I never achieve my high speed 20Mbps using Shaw Speed Test. Its usually about 7 or less. When I had Shaw 10 I complained and they put me to 20. I recall at first getting some speeds around maybe 15-17 but it tapered off. Now I called shaw and while the gal was checking I did a test got 14.7? Haven't seen over 10 for months. This morning 6 am back down to 3.3? Are they fiddling with my modem, are we all getting this treatment unless we complain or keep buying up trying to increase speed?
To bust the conspiracy theory: CSR and TSR folks have no ability to 'bump your speed' up while on a call with you. What you tested was what was available during your call.
Cable uses DOCSIS which is a Shared architecture. It is a much bigger pipe than DSL (and getting bigger and bigger all the time!) but access uses a contention mechanism.
