AGiLE ANiMAL™

Over the course of the last two weeks my "High Speed Extreme-I" connection has degraded to the point where I am getting 1.7Mbps.

I have called in three times now.

During this last attempt the support agent suggested that a house call was in order. It was suggested that the solution to the problem was to "increase the levels" on my modem.

I have really lost patience for Shaw tech support. Consider the following:

• My router is a SonicWALL TZ170 so I can push 30Mbps of data through while encrypted with AES over a VPN. Plugging straight into the cable modem is NOT going to change my speed.
• I have had issues with signal strength before in another location - when this happens you speed tanks all of the time but I am getting a full 10Mbps after midnight (depending on the day).
• I just ran the new diagnostics from Google’s m-labs. It is claiming that my provider is queuing packets and that traffic volume is responsible for the degradation in my network speed.
• Most importantly, adjusting or boosting the "levels" is just wasting my time because it is clear that my node is over subscribed.

I was then told that this useless procedure might take until February 12th because all of their techs are booked. They will try to fit me in earlier because I have a business connection.

Let me rephrase this all in Mark-speak:

My connection has been degraded for over a month because half my neighborhood has discovered bit torrent and you want me to wait a week to send a tech out to my house to fix a problem that I don’t have. 

At this point my Rogers Internet Stick is faster than my Shaw "High Speed Extreme-I" connection. The only thing "Extreme" about my connection is how Extremely slow it is.

Oh, and look at this. It is past midnight an my connection speed is now up from 1.7 Mbps to 6.3Mbps. Everyone must be finishing grabbing their torrents of 24.

Read more about the ongoing saga on my personal bog.

And if you are or you know someone at Shaw, help a guy out…