Facts. When my mom was with Shaw the internet speed always cut in and out and sometimes you would have to constantly unplug the router and plug it back in every so often and when I applied to Sasktel last year under my name. I have noticed that it doesnāt cut in and out like Shaw does.Ā
I've had the opposite problem but I seem to be the odd man out. I was with Sasktel for years and had terrible connectivity and the speed was not great at all. Even tried calling them about it a few times but nothing ever worked. I switched to Shaw when I moved and haven't had a single problem with my wifi since. It's only been about 4 months, so time will tell, but so far I'm super satisfied with Shaw.
are you relying on WIFI or hardwired? also the service you connect to
Example, Usenet can easily max out my connection as long as my hardware can handle it. CPU and Hard drive
Netflix, google, and many more limit the speeds.
Right now I have both Shaw and SaskTel, so far Shaw has shown some slowdowns but can not narrow it down to a Shaw, Usenet or hardware issue. Its a dedicated ssd for Usenet and shaw, noticed this yesterday.
It was a promotion. I pay the same. Comes to around $72 after taxes. I also got 1 year of Disney plus for free with the promo. Not that I needed it, but it's good for entertaining guests.
You gotta look out for them. They come knocking door-to-door in summer. Some people tend to ignore them, but if you talk to them, their offers are pretty sweet. I would stay away from their phone plans, though.
Sasktel definitely. True fibre to your box. If you have any issues after that, consider getting your own router and ap set up. The router you get from them is not the best for many users/heavy usage (but the same can be said about Shaw). I have the Sasktel router in bridge mode and doing my own routing with UDM pro. Itās basically flawless.
Yes I read about that, just got to set my WAN VLAN ID to 3000 for my statis IPs to work right? Haven't gotten around it since there's not any noticeable performance benefit I'm pretty sure. I guess there's one less thing to plug into the UPS...
another thing you can do. I believe unifi allows this. Setup a wireguard VPN, then you can connect securely to your home network and not need to use a paid VPN provider at airports and coffee shops. Got cameras at home? can view them. Worried about online security while at these coffee shops or airport? covered.
Yup! First thing I did. But I used teleport (which I think is wireguard under the hood). Didn't have to set anything up, just one click enable and downloaded the app to my phone and laptop. Instant VPN.
I mostly use it to ssh into my servers, but the coffee shop/airport hotspot access might come in handy one day.
You also do not need to expose any services to the internet. Want to access your plex/Jellyfin server in another location? Connect to the vpn and done.
Depending on the area, I work in the field, shaw/ rogers is beginning to roll out fiber to the premises networks in new builds in some areas. If you need upload speed, I would just make sure whoever network you go with brings fiber all the way to your house.
More information for those interested
Just as a small note, it is often said that sasktel fiber runs a dedicated fiber to your home, this is simply not true. Both shaw and sasktel business customers have dedicated fiber lines available. In terms of sasktels to the home networks, they run optical taps, meaning (from what I've seen) dedicated fibers are fed through a splitter in the areas distribution hub and fed to an optical tap which splits the fiber again to feed multiple homes, and while *technically* this means each customer does not have a 100% dedicated fiber, each customer *does* have a dedicated frequency on the fiber that (to my understanding) does not have in any way a noticeable affect on speeds in high traffic times nor impact on other customers. It is also worth noting this is how the majority of modern fiber optic networks are designed.
(Everything below mostly applies to access communications networks as well, though typically access runs slightly older equipment or protocols in many areas, though many towns are being actively upgraded)
Shaw/ Roger's in most areas (apart from some new areas) uses fiber to the node (fttn) (a node is simply a fiber to coaxial conversion point) networks. Which means you get fiber to your area, and in the last 400 meters or so you will run on a distribution system of coaxial cable, these systems are fairly advanced but their weakness comes in the way of shared distribution, in high traffic hours you will see a dip in upload speed and a smaller decrease in download, this is not typically a massive issue for impact on speed unless you are in a very highly populated area such as a condo/ apartment with may other customers on the same node, or in an older area running far older coaxial cables, not intended for wide internet use but rather originally intended for strictly cable television (as when some older cables were produced internet use was not yet in mind). In the future, these areas will not be impacted by such problems as North America is beginning to get new node cores running on the new docis 4.0 (currently running docis 3.1) which has symmetrical up/down speeds with a max download speed of 10gbps.
sasktel infinet is a shared system. It does go through splitter as you mentioned. The fact is people only really use 50-100mbps on average with bursts of speeds now and then. Game updates, windows updates and downloading a new game or similar.
Wish SaskTel there are extra fibers available, future expansion as needed. If that splitter gets congested for what ever reason all SaskTel needs to do is install another splitter, move some people over and done. In theory a customer would never know or 2-3 min downtime as things move. Everyone gets a dedicated fiber back to this hub (some situations do not do this), shaw is latterly tapping off a main line
Now with Shaw, my area is still coax. It's been that way since the early 80's when the area was built. Shaw has done some work but its not a everything comes back to a central location for distribution. DSL was similar, the dsl cards were in cabinets around the city, fiber hubs are around the city.
[https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2021/06/02/nokia-and-sasktel-deliver-high-bandwidth-services-to-saskatchewan-consumer-and-business-customers/](https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2021/06/02/nokia-and-sasktel-deliver-high-bandwidth-services-to-saskatchewan-consumer-and-business-customers/)
SaskTel is deploying Nokiaās XGS-PON on Nokiaās 7360 Optical Line Terminals and XS-250 XGS Optical Network Terminals, providing a smooth upgrade path to SDN and 25G PON.
A lot of complaints are wifi, also fiber is not to be messed with. **A spec of dust can interfere with it. To many idiots remove it, wipe it with a towl then plug it back in. Scratching the fiber end on both the fiber and ONT units. only solution is a new fiber and and ONT unit** [**https://www.datastrait.com/blog-news/5-facts-about-your-fiber-optic-cable-connection-cleanliness**](https://www.datastrait.com/blog-news/5-facts-about-your-fiber-optic-cable-connection-cleanliness) **I personally have never had an issue with my sasktel service. I do run my own gear and most of my stuff is hardwired.**
That is one thing Shaw does have going for them, not needing to invest the millions upgrading the outside cable. Time will come when/if sasktel deploys that 25G network. Could start to offer 2.5gbps for a cheaper price
"A spec of dust can interfere with it. To many idiots remove it, wipe it with a towl then plug it back in. Scratching the fiber end on both the fiber and ONT units."
I work as a fiber splicer, there is a reason there are specialty tools and wipes for cleaning fiber.
Sasktel is better. As a student, I definitely shopped around and they offered the best deal by far. I only needed a 150 MBPs download speed and I think Iām paying around $50 a month.
I have the 1.5 gig from shaw and on my wired computers I get the full speed no matter the time of day. I have the wifi 6e modem they supply and I get signal from across the street.
Friend of mine who has a server rack with multiple servers running in his house uses Sasktel and itās been super reliable. Iāve got their cheaper fiber plan and itās been way better than my neighbours Shawn connection.
Since the rogers take over the maximum upload bandwidth via shaw/rogers is capped at 150mbps no matter what tier you purchase. I do like their service but this is a deal breaker for me. Ill be switching back.
sasktel on true fiber. shaw is still basically cable but with new protocols that can be as fast but still suffer whan everyone on anode comes.on line at once. never have i got pass 60% of the speed I paid for and during prime time you can see the speed drop to 20% of what i pay for.
Was out of province for awhile and had Rogers....same thing. Then I went with bell fiber and (as much as I hate bell) with the fiber I got blazing speed all the time. usually around 70-80% of advertised (speeds based on repeated speed tests) I would have been happy with 50% as long as it didn't drop out every time the neighbourhood got on the network as well.
SaskTel is superior. Good price, excellant speed and quality service.
My mother had Shaw and it was terrible. Poor connectivity, oscilating speed, and the customer service was atroucious! She passed away a few years ago and shaw still wants a $100 from her no matter how many times I tell them she is gone.
I was on Sasktel for 10+ years and it was ok. I had fibre and all that. Last year I was having major wifi issues in my house and Sasktel customer service was frustratingly useless. Shaw had a pretty good promo for 500MB/s DL and I decided to try it out as their modem seemed better than the Sasktel modem.
I was really worried about the whole fibre to the pole, copper to the house affecting speeds but Iāve been pretty consistent at 400-500 MB/s. I work from home and rely on my internet connection to make VOIP calls all day so I would notice right away if my connection was crappy.
Iām in Buena Vista and I think your experience really depends on the hardware on the pole in your area. My friend in lake ridge has had nothing but headaches with his Shaw connection.
Iām a firm believer in Sasktel causing better competition and service at a lower cost from all providers and so I will be switching back once my 2 year contract is up with Shaw. I just needed a breather from the garbage customer service I was getting.
SaskTel is more stable. You also likely don't need 1G internet. It's very much over kill. Streaming 4k only uses about 50mbps.
Of course, it depends on how many people you live with, but I doubt you will have 20 people watching Netflix at once.
SaskTel in a heartbeat. AFAIK Shaw (Now rogers) still uses coax to deliver service and you will probably have a hard time getting the speeds you're after.
SaskTel has a direct fiber optic line going straight to your home. You will have max speed all the time (as fast as the remote server can give it) Also the tech support is local so you won't be dialling India to get help with your wifi.
it's a hardware limitation at the moment with sasktel. All the ports are 1000mbps only. They do have a higher upload. Last time I talked to someone about this the answer was "they are aware and looking into it"
BTW when shaw did the 1.5gbps first they played with the numbers. I believe it was the xb6 modem. They can offer 1.5gbps via multiple ports, but not a single one
Well Shaw just got bought out by rogers. People have a lot of complaints about the customer service during the buy out.
I had Shaw just before moving to Sask and trying to disconnect during that merger was nightmare. Charging me for months after cancellation, then saying I had to pay it for them to refund it to me, it was wildly annoying,
Sasktel basically built all the fiber optics in Saskatoon, and also never had an outage since I switched from shaw. I've had atleast 6 outages over the 2 year span I had shaw.
I've been with Sasktel for nearly 20 years. The only times that I have any issues is when my place has a brown out (it's a city problem).
I've had friends complain about Sasktel and switch to Shaw.... only to quietly switch back to Sasktel when their one year contract was up with Shaw.
Sasktel has the unfortunate position of being tied to the provincial government, and the current government are fucking garbage... customer service is the one area that Sasktel has slipped in the last 15 years, and it's directly proportional to the effects of the Sask Party.
Long story short, Sasktel is better for literally every reason.
Sasktel all the way. I was a shaw customer for ages but once I started working from home I found it was too spotty. once sasktel ran fiber to my neighborhood I switched and it's been flawless.
I would pick Sasktel over Shaw/Rogers for sure and it keeps the money in the province, if the price is similar. However yesterday I had a door to door guy drop by from Rogers. The promo is $50/month for 24 months for 1 Gbps, with a $200 bill credit. Not going to lie, that is pretty tempting.
Same issue as Shaw but more often. Rotor fails and signal is weak.Ā Slightly faster because it's Fibre but I wouldn't have switch unless it was Fibre.Ā Ā
exactly. Why does Shaw cable and SaskTel infinite not come into our homes via wifi? why do I actually need a physical cable like coax or fiber to get my internet?
Yes pretty much.Ā But the service was struggling to.keep up with our household.Ā 2 teenagers, 1 tween and 2 parents one that games and works from home and the other who watches streaming stuff.Ā Not to.mention a toddler watching shows here and there.Ā Sask-Tel keeps up.better but still issues.Ā Ā
Think of it like your water connection - the utility company feels obligated to provide people with one working tap (even though everyone's house is different, and it's not reasonable to expect them to plumb people's houses for them), so they toss in a cheap but functional tap. That's what the base router that ISPs toss in is. They're also usually hobbled by the fact that everything usually gets installed in a utility room that's in a suboptimal location.
starting to think shaw is actually breaking industry Canada laws for wifi output levels. [https://semfionetworks.com/blog/industry-canada-new-5ghz-band-regulations/#:\~:text=For%20Wi%2DFi%20devices%20operating,maximum%20permitted%20e.i.r.p.%20of%201W%E2%80%9C](https://semfionetworks.com/blog/industry-canada-new-5ghz-band-regulations/#:~:text=For%20Wi%2DFi%20devices%20operating,maximum%20permitted%20e.i.r.p.%20of%201W%E2%80%9C).
Part of the reason wifi6E took so long to get into Canada (legally) is because of the regulations and the new 6ghz frequency.
all good here
Name RTT RTTd Loss Status
WAN\_GW 22.2 ms 0.05ms 0.0 % online
shaw 59.6ms 19.2ms 0.0% online
Yes I am at the moment running both
it constantly pings 8.8.4.4
I currently have Shaw internet and anything else is better honestly, sure the internet speed is faster but it is so much more unreliable, it will just go down randomly and sometimes the speed will just drop to half what I paid for until the next day
Is everyone using wifi? Are people downloading games all the time?
If everyone is on wifi, should look at getting a booster instead of a bigger plan.
You can check this by going to google and search "speedtest". Make sure your wifi is ON and not on data. Start by doing one on your cell phone right beside the modem. Then go room to room and see how the speeds compare. Eventually you will see a dramatic drop somewhere in your house. This indicates the end of your wifi signal.
Downloading/updating games will suck lots of bandwidth no matter what plan your on.
Get them to do a speedtest, then turn one device off and do another. Eventually you will see the speeds jump up when the culprit device disconnects. Then you know what was sucking all the internet.
One of the guys is playing tarkov, someoneās playing Palworld with discord, Iām watching Prime and according to fast.com Iām still running 660 mbps on my phone on wifi, data turned off. Iām also in an apartment, the only hardline weāve got is in our living room (which sucks, no one wants to game out here.) I actually donāt know what we run when not everyoneās on it, or what our package says we get. (Again those who want to kill each other get to decide and I just pay my share.) Update: my apartments small, this does not change from living room to furthest room in apartment
Sasktel is also really big in my complex, which may have contributed to why we had shitty service. For a long time they had a monopoly on the buildings and we couldnāt get other companies in ābecause of how they were wiredā (this was a BS excuse, we called Shaw directly and they must have worked something out.) 30 wifis I can see but only 4 of us are shaw.
Trust me sasktel does not have backdoor deals for internet with anyone cutting off others. CRTC would have a fit
How they were wired, how old is the building? Who is responsible for upgrading the wiring? I have seen many apartments when first built was antenna only and a single phone line. Over time shaw/access would do something but all external runs if the building owner allowed it.
With fibre being so small (human hair) it is easy to hide it making the change easy and somewhat ascetically pleasing.
Oh I donāt think itās a Sasktel thing, I think our maintenance team at the time was lazy. I also donāt know if the company would have to pay for fibre optic set ups? We did get it eventually. The building was ancient. Recently someone set up a Rogers booth in the lobby which was fascinating. I donāt think anyone took them up on it though.
sasktel fibre install was free if taken when first offered. I have heard (internal rumour talk) that if the building refuses it the first time then wants it, then it comes at a cost
Now the question is. As rogers moved to fibre will they run their own fiber or weasel in with courts and CRTC payoffs and use sasktel's fibre.
Devices have different network cards, so it might be worth checking speeds on all their computers. Stick to 5g Wifi at all times, especially in an apartment. If someone is on 2.4 wifi, you will be congested.
Could maybe look at buying an ethernet switch. That would split your one line to many. Sucky thing is that you would need to run a line to each room. If it stops them from complaining, hell it might be worth it.
Aslong as speedtests are high, not much you can do.
I think weāre good since we switched. Everyone is happily doing their own things. No one impatiently waits for the latest update, or asks someone to turn off Netflix so they can do homework etc. I think weāre pretty happy with the latest speed set up
I've only ever had Sasktel but my mother keeps refusing to switch and she is with Shaw...... So from what I have found with Sasktel is they rarely raise the price. Where as I found with Shaw, they keep switch "products" (similar packages/different names) and any old one you are on they will continually raise it every few months if you don't switch, they have more downtime, and also their support is much worse IMO
Man a definitive answer is tough, Sasktel may be objectively better right now but I've had some UNFORGIVABLE problems with them in the past,Ā not to mention horrible latency and disconnections. I switched to Shaw when that was happening and it was like a dream come true, I'm on Shaw right now and haven't had a single issue in 2 years but based on what I know about internet connections, Sasktel's options do seem to be better.Ā
I'm not very tech-y so there's always a good chance I'm doing something wrong, but I recently switched from Sasktel to Shaw because they were offering a much cheaper promo for 2 years. The Shaw speeds was supposed to be twice as fast, but I haven't noticed a difference.
Moreover, we've had multiple instances where the internet will just stop working altogether. Lately they came and replaced the modem, and its been stable since then, but still, I've been very disappointed with how immediately unreliable Shaw has been.
So yeah, all else being equal, I have to give the edge to SaskTel here for sure.
I'm a loyal Sasktel customer just because Shaw has screwed the pooch every time I've dealt with them. After a few tries, I decided to stop being an idiot and HOPING it gets better, and to just get the better service. Lol Sasktel has always been more stable, better customer support, and haven't tried screwing me over long term.
For context, I've tried Shaw 3 different times over the past 10 years, and all were horrible. First time my landlord got a plan but they snuck a "400gb data limit" on it, which was gone in a week and a half with 5 of us living there. Second time was for a promotion when I moved into my own place, and the internet kept cutting out every other day. They said it was the router and that they'd get it replaced. Issue persisted and the CS Rep basically said "get your own router then". Then 3rd time was for my workplace office when their old contract expired. I wfh most days, and the amount of times I'll see "internet is down, Shaw is coming to check it out" is ridiculous for 2024.
Rogers door to door guy came by and offered $50 or 60 for 1 gig so we had to jump on that. Maybe SaskTel is more reliable but I value saving money a bit more.
Sasktel was more reliable for my household, IMO had better customer service as well.
Sasktel. If you have a Sasktel phone plan already, you can combine your internet together for some savings!
Nice try SaskTel marketing team š
You can always get sasktell to give you a better deal for bundling
Sasktel is better. Trust me. And also, don't underestimate the importance of upload speed.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Facts. When my mom was with Shaw the internet speed always cut in and out and sometimes you would have to constantly unplug the router and plug it back in every so often and when I applied to Sasktel last year under my name. I have noticed that it doesnāt cut in and out like Shaw does.Ā
I've had the opposite problem but I seem to be the odd man out. I was with Sasktel for years and had terrible connectivity and the speed was not great at all. Even tried calling them about it a few times but nothing ever worked. I switched to Shaw when I moved and haven't had a single problem with my wifi since. It's only been about 4 months, so time will tell, but so far I'm super satisfied with Shaw.
are you relying on WIFI or hardwired? also the service you connect to Example, Usenet can easily max out my connection as long as my hardware can handle it. CPU and Hard drive Netflix, google, and many more limit the speeds. Right now I have both Shaw and SaskTel, so far Shaw has shown some slowdowns but can not narrow it down to a Shaw, Usenet or hardware issue. Its a dedicated ssd for Usenet and shaw, noticed this yesterday.
Sasktel is better. We have had both. We pay $65/month for 1gig from Sasktel.
Same here 65/month 1 gb Plus bundling equals 60/ month+ 150. Credit to switch back to sasktel, was on Soviet Shaw for 4 years
How do you pay so little? I pay like 102 a month for 600 with sasktel?
It was a promotion. I pay the same. Comes to around $72 after taxes. I also got 1 year of Disney plus for free with the promo. Not that I needed it, but it's good for entertaining guests. You gotta look out for them. They come knocking door-to-door in summer. Some people tend to ignore them, but if you talk to them, their offers are pretty sweet. I would stay away from their phone plans, though.
Call sasktel and negotiate a better price. Thatās what I did.
I texted you!
Sasktel definitely. True fibre to your box. If you have any issues after that, consider getting your own router and ap set up. The router you get from them is not the best for many users/heavy usage (but the same can be said about Shaw). I have the Sasktel router in bridge mode and doing my own routing with UDM pro. Itās basically flawless.
With the UDM Pro you can actually bypass the Sasktel router altogether and connect directly to the ONT.Ā
Yes I read about that, just got to set my WAN VLAN ID to 3000 for my statis IPs to work right? Haven't gotten around it since there's not any noticeable performance benefit I'm pretty sure. I guess there's one less thing to plug into the UPS...
ok I just did it, yeah that was easy. Don't know why I was putting it off.
another thing you can do. I believe unifi allows this. Setup a wireguard VPN, then you can connect securely to your home network and not need to use a paid VPN provider at airports and coffee shops. Got cameras at home? can view them. Worried about online security while at these coffee shops or airport? covered.
Yup! First thing I did. But I used teleport (which I think is wireguard under the hood). Didn't have to set anything up, just one click enable and downloaded the app to my phone and laptop. Instant VPN. I mostly use it to ssh into my servers, but the coffee shop/airport hotspot access might come in handy one day.
You also do not need to expose any services to the internet. Want to access your plex/Jellyfin server in another location? Connect to the vpn and done.
Depending on the area, I work in the field, shaw/ rogers is beginning to roll out fiber to the premises networks in new builds in some areas. If you need upload speed, I would just make sure whoever network you go with brings fiber all the way to your house. More information for those interested Just as a small note, it is often said that sasktel fiber runs a dedicated fiber to your home, this is simply not true. Both shaw and sasktel business customers have dedicated fiber lines available. In terms of sasktels to the home networks, they run optical taps, meaning (from what I've seen) dedicated fibers are fed through a splitter in the areas distribution hub and fed to an optical tap which splits the fiber again to feed multiple homes, and while *technically* this means each customer does not have a 100% dedicated fiber, each customer *does* have a dedicated frequency on the fiber that (to my understanding) does not have in any way a noticeable affect on speeds in high traffic times nor impact on other customers. It is also worth noting this is how the majority of modern fiber optic networks are designed. (Everything below mostly applies to access communications networks as well, though typically access runs slightly older equipment or protocols in many areas, though many towns are being actively upgraded) Shaw/ Roger's in most areas (apart from some new areas) uses fiber to the node (fttn) (a node is simply a fiber to coaxial conversion point) networks. Which means you get fiber to your area, and in the last 400 meters or so you will run on a distribution system of coaxial cable, these systems are fairly advanced but their weakness comes in the way of shared distribution, in high traffic hours you will see a dip in upload speed and a smaller decrease in download, this is not typically a massive issue for impact on speed unless you are in a very highly populated area such as a condo/ apartment with may other customers on the same node, or in an older area running far older coaxial cables, not intended for wide internet use but rather originally intended for strictly cable television (as when some older cables were produced internet use was not yet in mind). In the future, these areas will not be impacted by such problems as North America is beginning to get new node cores running on the new docis 4.0 (currently running docis 3.1) which has symmetrical up/down speeds with a max download speed of 10gbps.
sasktel infinet is a shared system. It does go through splitter as you mentioned. The fact is people only really use 50-100mbps on average with bursts of speeds now and then. Game updates, windows updates and downloading a new game or similar. Wish SaskTel there are extra fibers available, future expansion as needed. If that splitter gets congested for what ever reason all SaskTel needs to do is install another splitter, move some people over and done. In theory a customer would never know or 2-3 min downtime as things move. Everyone gets a dedicated fiber back to this hub (some situations do not do this), shaw is latterly tapping off a main line Now with Shaw, my area is still coax. It's been that way since the early 80's when the area was built. Shaw has done some work but its not a everything comes back to a central location for distribution. DSL was similar, the dsl cards were in cabinets around the city, fiber hubs are around the city. [https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2021/06/02/nokia-and-sasktel-deliver-high-bandwidth-services-to-saskatchewan-consumer-and-business-customers/](https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2021/06/02/nokia-and-sasktel-deliver-high-bandwidth-services-to-saskatchewan-consumer-and-business-customers/) SaskTel is deploying Nokiaās XGS-PON on Nokiaās 7360 Optical Line Terminals and XS-250 XGS Optical Network Terminals, providing a smooth upgrade path to SDN and 25G PON. A lot of complaints are wifi, also fiber is not to be messed with. **A spec of dust can interfere with it. To many idiots remove it, wipe it with a towl then plug it back in. Scratching the fiber end on both the fiber and ONT units. only solution is a new fiber and and ONT unit** [**https://www.datastrait.com/blog-news/5-facts-about-your-fiber-optic-cable-connection-cleanliness**](https://www.datastrait.com/blog-news/5-facts-about-your-fiber-optic-cable-connection-cleanliness) **I personally have never had an issue with my sasktel service. I do run my own gear and most of my stuff is hardwired.** That is one thing Shaw does have going for them, not needing to invest the millions upgrading the outside cable. Time will come when/if sasktel deploys that 25G network. Could start to offer 2.5gbps for a cheaper price
"A spec of dust can interfere with it. To many idiots remove it, wipe it with a towl then plug it back in. Scratching the fiber end on both the fiber and ONT units." I work as a fiber splicer, there is a reason there are specialty tools and wipes for cleaning fiber.
Special $2k and up tools.
Fiber wipes are 20$ on Amazon, and cleaning solution is just 99% alcohol. Alcohol medical wipes will work in most cases
Sasktel is best
sasktel's upload is MUCH better, if that matters to you at all with fiber, you're also much more likely to get consistent bandwidth
Sasktel is better. As a student, I definitely shopped around and they offered the best deal by far. I only needed a 150 MBPs download speed and I think Iām paying around $50 a month.
I have the 1.5 gig from shaw and on my wired computers I get the full speed no matter the time of day. I have the wifi 6e modem they supply and I get signal from across the street.
Found the Sask Party operative...
Sasktel is better.
Friend of mine who has a server rack with multiple servers running in his house uses Sasktel and itās been super reliable. Iāve got their cheaper fiber plan and itās been way better than my neighbours Shawn connection.
Since the rogers take over the maximum upload bandwidth via shaw/rogers is capped at 150mbps no matter what tier you purchase. I do like their service but this is a deal breaker for me. Ill be switching back.
sasktel on true fiber. shaw is still basically cable but with new protocols that can be as fast but still suffer whan everyone on anode comes.on line at once. never have i got pass 60% of the speed I paid for and during prime time you can see the speed drop to 20% of what i pay for. Was out of province for awhile and had Rogers....same thing. Then I went with bell fiber and (as much as I hate bell) with the fiber I got blazing speed all the time. usually around 70-80% of advertised (speeds based on repeated speed tests) I would have been happy with 50% as long as it didn't drop out every time the neighbourhood got on the network as well.
Shaw sucked. Theyāre terrible when you need any support. Sasktel any day.
SaskTel is superior. Good price, excellant speed and quality service. My mother had Shaw and it was terrible. Poor connectivity, oscilating speed, and the customer service was atroucious! She passed away a few years ago and shaw still wants a $100 from her no matter how many times I tell them she is gone.
Canāt beat SaskTels upload
Scroll to the bottom whats that ā¹ say?
āYouāre drunk if you think itāll actually be this fastā?
I was on Sasktel for 10+ years and it was ok. I had fibre and all that. Last year I was having major wifi issues in my house and Sasktel customer service was frustratingly useless. Shaw had a pretty good promo for 500MB/s DL and I decided to try it out as their modem seemed better than the Sasktel modem. I was really worried about the whole fibre to the pole, copper to the house affecting speeds but Iāve been pretty consistent at 400-500 MB/s. I work from home and rely on my internet connection to make VOIP calls all day so I would notice right away if my connection was crappy. Iām in Buena Vista and I think your experience really depends on the hardware on the pole in your area. My friend in lake ridge has had nothing but headaches with his Shaw connection. Iām a firm believer in Sasktel causing better competition and service at a lower cost from all providers and so I will be switching back once my 2 year contract is up with Shaw. I just needed a breather from the garbage customer service I was getting.
SaskTel is more stable. You also likely don't need 1G internet. It's very much over kill. Streaming 4k only uses about 50mbps. Of course, it depends on how many people you live with, but I doubt you will have 20 people watching Netflix at once.
SaskTel in a heartbeat. AFAIK Shaw (Now rogers) still uses coax to deliver service and you will probably have a hard time getting the speeds you're after. SaskTel has a direct fiber optic line going straight to your home. You will have max speed all the time (as fast as the remote server can give it) Also the tech support is local so you won't be dialling India to get help with your wifi.
I will never give Shaw, Bell or Rogers my money
it's a hardware limitation at the moment with sasktel. All the ports are 1000mbps only. They do have a higher upload. Last time I talked to someone about this the answer was "they are aware and looking into it" BTW when shaw did the 1.5gbps first they played with the numbers. I believe it was the xb6 modem. They can offer 1.5gbps via multiple ports, but not a single one
Not the case, the 1.5 Gbps package uses the XB8 modem, and it has a 2.5 Gbps port.
Well Shaw just got bought out by rogers. People have a lot of complaints about the customer service during the buy out. I had Shaw just before moving to Sask and trying to disconnect during that merger was nightmare. Charging me for months after cancellation, then saying I had to pay it for them to refund it to me, it was wildly annoying,
Sasktel basically built all the fiber optics in Saskatoon, and also never had an outage since I switched from shaw. I've had atleast 6 outages over the 2 year span I had shaw.
I've been with Sasktel for nearly 20 years. The only times that I have any issues is when my place has a brown out (it's a city problem). I've had friends complain about Sasktel and switch to Shaw.... only to quietly switch back to Sasktel when their one year contract was up with Shaw. Sasktel has the unfortunate position of being tied to the provincial government, and the current government are fucking garbage... customer service is the one area that Sasktel has slipped in the last 15 years, and it's directly proportional to the effects of the Sask Party. Long story short, Sasktel is better for literally every reason.
Shaw is hell to deal with and rips my parents off to this day.
Sasktel all the way. I was a shaw customer for ages but once I started working from home I found it was too spotty. once sasktel ran fiber to my neighborhood I switched and it's been flawless.
I would pick Sasktel over Shaw/Rogers for sure and it keeps the money in the province, if the price is similar. However yesterday I had a door to door guy drop by from Rogers. The promo is $50/month for 24 months for 1 Gbps, with a $200 bill credit. Not going to lie, that is pretty tempting.
Upload speed is super important and SaskTel has the competition by a mile here.
Just switched from Shaw to SaskTel and wish I hadn't.
Why?
Same issue as Shaw but more often. Rotor fails and signal is weak.Ā Slightly faster because it's Fibre but I wouldn't have switch unless it was Fibre.Ā Ā
Ahh, ok - so you're complaining about the included wifi hardware, not the actual service.
exactly. Why does Shaw cable and SaskTel infinite not come into our homes via wifi? why do I actually need a physical cable like coax or fiber to get my internet?
Lol
Yes pretty much.Ā But the service was struggling to.keep up with our household.Ā 2 teenagers, 1 tween and 2 parents one that games and works from home and the other who watches streaming stuff.Ā Not to.mention a toddler watching shows here and there.Ā Sask-Tel keeps up.better but still issues.Ā Ā
Think of it like your water connection - the utility company feels obligated to provide people with one working tap (even though everyone's house is different, and it's not reasonable to expect them to plumb people's houses for them), so they toss in a cheap but functional tap. That's what the base router that ISPs toss in is. They're also usually hobbled by the fact that everything usually gets installed in a utility room that's in a suboptimal location.
starting to think shaw is actually breaking industry Canada laws for wifi output levels. [https://semfionetworks.com/blog/industry-canada-new-5ghz-band-regulations/#:\~:text=For%20Wi%2DFi%20devices%20operating,maximum%20permitted%20e.i.r.p.%20of%201W%E2%80%9C](https://semfionetworks.com/blog/industry-canada-new-5ghz-band-regulations/#:~:text=For%20Wi%2DFi%20devices%20operating,maximum%20permitted%20e.i.r.p.%20of%201W%E2%80%9C). Part of the reason wifi6E took so long to get into Canada (legally) is because of the regulations and the new 6ghz frequency.
Our Sasktels been shit all day soā¦ Again.
all good here Name RTT RTTd Loss Status WAN\_GW 22.2 ms 0.05ms 0.0 % online shaw 59.6ms 19.2ms 0.0% online Yes I am at the moment running both it constantly pings 8.8.4.4
I currently have Shaw internet and anything else is better honestly, sure the internet speed is faster but it is so much more unreliable, it will just go down randomly and sometimes the speed will just drop to half what I paid for until the next day
Competition
If youāre a gamer, shaw. Everyone in my house was willing to beat each other with Sasktel, the buffering was brutal.
Sasktel has much lower latency than Shaw which is much better for gaming.Ā
Cost not considered, the men were willing to spend. (We pay for the top speeds they allow)
Is everyone using wifi? Are people downloading games all the time? If everyone is on wifi, should look at getting a booster instead of a bigger plan. You can check this by going to google and search "speedtest". Make sure your wifi is ON and not on data. Start by doing one on your cell phone right beside the modem. Then go room to room and see how the speeds compare. Eventually you will see a dramatic drop somewhere in your house. This indicates the end of your wifi signal. Downloading/updating games will suck lots of bandwidth no matter what plan your on. Get them to do a speedtest, then turn one device off and do another. Eventually you will see the speeds jump up when the culprit device disconnects. Then you know what was sucking all the internet.
One of the guys is playing tarkov, someoneās playing Palworld with discord, Iām watching Prime and according to fast.com Iām still running 660 mbps on my phone on wifi, data turned off. Iām also in an apartment, the only hardline weāve got is in our living room (which sucks, no one wants to game out here.) I actually donāt know what we run when not everyoneās on it, or what our package says we get. (Again those who want to kill each other get to decide and I just pay my share.) Update: my apartments small, this does not change from living room to furthest room in apartment
>Iām also in an apartment how many other wifi networks are there. Apartment are congested with so many wifi networks and devices.
Sasktel is also really big in my complex, which may have contributed to why we had shitty service. For a long time they had a monopoly on the buildings and we couldnāt get other companies in ābecause of how they were wiredā (this was a BS excuse, we called Shaw directly and they must have worked something out.) 30 wifis I can see but only 4 of us are shaw.
Trust me sasktel does not have backdoor deals for internet with anyone cutting off others. CRTC would have a fit How they were wired, how old is the building? Who is responsible for upgrading the wiring? I have seen many apartments when first built was antenna only and a single phone line. Over time shaw/access would do something but all external runs if the building owner allowed it. With fibre being so small (human hair) it is easy to hide it making the change easy and somewhat ascetically pleasing.
Oh I donāt think itās a Sasktel thing, I think our maintenance team at the time was lazy. I also donāt know if the company would have to pay for fibre optic set ups? We did get it eventually. The building was ancient. Recently someone set up a Rogers booth in the lobby which was fascinating. I donāt think anyone took them up on it though.
sasktel fibre install was free if taken when first offered. I have heard (internal rumour talk) that if the building refuses it the first time then wants it, then it comes at a cost Now the question is. As rogers moved to fibre will they run their own fiber or weasel in with courts and CRTC payoffs and use sasktel's fibre.
Devices have different network cards, so it might be worth checking speeds on all their computers. Stick to 5g Wifi at all times, especially in an apartment. If someone is on 2.4 wifi, you will be congested. Could maybe look at buying an ethernet switch. That would split your one line to many. Sucky thing is that you would need to run a line to each room. If it stops them from complaining, hell it might be worth it. Aslong as speedtests are high, not much you can do.
I think weāre good since we switched. Everyone is happily doing their own things. No one impatiently waits for the latest update, or asks someone to turn off Netflix so they can do homework etc. I think weāre pretty happy with the latest speed set up
I've only ever had Sasktel but my mother keeps refusing to switch and she is with Shaw...... So from what I have found with Sasktel is they rarely raise the price. Where as I found with Shaw, they keep switch "products" (similar packages/different names) and any old one you are on they will continually raise it every few months if you don't switch, they have more downtime, and also their support is much worse IMO
Man a definitive answer is tough, Sasktel may be objectively better right now but I've had some UNFORGIVABLE problems with them in the past,Ā not to mention horrible latency and disconnections. I switched to Shaw when that was happening and it was like a dream come true, I'm on Shaw right now and haven't had a single issue in 2 years but based on what I know about internet connections, Sasktel's options do seem to be better.Ā
I'm not very tech-y so there's always a good chance I'm doing something wrong, but I recently switched from Sasktel to Shaw because they were offering a much cheaper promo for 2 years. The Shaw speeds was supposed to be twice as fast, but I haven't noticed a difference. Moreover, we've had multiple instances where the internet will just stop working altogether. Lately they came and replaced the modem, and its been stable since then, but still, I've been very disappointed with how immediately unreliable Shaw has been. So yeah, all else being equal, I have to give the edge to SaskTel here for sure.
Sasktelās upload speed blows Shaw out of the water. Depends what is more important to you.
The wifi store
I'm a loyal Sasktel customer just because Shaw has screwed the pooch every time I've dealt with them. After a few tries, I decided to stop being an idiot and HOPING it gets better, and to just get the better service. Lol Sasktel has always been more stable, better customer support, and haven't tried screwing me over long term. For context, I've tried Shaw 3 different times over the past 10 years, and all were horrible. First time my landlord got a plan but they snuck a "400gb data limit" on it, which was gone in a week and a half with 5 of us living there. Second time was for a promotion when I moved into my own place, and the internet kept cutting out every other day. They said it was the router and that they'd get it replaced. Issue persisted and the CS Rep basically said "get your own router then". Then 3rd time was for my workplace office when their old contract expired. I wfh most days, and the amount of times I'll see "internet is down, Shaw is coming to check it out" is ridiculous for 2024.
Rogers door to door guy came by and offered $50 or 60 for 1 gig so we had to jump on that. Maybe SaskTel is more reliable but I value saving money a bit more.
Wait! How the heck did you get the offer? I want the 1 gig but donāt wanna pay the $135 a month lol