The simple answer is that either ISP *can* suck at times, because they are both huge ISP's and they both have crap service departments.
You can get lucky and get good service from either, and you can get lucky and get good equipment from either, but you can't make the blanket generalization that shaw or mts or voi or les.net or any of the other ISP's in winnipeg are the best. Generally speaking, Shaw has a better class of internet service. They have more peers, and bigger pipes than anyone else. They have a larger installed user base, and cable (DOCSIS v3) is capable of FAR greater bandwidth than any class of DSL in use in the city is capable of. (if you order >= 100Mbps internet service from shaw, you will get a Cisco device, which is a 4-port NAT/router and bridge in one device. It's capable of up to 250Mbps, but they won't turn NAT off on this device). If you order shaw >= 100Mbps and want NAT turned off (you just want a cable modem), they will give you a Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 device instead, which is far superior, but requires that you purchase your own NAT/Router (I'd recommend the ASUS RT-56NU, as it can do almost 1000Mbps LAN/WAN routing). If you order shaw < 100Mbps service, they will give you DOCSIS 2.0 grade equipment, which is the gear that currently has the "congestion in my neighbourhood" issue. If you get a DOCSIS v3 modem, you won't have a neighbourhood congestion issue. there are 16x as many channels available in DOCSIS 3.0 so yea. With MTS, either it works, or it doesn't. You will have fairly consistant service, but that service will be (probably) slower (raw throughput) and laggier (higher latancy) than shaw. Basically, if you can get shaw, and your service is good (your cabling infrastructure is not damaged to the house), you will probably have the best experience with shaw. If your COAX cabling is damaged with shaw, you'll have to failover to MTS, unless you are too far from a distribution point (generally, only good to about 2 miles from one of their distribution points. Beyond 2 miles, you won't get more than about 10Mbps and the signal might drop out from time to time with the weather). Interestingly, cellular 4G internet is becoming a somewhat feasible alternative. We still don't have access to any kind of unlimited data transfer package, so if you need to do anything more than basic email checking and browsing the web, you will tear through your 3GB/month data transfer limit quite quickly; However, once plans become available, the cellular towers are in place in some of the city to get up to 35 Mbps down, 19Mbps up on rogers 4G. (tested with a Sony Experia Z Ultra). If you want the best possible experience, order Shaw, and order something from their "new" pricing tiers (i.e. 100Mbps per month), and get them to turn off NAT (tell them you want bridging mode *ONLY*. This will cause them to give you one of the new Motorola modems, with DOCSIS 3.0 service. Then, get yourself a good router (check out http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/view for a list of the best performing routers). Make sure it has a high-ish LAN/WAN routing capability, and a high-ish number of TCP connections. Have Shaw install your modem as close as possible to your upstream tap (don't make them install it in your living room, get them to install it in your breaker box. Run CAT-5e or CAT-6 cable from your modem to your router to get your router where you want it to be. The length of CAT5/6 won't affect your connection at all. Extra unnecessary consumer-grade COAX can. As it was mentioned by Colin Stanners, MTS gives out 2Wire routers, which *CAN NOT* be placed into briding mode. The only way to get around their forced NAT is to put another device into a DMZ. Even so, this is questionable. Avoid the 2Wire boxes if you can. On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 2:24 PM, <cstann...@gmail.com> wrote: > DOCSIS vs DSL doesn't really matter when either deployment can be done > with great or newer equipment or 10-year old or crappy equipment. Not to > mention network design differences... > > MTS provides questionably reliable 2wire routers with their VDSL2 service > which will never let you get a real IP on a good router, so I recommend > never using their service unless you get the old (under 7mbit?) DSL and use > your own router. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Kevin <m...@iamkevin.ca> > Sender: discuss-bounces@lists.skullspace.caDate: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:12:50 > To: <discuss@lists.skullspace.ca> > Reply-To: discuss@lists.skullspace.ca > Subject: [SkullSpace-Discuss] ISP Preferences: Shaw vs MTS > > Hello everyone, > > I am sorry to bring up such a nonsensical ISP battle thread here, but > lately the MTS connection I've been using where I am living. My > landlord is nice enough to pay for the Internet and include it in the > rent, so I really can't switch over even if I wanted to... > > When I normally have the choice of ISP, I normally go with Shaw > Cablesystems. To me it personally makes more sense that a coaxial > cable can carry bandwidth better than a twisted pair. Not entirely > sure how true that statement is, but to me, it seems right. Whenever I > had Shaw, I never had to deal with broken connections, lag, and other > nonsense that I've been struggling with over the past weeks. There are > actually times where I just stop using the MTS connection and tether > through my smartphone to get a more reliable connection. I find that > odd, that a cellular network connection is more reliable than a > landline connection. > > A few examples of issues I've been experiencing lately on MTS: broken > SSH connections, webpages sometimes just don't load at all, and the > connection breaks so badly that my plasma Gmail widget crashes my > entire desktop. I'm still on an older version of KDE4, so I assume > when a connection breaks on newer version, it won't bring down all of > plasma. > > Anyways, when I was on Shaw, or even my Telus cellular connection, I > don't experience all of these headaches mentioned above. I want to > know if you had any similar experiences with any of the local ISPs. > > I also wouldn't mind a nice break down on each service in terms of > how one can potentially be more reliable than the other. I've heard > some interesting things about ADSL and how someone in the neighborhood > can basically slow down the entire area, and heard that with > Cablesystems this isn't the case, and it's more of how far you are from > the so-called "head office". I'd rather get some proper education on > how both of these systems work, rather than relying on possible > misinformation I learned before. > > An interesting thought for a class to be held at the space, would be > education on how ISP works in general, and compare ADSL to Cable > without all the marketing bullshit. I am sure there are people at this > space whom work for either MTS or Shaw, and having them at such a > presentation would be a nice idea, perhaps both to get a better > perspective. > > -- > Kevin <m...@iamkevin.ca> > _______________________________________________ > SkullSpace Discuss Mailing List > Help: http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss > Archive: https://groups.google.com/group/skullspace-discuss-archive/ > _______________________________________________ > SkullSpace Discuss Mailing List > Help: http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss > Archive: https://groups.google.com/group/skullspace-discuss-archive/ >
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