[Discuss] Shaw regular average speed vs. Telus?

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2007-01-20 09:51-0800 Larry Gagnon wrote:

> I realize there was a long discussion about this some 8 months ago on this 
> list but it all got a bit hard to follow.

The consensus then was that Shaw high-speed internet (e.g., their usual
service) bandwidth was extremely dependent on your location.  For example,
it can tend to be slow (< 100Kbytes/s) for areas with intermediate or high
population density (e.g., my neighbourhood in Saanich), but Shaw tend to
have superb speeds (> 300Kbytes/s) if you are located in an outlying area
with low population density.

I really don't know the cause of the Shaw bandwidth problem in my area.  I
suspect it is some fairly high-level infrastructure problem (i.e., not the
neighbourhood network, but the backbone "above" which carries the bandwidth
of all my local neighbourhoods AND a local industrial park (where, for
example, WeDoHosting lives, ahem) to/from Shaw's central collection point in
town).  I used to get 500Kbytes/sec for sites with a lot of bandwidth, and I
might still be able to do that if I stayed up until 4 in the morning, but
during the day and especially early evenings 500Kbytes/s is just not
possible any more and 70-100 KBytes/sec tends to be the norm for me.

Actually, as my Shaw high-speed internet bandwidth has gradually reduced by
a factor of five over the years, I have gotten philosophical about it since
there are few sites where it matters (since they don't have much bandwidth
themselves). It would be different if I was downloading lots of iso's or
playing bandwidth-intensive games, but I am not.  My last ordinary phone
modem was 14.4 Kbits/s = 1.8Kbytes/s so I continue to be grateful that Shaw
is as fast as it is.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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