[RndTbl] Shaw Port 25

[Trevor Cordes]

On  4 Jun, Raymond J. Henry wrote:
> Oh, geez. You know, you absolutely have not tested MTS against Shaw in every
> area of this city.

I speak as someone with direct first-hand administrative experience
using both MTS and Shaw at around 20 client sites.  Most clients were at
one time using MTS and all that can have since switched to Shaw.  I have
tons of experience dealing with MTS and I still do it on a daily basis.
My customers are spread out over the entire city and even 3 rural
locations.  I think I am in an excellent position to offer useful advice
and opinions on Shaw vs MTS.

> My MTS connection is fast and reliable

Now who's the one not doing empirical studies?  I actually have done
NUMEROUS bandwidth and latency studies for my customers faced with the
Shaw vs MTS choice.  My VoIP customers are especially concerned with
such studies.  I test real-world connections between MTS connections,
Shaw connections and MTS/Shaw connections.

Every time I run the tests, I get massive differences between MTS and
Shaw, especially Shaw Extreme.  To put this in real-world context for
you, I have one customer we had to multihome to 2 MTS connections just
to barely achieve what Shaw regular offered in upload bandwidth.  And I
was not lying when I said latency differences are on the order of 3-5X.

> I've never noticed a disconnect in well over a year now.

Lucky you.  But your router probably gracefully handles disconnects and
you aren't even aware of it.  Since my customers are IP-address
sensitive, I know every time MTS does a kick.

> Latency is not an issue for
> me.

Again, lucky you.  Doesn't help my VoIP customers where latency is
extremely important.

> MTS is EXTREMELY reliable. I've yet to experience ANY problem with
> PPPoE/MTS. MTS has never changed a thing on my account without working on my
> behalf.

Do I need to say it?  I've had at least 2 customers who have had their
suffix changed from @resa to @res1 to @bslv on more than one occasion,
without any prior notice.  As an administrator, that's a headache I just
don't need to deal with, trying to work with a customer over the phone
to troubleshoot a MTS induced problem.  The Shaw way is much better.

> Last time I spoke with Shaw, they came right out and told me that they could
> not provide me with the service I get with MTS. "We don't consider there to
> be a problem until speeds drop below double digits". BELOW DOUBLE-DIGITS!!

True or not, who cares?  My Shaw customers (including myself) get insane
speeds all the time.  My d/l speeds from most fast internet sites are
over 10Mb/s, sometimes peaking around 13MB/s.

MTS gives you the option of higher d/l bandwidths but not higher u/l.

For some quick laughs, I am at this very moment running some tests.  You
be the judge!  Don't believe me, run them yourself.  Note: I freely
admit these are extremely quick and dirty and such small samples that
they are hardly authoritative, but they certainly do illustrate the
orders of magnitude we are dealing with here and match up with my more
exhaustive tests.

uploading 5MB file
from Shaw Extreme: 120KB/s
from MTS         :  25KB/s	(hahahahahahaha!)

Try running a WAN, remote access, VoIP, etc to a satellite office for a
small business on 25KB/s!

ping times, 60 pings, 1/sec (avg is the important stat):

                min     avg    max
MTS-MTS      : 34.468/45.474/142.412/20.103
MTS-MUUG     : 58.606/70.673/437.312/48.628
ShawEx-ShawEx: 14.363/33.823/ 85.973/18.809
ShawEx-MUUG  :  9.609/14.217/ 40.591/ 6.331

OK, so MTS is ok within MTS, but the instant you go outside MTS
(probably 90% of real-world traffic) you are screwed on latency.  Shaw's
connection to the outside world appears to be a much better pipe. You're
looking at an avg of 15ms vs 70ms!  Holy!

> So maybe you had a bad experience with MTS and have some hard-on against

Hey, if MTS came out with a better product that provided better latency
and upload bandwidth, I'd be all over it.  But they haven't, and
probably won't/can't with the current technology.

> something in the same price range with the same service and speed, MTS is
> the only one.

Uh, have you even ever tried Shaw?  Now who's the one talking out their
@#$?  Show me the numbers that indicate MTS isn't the slow substandard
crap my original argument says it is and maybe you'll get somewhere.
Your entire argument is based on "it works for me" and "I talked to Shaw
and they didn't say what I wanted them to".  Not very convincing.

> Your email read like the old Ford vs Mopar pissing matches of 40 years
> ago.....  :P

Except that my results and the realities directly translate into real-
world business requirements that absolutely affect the day to day
operations of my customers.  Just try running a WAN and VoIP over a
single DSL line (even with agressive QoS) and you'll instantly see what
I am talking about.