[*] 10Mbit speed - Shaw QoS Fraud?

[LES.NET (1996) INC.]

When I queried shaw about what QoS was they explained that it is method of
remotely monitoring the signal levels on the modem over time.  (Versus
just checking when a problem happens).  This way they could see changes in
signal levels in the past and come to some conclusion when customers
complain about quality.  It was not described as a packet priority scheme.

Shaw defines the QoS $10 feature as:
"Shaw is now able to offer its High Speed Internet customers the
opportunity to improve the quality of Internet telephony services offered
by third party providers. For an additional $10 per month Shaw will
provide a quality of service (QoS) feature that will enhance these
services when used over the Shaw High Speed Internet network. Without this
service customers may encounter quality of service issues with their voice
over Internet service"

If they are simply monitoring signal levels (which has been explained to
myself and others), then this is simply a passive method, and could not
possible enhance the connection.  In which case, this is fundamentally
consumer Fraud with a capital F, and should be exposed as such.


Les

> On Wed, 2006-09-06 at 16:15 -0500, Kevin D Scott wrote:
>
>> Well I was cut off, as expected, so I haven't tried the QOS enhancement
>> yet.
>>
>> Has anybody else here tried it?  Any results?  My biggest concern is
>> that it
>> doesn't help all VoIP traffic, just some to the bigger services, Vonage,
>> Primus, ect.
>
> My personal belief is that it does nothing. If you press Shaw hard (as I
> did) to describe what kind of QOS they are using you ultimately will
> discover that it does not exist in the telephony sense.
>
> The final answer I got was that it actually stands for "Quality of
> Signal" monitoring. This is some kind of real-time reporting system they
> use to monitor your modem's performance.
>
> Looking up QOS on Wikipedia finds that it has more than one meaning:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service
>
> "Quality of Service (QoS) refers to the probability of the
> telecommunication network meeting a given traffic contract"
>
> According to the tech I spoke with at Shaw, that is the meaning of the
> term they are using even though their web site clearly indicates that
> QOS is packet prioritization.
>
> Of course there are many different ways to do QOS, the one that would
> make the most sense for Shaw to implement would be DiffServ.
>
> "The second and currently accepted approach is "DiffServ" or
> differentiated services. In the DiffServ model, packets are marked
> according to the type of service they need."
>
> But of course, if they were doing DiffServ, they would need to tell you
> how to mark the packets so they get priority and that is what I was
> calling them to find out.
>
> The other option would be to put your entire modem on a IEEE 802.1q VLAN
> and give it higher priority for _all_ traffic coming from your modem.
>
> Actually, the current problems with Shaw gives me a unique opportunity
> to test their QOS service so I think I will order it and see if it makes
> any difference.
>
> John
>
>
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