Well, I decided to upgrade to Shaw’s new “Business Internet 100 Plus” today. I decided to choose the option to pick up the Cable modem, instead of having scheduled a technition since I wanted to play with it today!
Got it done rather quickly over the phone. The plan also includes a phone line, which actually does have to be scheduled since it uses a different device that has to be installed by a Shaw tech.
Anyways, plugged in the new SMC Cable Modem. Noticed that it was an integrated all-in-one Cable/Router/Wifi. This concerned me as I thought I may have received the wrong unit. Plugged it in, noticed Wifi turn on (which concerned me even more). Shortly however, the WiFi turned off, and the “Bridge Mode” was enabled after it was automaticly provisioned by Shaw. (I confirmed this is what actually was happening later on when I spoke to tech support).
Had a few problems getting online. For some reason my account was limited for only 2 devices to have concurrent internet. This was odd and frusterating considering I have 6 Static IPs and should have over 10 Dynamic IPs. After a phone call to Shaw, they resolved this. I also got them to test the line, and all was good.
One interesting thing is that most of the speed test sites out there, actually don’t provide accurate testing since they can’t actually handle your bandwidth. The Shaw Speed test actually reporting a download speed of 98Mbps, and an upload spead of 4.97Mbps.
So far it ROCKS!
Update – July 21st, 2011
It’s been over a month now, and I’m still very satisfied. We had a few minor problems in the past on our old connection with the limitations of upload speed, both for pushing updates out to clients, along with our VoIP system that runs over our internet connection. With the new service, all issues no longer exist. I can actually utilize the internet connection, get the speeds I expect, at the same time use multiple lines on our VoIP system with absolutely NO issues at all.
The speed is still rock solid, the stability of the connection is also still rock solid. Absolutely no complaints whatsoever…