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knoot
@shawcable.net

knoot

Anon

[AB] BB50 and shaw a waste of time if you want to use netflix?

Well here goes.

I moved into a house a couple months ago and got shaw BB50 in st.albert (by edmonton) I wanted to get this over telus because of the higher speeds since the main form of entertainment for my wife and I is netflix.

Now the problem started right away, it was almost impossible to get HD on my 360, my computer, and good quality on our phones. My 360 is hard wires, so are our computers.

Now When i run speedtests the speed is always really good, heck, the other day i was downloaded a game off of steam at over 6 megs/s for about an hour.

Netflix on the other hand only gets the lowest quality, didn't matter if the cisco router was in bridged mode or not, hooked up to my router, or hooked directly to the cosco router. Quality is crap. Now netflix and shaw blame each other, depends on who i talk to people try to help me out, but in the several times i have called obviously i have had complete muppets from both sides.

I have read about this and have heard people talking about this, but the only thing that makes sense is that shaw is throttling netflix, plain and simple. I have an internet that averages about 44 mbit/s on speedtests and can't get past the LOWEST quality...

While in my old place that had telus where i averaged 16 mbit/s I could easily get HD 85% of the time. I don't know how much clearer it could be. But unless someone here has a solution to my problem (which would be nice, i love the speeds besides netflix) I guess i'm kinda forced to go to telus in the new year.

Really hoping someone has a solution, I really do.

P.S. Oh ya another thing that makes me think it's shaw. I was on the phone last night with shaw, and suddenly my movie on my 360 cut out and reloaded, and when it did i was watching it in glorious HD for about 30 minutes, and then it went back to the lowest quality

Baud1200
join:2003-02-10

Baud1200

Member

Re: [AB] BB50 and shaw a waste of time if you want to use netfli

PM your account information to Shaw_Alex
»/profi ··· /1774595

He will have a competent technician get in contact with you and get to the bottom of it.
ShawX
join:2012-02-08

ShawX to knoot

Member

to knoot
Have you tried going into your account and changing the video quality?

rustydusty
join:2009-09-29
Red Deer County, AB

rustydusty to knoot

Member

to knoot
Shaw is not throttling anything on the download side. The only they throttle and on rare instances, is the upload side. I can stream Multiple Netflix movies off a variety of wired and wireless devices flawlessly.
knoot
join:2012-12-05
St Albert, AB

knoot to knoot

Member

to knoot
yes my quality on netflix is set to the highest quality, always has been, sorry i forgot that from my post.

I honestly don't know what it could be, Like i have said, i have tried wireless from my computer, my wifes, my xbox from my wireless and nothing. I have tried wired from my router and also from my modem from my wifes computer, mine, and the 360. So in total 9 connections, and it's still barely lowest quality. Like i said, I really love shaw, all but netflix so far, and ya, i called netflix 4 times, and nothing, they said that they are good on there on end and that it's shaw...

Inthesetting
@74.198.150.x

Inthesetting to knoot

Anon

to knoot
Canadian Netflix defaults to low quality now so you have to visit your account and manually change it to the best quality for all connected devices. If you had decent picture before it was probably prior to the account switch over defaults. Also you may want to hold off switching to Telus if they have UBB looking like its coming in February with bandwidth caps being slashed up to 50% less in some cases and $2/GB overage charges. Especially if Netflix is saying 2.3GB per hour for best HD. Quality wise IMO still relevant »techblog.netflix.com/201 ··· rks.html

rustydusty
join:2009-09-29
Red Deer County, AB

rustydusty to knoot

Member

to knoot
Bridge the Shaw device, get a proper router and get it near the middle of your place if at all possible. Also, I would play with DNS settings. My DHCP and DNS are done server-based, but I've been using google for DNS for over a year and haven't had a single hiccup.
zod5000
join:2003-10-21
Victoria, BC

zod5000 to knoot

Member

to knoot
Are you sure its set to the highest quality? Netflix defaults it to a low quality. You have to manually log in to your account via their website and change the setting to high quality (or HD.. I can't remember what it's called). I've run into alot of people that didn't realize this, because you can't access the setting on devices, only on the website.
lightspeedpr
join:2012-12-04
Courtenay, BC

lightspeedpr to rustydusty

Member

to rustydusty
The ping is rather consistance at 100 ms see the think I like about using google's dns is when you have a consistant 100ms ping to a server with .100 in its quadrent and it leaves open a variety of technics which allow gate jumping easily for internal lan accelerators. Dont mind me I will just be eating corn chips in the corner, Im the guy with the tinfoil hat.
Expand your moderator at work

Baud1200
join:2003-02-10

Baud1200 to knoot

Member

to knoot

Re: [AB] BB50 and shaw a waste of time if you want to use netfli

said by knoot:

...but in the several times i have called obviously i have had complete muppets...

MicroBots actaully...
said by knoot:

I have read about this and have heard people talking about this, but the only thing that makes sense is that shaw is throttling netflix...

They don't know what they are talking about, Netflix uses mainly DOWNLOAD, Shaw doesn't throttle download at all as per their terms of use. They only throttle P2P UPLOAD and this only affects areas where the equipment is saturated.

This doesn't mean that there are no other issues, so contact the technician linked above and he will do his best to get to the bottom of the issue or at least give you a competent explanation.

»www.shaw.ca/Terms-of-Use/

"Shaw uses traffic management policies to ensure proportional access to its network for all Shaw Internet customers. Some Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications used for non real-time file sharing can consume a disproportionate amount of upstream bandwidth causing disruption to other customers on Shaw's network. Shaw's traffic management policies were introduced to quickly address any upstream congestion caused by these P2P applications while standard network expansion activities are undertaken to increase the bandwidth availability for all users.

Shaw's traffic management policies come into effect only if upstream network congestion occurs on a network segment. If congestion occurs, the traffic management policies reduce the amount of upstream bandwidth available for P2P applications completing non real-time file transfer activity to 80 kbps per end-user.

Shaw's traffic management policies do not affect download speeds and will not affect real-time interactive activities such as on-line gaming, banking, e-mail or VoIP services. For the majority of Shaw customers the Internet experience is unaffected by our traffic management policies and both upstream and downstream bandwidth will be available to ensure the full operation of any application.

The traffic management policies implemented by Shaw use IP addresses to make real-time traffic management decisions in relation to Shaw's network. Since IP addresses have the potential to be linked to an individual's customer account, IP addresses could be considered personal information. The traffic management policies implemented by Shaw do not involve capturing, storing or archiving this information in any way."
Expand your moderator at work
ravenchilde
join:2011-04-01

ravenchilde to zod5000

Member

to zod5000

Re: [AB] BB50 and shaw a waste of time if you want to use netfli

said by zod5000:

Are you sure its set to the highest quality? Netflix defaults it to a low quality. You have to manually log in to your account via their website and change the setting to high quality (or HD.. I can't remember what it's called). I've run into alot of people that didn't realize this, because you can't access the setting on devices, only on the website.

Anecdotally I've seen you help a few people out with this advice..
knoot
join:2012-12-05
St Albert, AB

knoot to knoot

Member

to knoot
I've had it set to the highest quality in netflix ever since i got it. It's wired, and even directly from the modem or from the router it's still low quality on my computer and the 360, and low quality on my phone on wireless.

I thought it might be my router, but i mean if it's still low quality directly from the modem to me that kinda rules out the router and my speeds are super good for everything else going though my router. It's not that old, a lightly used dlink dir-628. I would not have needed the router but the wireless range on the cisco gateway is pretty poor. It could not reach our bedroom, and i don't want to move where the modem is because our computers are right there so it's easy to hard wire them. As well as the 360, it's only about 20 feet from the modem as well.

But shaw_alex is going to have someone look at it, I just gave him my phone number. So ya we will see how that goes. Looking forward to talking to this tech. Hopefully something can get resolved, because like i said, i'm loving the super fast speeds for everything else.

Baud1200
join:2003-02-10

Baud1200

Member

said by knoot:

..a lightly used dlink dir-628.

Have a look at how the 628 compares to some of the newer routers specifically in the 2.4 band you are using:

»www.smallnetbuilder.com/ ··· 4-ghz-dn

Might be worth considering an upgrade to get things running optimally.
overturn95
oh plz
join:2005-12-13
Victoria, BC

overturn95 to knoot

Member

to knoot
I too have this problem but what I realized is that most movies aren't in HD. The only movie I have seen being in HD is Youth in Revolt. It even has the HD icon light up when it goes into HD quality. All the other new movies look bad and don't have the HD icon. So i'd say this is a problem with Netflix.

Also I have a Dir-628 and I think its a great router. Plays HD movies great on Youtube and Netflix.

kevinds
Premium Member
join:2003-05-01
Calgary, AB

kevinds to knoot

Premium Member

to knoot
Have you had your modem bridged? And actually made sure it was bridged?
knoot
join:2012-12-05
St Albert, AB

knoot to knoot

Member

to knoot
first off. I would like to say sorry. I was wrong it was not shaw it was me, kinda

Router is fine, yes the modem is bridged (had a problem getting it bridged the first time, like 3 days after i got it, got hit with a $5 increase a month for that, something about different codes, i was not to happy about that).

Surprised it took me this long to figure out, I had to port forward my router for netflix. Once i did that, BOOM movie loads in about .5 seconds, and it's hd in about 10 seconds. Really really surprised this isn't on the techs sheets of questions to ask, especially if they know the user has a router. It would not be that hard to do, they could just email the user a link to the netflix part of portforward.com.

I port forward alot of stuff (or used to) on my computer, just never occurred to me to do it for my xbox for some reason. Now I just have to manually configure my IP for my xbox so it does not change again.

Quick question though, my router would not let me port forward netflixs' ports to my computer, said something about not being able to open the ports for 2 ips. So netflix is still dog slow on my computer. But i don't really care, I'm sure if i looked into it more i could figure out what to do. As i watch netflix mainly on the xbox.

I guess i just never thought about opening the ports for the xbox because i didn't have to when i was with telus. But oh well. As of know everything is good to go.
knoot

knoot to knoot

Member

to knoot
well son of a biscuit. I thought for sure I had it figured out. After i wrote that last post i go back to the tv and I'm back at watching movies in the lowest quality
knoot

knoot to knoot

Member

to knoot
okay, it has to be the ports. I just put my my xbox address on my router into a DMZ and it went to HD when i tried to play a movie again. So it looks like i'm on to something here. I have to leave for a few hours though, but when i get back i will give my xbox a static IP. That might help a bit.
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

prairiesky to knoot

Member

to knoot
use upnp? then you don't have to forward ports??
familypizza
join:2013-01-07

familypizza

Member

dug this one up because i'm having the same issue since switching to shaw.

Forwarding ports as a solution doesn't make sense for 2 reasons... #1, you are not hosting anything... you are accessing a service, no ports need to be forwarded. Can you imagine if all netflix users had to piss around forwarding ports to get it to not be complete garbage???

#2, I didn't have this issue with my past ISP using netflix for the last year with them...

I almost wonder if shaw is somehow degrading the netflix service in order to make it's own offering look more attractive :S

rustydusty
join:2009-09-29
Red Deer County, AB

rustydusty

Member

said by familypizza:

dug this one up because i'm having the same issue since switching to shaw.

Forwarding ports as a solution doesn't make sense for 2 reasons... #1, you are not hosting anything... you are accessing a service, no ports need to be forwarded. Can you imagine if all netflix users had to piss around forwarding ports to get it to not be complete garbage???

#2, I didn't have this issue with my past ISP using netflix for the last year with them...

I almost wonder if shaw is somehow degrading the netflix service in order to make it's own offering look more attractive :S

What hardware are you using? Speeds on the line good? What DNS are you using? Need more info....

I can stream netflix on 3 devices without issues, so I can guarantee Shaw is not purposely degrading Netflix. The issue is elsewhere. Provide some more info and we can help narrow down the issue.
familypizza
join:2013-01-07

familypizza to knoot

Member

to knoot
Well tried it again now at 7am local time... night and day difference, works flawless on all 3 netflix players (TV, blu-ray, and PC)

I didn't provide more info because I was fairly sure the problem was at shaw's end... and seeing others with the same issue now i'm quite certain.

My hardware can be ruled out as I stated i did not experience this EVER with my last ISP... the only thing that changed was moving to Shaw and replacing a DSL modem with their cable modem.

Standard Shaw DNS, and speeds and latency are both awesome (that speed boost makes it test at 25mbps down). If I decide to test it using a large download like a service pack from microsoft... it slows down after about a minute to 10 - 12mbps.

You say you can stream on 3 devices without issues. I'm curious what bitrate you're getting, and what time this works for you... cause last night it was complete garbage, and now works great. If it's doing it again tonight I'll make a youtube of it.

rustydusty
join:2009-09-29
Red Deer County, AB

rustydusty to knoot

Member

to knoot
Shaw doesn't provide a modem only device anymore. They supply you with an all-in-one device that does modem, NAT, Wifi. We've had nothing but issues with them, which is why I asked which hardware you had. It should be either Cisco or SMC.

vitiate
@csinet.ca

vitiate to familypizza

Anon

to familypizza
I am having the exact same issues. Prime time is horrible for some reason. Oddly enough when I run a pingplot to the netflix.com servers I have only about 100ms latency and very little packet loss. If I plot to the content servers that netflix is using everything goes to shit.
familypizza
join:2013-01-07

familypizza to rustydusty

Member

to rustydusty
It's a Motorola surfboard cable modem, not a home gateway.

I also explained the problem happens at peek periods, and the problem is not with the connection itself (as other services work fine and speeds are not an issue)

It's quite possible that the problem isn't even on shaw's network... but with a provider that they peer with. I'll tracert tonight to the content servers (providing it happens again) to see what I can see... although it's nice to see that i'm not the only one experiencing this.
ravenchilde
join:2011-04-01

ravenchilde to familypizza

Member

to familypizza
said by familypizza:

I almost wonder if shaw is somehow degrading the netflix service in order to make it's own offering look more attractive :S

This isn't being done.

Jumpy
@shawcable.net

Jumpy to vitiate

Anon

to vitiate
said by vitiate :

...If I plot to the content servers that netflix is using everything goes to shit.

Could you list the content servers?