[*] QoS on Shaw

[Bill Reid]

Stuart Williams wrote:
> I noticed Shaw is now offering QoS for VOIP at $10/month.
> 
Thanks for mentioning this. I wonder if they limit it to VoIP traffic by 
inspecting packets or do they just honor the TOS bits. They do not mention Skype 
  whose packets may be harder to identify as VoIP traffic.

> The cynic in me reads this as "If you won't buy our digital phone
> service, then for a small gift of $10/month, we won't break your
> knuckles... er, we mean, we won't artificially slow down your VOIP
> service."
> 
Based on past behaviour I think it is fair to assume that this is not the case.
I think they are just seeing an opportunity to increase their revenue.

> They claim their system doesn't need it because their digital phone
> traffic uses a separate network, but their phone system has QoS just
> in case.  This sounds like dissembling - if it's truly a separate
> network then throwing QoS on it is pointless.

In reading the DOCSIS standard I believe their voice traffic is handled 
separately from the Interent traffic. They are merged at the RF level not the 
Ethernet level. I would have to do more reading to actually determine if they 
are completely independent. I remember reading (a few years ago) that there was 
a hardware priority queuing of the voice RF which sort of implies that it may be 
taking bandwidth away from the Internet.

-- Bill