other department wouldn't even entertain the idea, but they did offer to not raise my BB150 price if I just stuck with that.

How did you get through to retentions?

I'd take BB300 for $85/mo for a 2 year plan, that's a great deal IMO. My BB150 is $85/mo for 1 year now that my 2 year plan is over.

[lamp_shade_2000]

When I called I mentioned my promo expired and I wanted to review my services and mentioned the deal. Mentioned I was going to start shopping around with telus but if they could match the $85 for 300 I wouldn't bother shopping. They transferred me right after and retentions was a smooth conversation again saying someone else got the $85/no deal and I was interested in getting that too. Took 10 min and I was signed up

[rage2]

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Docsis 3.0 has been around for a while at Shaw no? At least 2-3 years?

Yup. DOCSIS 3.1 is the big leap in performance, and isn't compatible with DOCSIS 2.x hardware.

At least that's my understanding.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Yea, the new modems are DOCSIS 3.1. They need to get everyone up to at least 3.0 to be able to flip the switch to go fully 3.1, where they'll have better latency and ability to do 10gbps down and 1gbps up per connection. Basically cable's answer to fibre, and the requirement to actually start moving to 4K distribution on the TV side.

From what I'm told, if you have old TV equipment, they won't move you to 300 unless you get new TV equipment to try to maximize adoption.

Interesting, I didn't know that.

They also told me they used to use ~$15 modems and these new modems apparently are $200 units. They are super heavy, and the employees kept talking about how good the WiFi was (you can also bridge it yourself or call in to bridge it, but they can't do it when you pick it up from their locations).

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How did you get through to retentions?

I'd take BB300 for $85/mo for a 2 year plan, that's a great deal IMO. My BB150 is $85/mo for 1 year now that my 2 year plan is over.

I literally just called and asked to speak to retentions. I didn't threaten to leave or anything like that. I told them my previous 2yr contract was up so I was shopping around (didn't even mention Telus) and I was hoping to get BB300 for the the $55/mo for 6 mo promo deal. They said "sure no problem" and further offered me the $85/mo option which works out to about $200 better over 2 years.

My dad also walked into the downtown brick & mortar location and they gave him the same deal there too with no hassle.