ISP Alternative to Shaw/Telus?
 

hi

i'm currently living in a household with 6-7 people...we're pretty heavy on streaming videos and a couple of us use torrents and play games online.

we're on telus high speed turbo 15mbps down/1up...the connection cuts out frequently and when everyone's on at once there are slow-downs..i dont know if it's just the set of modems/switch/routers are overloaded or the service from telus just can't keep up. Reseting these devices doesn't seem to help. We don't wish to get Optik TV so upgrading to 25mbps is out the window.

we've been customers of shaw few years ago but now with the 100GB cap we are a little hesitant.

wondering if there are alternatives..i know novus is generally for newer apartments only...but right now it seems like the only viable option is to get both shaw extreme and keep telus turbo (two 15mpbs service simultaneously). We are in the east-van area.

shed some light please :0

I heard Teksavvy is in Vancouver with cable internet now from RFD. I might switch soon.

http://forums.redflagdeals.com/teksa...couver-994414/

Novus isn't just in newer apartments & condos. The condo I live in is about 17 years old and we've had them set up service here to. If you go to Novus's website, they have a listing of all the buildings and what services are at that address.

^i'm in a house..not a residential building so no service ;(

so i'm just doing some research teksavvy back-east is owned by bell...is the network/lines here in vancouver from telus? its website said no 100% out-sourcing though

I'm also aware there's $125 fee up front for model/and access fee..more reviews/feedback the merrier. Are they anal on their b/w caps?

Steal the connection off your neighbour's wirless. Don't use the same one for a long time though. Switch it around so they don't notice XD

Shaw DOES have other plans with higher speeds and higher caps. High Speed Warp for $97 gets you 50Mbps down/3Mbps up and 175GB/mo included ($1/GB over that). Split between six guys, that's just a bit over $16 each... under $14 if you split seven ways.

Or there's High Speed Nitro for $150, gives you up to 100Mbit down/5Mbit up, and a 350GB/mo cap. That's only $25/mo each split six ways.

If you really wanted to get hardcore about the usage, you could get a router that supports DD-WRT and enable the logging features to track who is actually using how much, and split the billing accordingly.

I'm going to guess that DSL is off of Telus's infrastructure and ADSL is off of Shaw's.

I don't think anybody own's Teksavvy, they just use the other big player's lines.

not owned by bell but leasing lines through bell...

here...for dsl...they lease lines from house/apartment to go to their c.o. somewhere in van ...
for cable, i think they lease line from shaw to their co. as well...

Also, it might not cost you 125 if you own your own Shaw modem Motorola SB5102.

i think telus offers a fiber optic lines to homes now ... maybe check it out?

Tekksaavy has cable internet as well now in vancouver. Prices are reasonable and they have plans with no caps. They lease their lines from shaw.

Speaking of DD-WRT, I saw on RFD this was on sale today but sale is over now for the Asus RT-N16 Router. Supposedly a really good router for gaming, P2P, BT etc from what I've been reading. Probably this router would help the OP?

Multi-Functional Gigabit Wireless N Router with storage, printer and media server
Powerful CPU provides a high-performance throughput. Support up to 300,000 sessions for extensive P2P clients. Most widespread application with USB2.0 port : All-in-1 printer server and FTP files sharing. Ultra-fast and Convenient Downloads with the Revolutionary Download Master.

Features
RT-N16 has enough bandwidth and processing power to simultaneously handle file transfers and downloads, video streaming, games and VoIP calls. Advanced MIMO technology makes it all possible.

more info in the ME link....


http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...27427(ME).aspx

i think going with connection as fast as 50mbs down is just going to encourage more bandwidth usage...and 175GB for that speed is going to be tapped out very fast:whistle:

here are the devices taht i'm currently on: DIR-655/TEW-652BRP/DI-624/DI-604

just curious, with DD-WRT enabled can you limit bandwidth/speed on each connection on top of monitoring?

An alternative too is to have two separate accounts. When there were 6 of us living in my place in collage who were on the internet all the time that's what we did. We found it was cheaper and faster as we had three of us on each account and we could hop back and forth depending who was home/downloading what). If you have two phone lines you could run two telus accounts. At the time we did it we had one with telus one with shaw.

Though Telus' high speed nitro's a pretty good deal if they can actually get you the speeds they advertise.

Keep in mind your real speed is still limited by the source as well... you're not realistically going to see 50Mbps on most downloads. If you're just streaming movies/Netflix/etc. you won't use anywhere near that either.

Yes, with QoS. Actually, your DIR-655 should do QoS... the 624 may as well.

I just tried test setting QoS with DD-WRT yesterday on my WRT54GL. Basically in QoS, I setup my main PC MAC address as exempt which gives it full speed. While for wireless connections, I set up a total SHARED download of 250kb/s and upload of 50kb/s. For my laptop, I added that MAC address and set it up as Premium. Other devices that use wireless I just didnt bother enterining the address.

DD-WRT QoS can do a shared download/upload only unless I think you pay for the special edition then you can individually setup the max up and down for each computer.

For example if Im using my wireless laptop watching youtube and downstairs tenants using wireless at the same time. I get 75% of the bandwidth towards my laptop since its set to premium priority. If im not using then downstairs get the 100% bandwidth.

I just switched over to Telus Optik High Speed Turbo.. 25Mbps Down/2.0Mbps Up..

250GB monthly cap/month..

I'll let you guys know how actual performance is after I get it installed this weekend..

Currently on Shaw Extreme.. average around 200GB/month usage..

is novus unlimited ?

125 GB hard cap. If you go over, you can either downgrade your speed, or you can pay $5 per 10 GB.

Speeds are consistent. I don't work for them, but I will say that there is no reason not to go with Novus if you live in a building where the service is available.

ah i see, guess its time to move to downtown? lol