DSL & On Demand Video & WiFi concernes

[Tom Saurus]

Earlier this week I got a pleasant surprise, my DSL speed when tested was 6.9 Mbps download and 0.68 upload. This made it possible to watch HD On Demand on our Shaw Direct receiver. The next day the weather got a little messy out and the speed dropped in half. The readings were 3.23 Mbps download and 0.67 Mpbs upload.

I live in a rural area about a mile and a half out the little Hamlet that is our local town. Well anyway Bell supplied broadband internet in the little Hamlet itself then informed in the local paper that was all it was going to do. See the rural areas of certain counties here in Ontario lobbied and the Government dished out some money to support it that the rural areas have broadband Internet. What it is turning out to be is a haudpaudge of wireless, Explorernet and Bell Fiber. I have dismissed Explorenet as an option as I have a Shaw Direct dish and I find it frustrating enough with the wind blowing the treetops or the least little bit of snow screwing up the mpeg 4 encoding HD Channels and the rest of the channels whether mpeg2 HD or standard definition.

Back when I got my Internet with this ISP my DSL package was "up to" 2 Mbps download. Well for whatever reason it has been on occasion getting faster on occasion and lately I had been noticing my download speed for certain files was fluctuating between 600 kbs to 800 kbs which certainly was nice. I had been testing the Shaw Direct On Demand and most times it would say your speed is only adequate for SD showings. So the other day it was a pleasant surprise that the speed was adequate for HD On Demand and I certainly enjoyed watching some programing in HD that way. I thought to myself this is terrific that I had another option beyond the flakey reception on the HD Channels where it doesn't take much wind and the treetops sway into the signal path or snow or ran fade screws things up. Then the disappointment the next day of the speed dropping in half. Here is a link to the On Demand requirements for Shaw Direct:

http://www.shawdirect.ca/english/customercare/techcentral/howtoconnect/#testconnection

I contacted my ISP and got chatting with a representative. Well it turns out that there is I have another plan option that is "up to 5 Mbps" download and "up to 800 Kbps" upload speed. What is involved in them sending out a Technician to install a new modem at around a 100 bucks for the new modem. This is to avoid me paying the 4.95 per month rental fee. What got me confused is that for whatever reason I seemed to have in excess the speed of my original package, I assume that the conditions at those times were just about the perfect storm such as barely anyone else on the Internet in my area. I told the representative I would think all this over at get back to them as I believe a relative of ours has the newer modem and I was thinking of checking out there speed to see what they get and if was indeed fast enough I will switch.

Last night I was checking out the SD On Demand and now the speed has dropped even lower and the show I was watching would freeze on occasion. I tested the speed this morning and it has dropped to around 2 Mbps download speed and 0.63 Mbps. Part of me feels that the ISP has decided to throttle my Internet to 2 Mbps to make sure I don't enjoy the higher speed that I did have before. It was nothing I did that increased my Internet speed but I am fairly certain that an ISP can throttle speeds if they chose to but that could be a bit of paranoia on my part. I am rather confused because if I do upgrade to the other package which I am not opposed to doing if it maxes at 5 Mbps it is less than what happened the other day at 6.09 Mbps. Well there is always that "up to" jargon in there as well which means you take what you get there is no guarantee you will get the maximum rate.

Could someone please help me understand DSL speeds better? I will probably upgrade and I am trusting in the mean time maybe my Internet speed will go up a bit more unless now I am really throttled to the current package specs which makes me think I should of just kept my mouth shut and waited for the perfect conditions again to get up to 6 Mbsp; whatever the heck they were. I guess I could entertain the thought that I was given a taste of the faster internet and got hooked and now I have to upgrade; but I don't think I should dwell on that.

The other thing on my mind is that the new modem if I upgrade has WiFi capabilities and I am hoping that can be shut off because we have a couple Laptops in the house soley used for offline activities such as watching DVDs and playing games and I would not want to have start worrying about having to suddenly have to protect them from the Internet which I don't want to really use on them. There should be a way to block them from the Internet or shut off the wireless feature on the new modem. Any advice on this issue is appreciated and thank you in advance.

[newpball]

Nothing new, typical phone/internet/sattelite company scam attitude.

You actually do not need to buy their modem and I would get confirmed in writing you really need to update and fork out $100 for this modem.

Looks like you got a combined modem/router and yes if you go to the modem (router) options there should be an option to turn off WiFi.

Using the internet over satellite is really not cost effective, you will have to pay a premium for services and you have to live with increased latency.

[Tom Saurus]

newpball: Thank you for responding to this thread. I appreciate you taking the time to supply this information.

I would prefer not to upgrade the modem, and I will ask them if it is really necessary.

I went to my relative's place and I was not able to check there speed. Last night they were on the Internet and they got a nasty malware on their computer. It was the kind that pretends to be an anti-virus program and once it is installed your computer is kind of locked down and you can't get your programs to launch such as Chrome or even their legitimate anti-virus program. I don't envy having to deal with all that, especially at Christmas time. Well that certainly strayed off topic. As for their modem it is certainly quite fancy with as you mentioned a router built in so that you can have a ethernet cable going to several devices. They have WiFi also with the modem which they use for a laptop, the desktop computer is the one with the virus. They also have an ethernet cable going to a Game System and from that they stream Netflix.

I agree about Internet over Satellite, especially when a rep from that Company called me up one day and we had a chat. She said 40 GB of bandwidth came with it and that most people made do with that. I explained that I went and watch YouTube and other streaming videos and I consumed over on average a 100 GB per month, so obviously the bandwidth limits are not for me and as I mentioned I have enough problems with the signal on the Shaw Direct dish. The sad thing about our area is that Bell gave up before spreading out the broadband out a bit more. I am fortunate that I have DSL to begin with because it ends about a mile away from where we live, it might even be half a mile or so. A lot of people are making do with dial up or coming into town to a resteraunt and using the WiFi there; so looking at it that way I am quite fortunate.

I am rather bummed now that my DSL has slowed down to around 2 Mbps because that makes even the SD On Demand flaky. But as I said it is nice to have DSL and I am not in a contract and if the time comes I can't afford the Internet I just have to cancel; but I would have to send back my rental modem. With the cost of shipping these days or if they wanted me to take it to a Bell Store in the big city, well that trip could cost me over a hundred bucks, so maybe that Modem isn't such a bad deal after all, hopefully it would have a nice long warranty on it.

[usually_quiet]

The other thing on my mind is that the new modem if I upgrade has WiFi capabilities and I am hoping that can be shut off because we have a couple Laptops in the house soley used for offline activities such as watching DVDs and playing games and I would not want to have start worrying about having to suddenly have to protect them from the Internet which I don't want to really use on them. There should be a way to block them from the Internet or shut off the wireless feature on the new modem. Any advice on this issue is appreciated and thank you in advance.

If I ever wanted to turn off WiFi at the source, my router's firmware allows WiFi to be disabled. For added insurance I can also physically unscrew the antennas on the router. Even if I couldn't turn off WiFi at the router, I could still disable it on the PC side, (Disable available WiFi connections in Windows, disconnect the antennas from the PC's wireless cards, and even remove the wireless cards themselves for good measure.)

[jman98]

In the USA, yes, the providers absolutely do degrade DSL to get people off of it. I would suppose they could easily do the same in Canada. It's not necessarily done just to be evil. The newer networks are faster and much easier to maintain, so the older DSL networks get deliberately degraded to encourage people to leave them. And the pricing of the new networks is competitive for anybody who cares anything about speed. So I am sure that your cable company can indeed deliberately degrade your service to try to force you to move to a new level of service.

"haudpaudge"?!? It's "hodgepodge", sometimes spelled as "hodge podge". Seriously, when you miss that badly on the spelling and can't be bothered to look it up, I suggest you find a different way to say it and avoid the word altogether. Ripley's Believe It Or Not had an old cartoon drawn years ago by Robert Ripley himself where some kid in school spelled "usage" as "yowzitch". He didn't get a single letter right. You did better than that, but I wouldn't brag about it.

If you set a password on the modem's wireless and don't deliberately put it in on your devices, it won't be possible to connect. Although you're in Canada which mercifully spares you the whims of the US legal system, for personally liability reasons I strongly advise you to set a password on your wireless network. It may or may not be possible to turn off wireless on the modem a cable company gives you. It SHOULD be possible, but they do monkey with their modems and turn some functions off, so it really may not be possible to turn it off. Just password protect it and don't enter the password on any device you don't want connected.

newpball seems to have missed that you said you are THINKING about getting the new modem, not that actually already got it. If you confront your provider, they will of course deny messing with your speeds. How are you going to prove them wrong? Probably can't. It sounds like you have the older, slower DSL with typical cable company implementation where the more people in your neighborhood using it at the same time, the slower it gets because it's a shared pipe. Others understand more than me about how DSL speeds work so maybe they will reply.

[_Al_]

The other thing on my mind is that the new modem if I upgrade has WiFi capabilities and I am hoping that can be shut off because we have a couple Laptops in the house soley used for offline activities such as watching DVDs and playing games and I would not want to have start worrying about having to suddenly have to protect them from the Internet which I don't want to really use on them. There should be a way to block them from the Internet or shut off the wireless feature on the new modem. Any advice on this issue is appreciated and thank you in advance.

I recently called Comcast and ask them if their new modem, that has wi-fi capabilities would be turned off if it is connected to my wi-fi router. I do not have DSL though. They directed me to a technician (if one can believe that) who claimed that even if that thing has no switch to turn wi-fi off, if I connect it to my router through LAN cable, it would not "beam out" anything, just passing it through LAN cabel to the router. So that I was told, but still not sure 100% if that is true when I hook it up.

[Tom Saurus]

usually_quiet: Thank you for your response. I did a little research and found out what modem it will probably be and there is a setting in the computer to disable WiFi. I think there should be a pretty good chance to disable WiFi.

jman98: First off thank you for providing this information. Yes I should of looked up the spelling of that word. As for a Cable Company, this little Hamlet has never had that. There was a guy going to run his own Cable Company he had a C Band dish and he was going to run some cables, but that never really got started and that was back in the 1990s. So the populas either have antenna's and that percentage is very small; just about everyone has a digital dish, which is either Bell ExpressVu or Shaw Direct which used to be called StarChoice. Other than the Hamlet itself which now has broadband, I believe that DSL is available only about 2 miles from the Hamlet.

My Internet has sped up to 4.69 Mpbs as of 2 pm today when it comes to download speed. The upload speed remains just about the same always as far as I can tell. So maybe they haven't throttled me after all. But it is obvious the speed of the DSL is in a state of flux most of the time, so I can't depend on HD Demand most of the time, perhaps most of the time I can depend on SD Demand which I suppose I can accept. Clearly there are times that the speed necessary for SD On Demand is not going to be up to par. With that "up to" jargon from the ISP, there is no set guarantee you are going to achieve the 5 Mpbs. So it looks like I am approaching the 5 Mpbs even though I should only be getting 2 Mpbs. This gives me some more time to research and to consider upgrading.

_Al_: Thank you for your response. This information is helpful.

[fritzi93]

I have the Comcast wireless gateway (modem/router).

You can turn Wi-Fi off in the settings. Enter http://10.0.0.1 and username: admin, password: password. Gateway -> Connections -> Wi-Fi.

In case it's of interest to anyone, switching to the gateway was a fiasco. It's a self-install kit. I set it up and it didn't connect; called Comcast and went through the routine of an ignorant tech trying to run through the checklist. I endured that and then stated: the problem is at your end, please check. Oh no, he says, you didn't hook it up right.

Long story short(er), I finally got someone on the line who spoke understandable English. This guy *still* wouldn't check the settings at their office (maybe he didn't know how) and insisted on sending an installer out. For which there would be a charge. Nope, says I, I'm switching to CenturyStink, they got 20 Mb/s DSL in my area now. (And I was so pissed I meant it). Okay, no charge for the tech appointment.

The installer arrives and after he checks everything (a couple of minutes), says, yep, they got the wrong settings at the office. Fixing it now. Which took half an hour because apparently there are only a couple people there who actually know how to do it, and the one on duty was at lunch.

Gawd, if I could be sure CenturyStink was any better, I'd still* switch. A pox on those incompetent bastards.

Sorry for the rant. But one shouldn't assume evil intent when breathtaking incompetence is sufficient explanation for their doings.

[EDIT] It figures that the tech _Al_ spoke to didn't even know you can turn Wi-Fi off in the new Comcast gateways.

[Tom Saurus]

fritzi93: Thank you for your contribution to this thread.


My current modem is a SpeedStream 5200. The new modem if I upgrade will be 2Wire 2701.

I am still pondering whether to upgrade or not.

[TreeTops]

I have a 2Wire 2700 (at least 5 years old) and it has never given me any problems. But we are still on slow DSL here.

[_Al_]

frirzi93 - thanks!

[fritzi93]

Here's a link to the manual for the 2Wire 2700 gateway:

http://www.2wire.com/pages/pdfs/5100-000326-000.Rev.A.pdf

I took a glance at it and it looks like you can disable wireless (page 23). Home Network -> Local Interfaces. There's probably something as well in the advanced settings. I can't imagine a gateway of recent manufacture in which you couldn't disable wireless somehow.

You access the settings by entering: http://2Wire.net.

Personally, I don't see the problem. If your laptop, whatever, is not set up (username, password) to connect to a particular secured home network, then that's that. No?

[EDIT] Oh, yours is the 2701, sorry. Well, how about that, it's the same link as the 2700 manual. Page 23, Home Network, Local interfaces. Same deal.

[Tom Saurus]

fritzi93: Thank you for the link and the additional information. I think the HD On Demand Channels would be much better if they would download the show ahead of time to the receiver's PVR and thus compensate for fluctuations in one's DSL Speed and have a auto delete that kicks in after 24 hours or so that it would make the powers that be happy. My DSL speed picked up and I watched some HD On Demand episodes of a TV Show. It fluctuates though because I click on the receiver's speed test and some times it is just shy of the minimums for HD and I check a few minutes later it is just enough.

[Tom Saurus]

For whatever reason my Internet speed increased yesterday and I was able to enjoy HD On Demand. I would do a speed test before starting each episode and saw if it was fast enough for HD or SD On Demand and for the most part it was adequate for HD. So this certainly was a nice turn of events.

[Tom Saurus]

My DSL speed has been averaging about 5 Mbps since late December. Over the last week the speed has been going down. Yesterday it was 0.57 for the download speed. Late last night and I checked in again about 20 minutes ago it is 1.02 Mbps. The weather on Friday was pretty bad with high winds and rain. I suppose more people got on the Internet to pass the time and that slowed the DSL down.

If it doesn't get back to normal by the week after this one, I think I will be getting rid of unlimited bandwidth and going to a basic package. The DSL is too slow even for SD On Demand options on our Shaw Direct dish. Yesterday the best I could get YouTube to do was play on the lowest setting, I think 120 or 140 kbs. Late last night it went to 360p a played smoothly for the most part.

There is no use paying for bandwidth you can't use. Fiber Optic is not coming to our area. I did complain to my ISP and they said someone is going to phone me at some point. Maybe my DSL will perk back up again by next week.

[Krispy Kritter]

For reference, the the following minimum internet speeds for Netflix:

1 Mb/s for viewing on a laptop computer

2 Mb/s for viewing standard definition video on a TV

4 Mb/s for viewing High Definition video

5 Mb/s or more for the best audio and video experience