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…
While most of us frequently deploy new ESXi hosts, a question and task not oftenly discussed is how to properly decommission a VMware ESXi host. Some might be surprised to… Read More
This guide will outline the instructions to Disable the VMware Horizon Session Bar. These instructions can be used to disable the Horizon Session Bar (also known as the Horizon Client… Read More
Normally, any VMs that are NVIDIA vGPU enabled have to be manually migrated with manual vMotion if a host is placed in to maintenance mode, to evacuate the host. While… Read More
You may experience GPU issues with the VMware Horizon Indirect Display Driver in your environment when using 3rd party applications which incorrectly utilize the incorrect display adapter. This results with… Read More
Today we're going to cover a powerful little NAS being used with VMware; the Synology DS923+ VMware vSphere Use case and Configuration. This little (but powerful) NAS is perfect for… Read More
Today we'll go over how to install the vSphere vCenter Root Certificate on your client system. Certificates are designed to verify the identity of the systems, software, and/or resources we… Read More
View Comments
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for the information.. I'm looking at switching over to Shaw as their plans seem to be far a head of anything else I'm finding in the market.
How many users are in your organization? We've got two satillite branches and are looking to change over our database system in the near future to a centrally hosted server with end users accessing the server..
The only disadvantage I'm seeing currently is the service is not managed.. any other disadvantages you can think of?
Hi David,
You should switch, I don't think you will be disappointed...
My Company is a smaller one, we only have a few people. But you have to keep in mind what we use the internet for. Our actual uptime/bandwidth requirements probably match a small organization of 75-150 people. We run numerous hosted services (monitoring, management, deployment of updates, etc...) so it's critical we have both uptime, and the bandwidth/speed available. We have over 8 servers (each with it's own static).
I've been a Shaw Business customer for over 5 years, and I've never had any issues whatsoever. I think in that time frame once there was downtime for 30 minutes, but it was scheduled and we were provided a notice in advance... I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever.
The service isn't managed, however if you did switch and didn't like it. I'm sure you could switch from the Shaw small biz offerings to one of their larger offerings, or even utilize Bigpipe's offerings. But in that case you'd be looking at a siginifigant price hike (and I mean huge).
As far as comparing the cost to value (Shaw Business Internet Plus 100). In my opinion, I'd say the cost is dirt cheap for the amazing quality of the service itself.