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RogersMoin
I've had the displeasure of upgrading two accounts to the Gigabit package.
I understand the marketing gimmick of the term up to, but it's getting a bit ridiculous.
Here is a snapshot of a speedtest done downtown by Bay and College. Straight lan, bridge mode.
As you can see, the speeds are a far cry of true gigabit. I understand fully the limitations and expectations of the Docsis 3 technology. I would even deem constant speeds of 750-800 acceptable.
I also have the package in Richmond Hill, where the speeds are about 80% of the above posted numbers.
Service agents have showed up to both locations, followed by visits from their supervisor.
The Richmond Hill service team advised me the maximum speeds that they have ever seen in the area is about 600Mb/s whereas the Downtown Toronto team advised me the the maximum they have personally seen is in the 650Mb/s range that was sustainable. To me, upload speeds are more important. The comparison between the two is full 50 as seen above to mid 30s in Richmond Hill.
If the agents are reporting that to the customers, knowing that the network cannot achieve anywhere close to their advertised speeds, why bother selling them as Gigabit. Should have rolled out publicly as 500u instead!
Spoke to the management team who advised me, since we are already on a highly discount bundle, there is nothing they can do. The analogy they gave me was you get what you pay for.
So my frustration spikes, just because Rogers offered the 63U package and I take advantage of the deal, they have the audacity to justify the slower speeds because I'm on a "discounted" plan? In my opinion, that's disgusting.
I would advise anyone considering upgrading to the Gigabit package to steer clear until their systems can actually handle the traffic.
*Edited Labels*
First question is, why are you leaving Bell's Fibre service, understanding the billing issues that Bell customers hate.
As far as I know, the TPIAs are locked out of the fibre systems for the foreseeable future, unless the CRTC decides that Bell and Rogers must provide access to the fibre.
Rogers fibre service is RFoG, which in a nutshell replaces the copper cabling that typically runs from the home to the local tap to the local node. That cabling is replaced with a fibre system, with an Optical Network Terminal in the home. The output of that ONT is fed to a modem via copper RG-6 cable, in this case the CODA-4582 modem which is the same modem that is used for 500 Mb/s and gigabit service. Customers still have to put up with modem and CMTS issues as is typically found in the network today. Only real benefit is the gain of what should be a reliable fibre connection versus the frequency and signal issues over copper.
Bell's system is symmetrical as you pointed out, 300 down, 300 up in your case, or higher if so choose. Rogers can only provide 500 down / 20 up or 1 Gb/s down / 30 Mb/s up, realistically over the traditional copper path, 930 - 950 down / 33 Mb/s up.
The CODA-4582 is currently running DOCSIS 3.1 down, which provides the higher download speeds, and DOCSIS 3.0 up, which is where the bottleneck is. No ISP is running DOCSIS 3.1 upstream other than possibly for a limited real world test. Rogers is probably several weeks to several months away from running DOCSIS 3.1 upstream, which would or should allow higher upload rates. I don't know if or when Rogers will be able to match Bell's symmetrical data rates. Note that Bell has also indicated its plans to go to 5 Gb/s download next year. DOCSIS systems can actually match that, but, its going to be a while before we see multi-gig DOCSIS systems employed by the ISPs. I'd be pleasantly surprised to see that happen sooner rather than later.
In terms of routing, from the complaints that I've seen, Bell routes thru Chicago and in many cases ends up with Comcast carrying a good portion of the traffic in the U.S. Rogers uses Cogego for data carriage and as a result, much of the traffic ends up routing thru the U.S. as well. There are complaints for both companies when it comes to data routing.
So, hope this helps. Personal opinion, if data upload rates are a concern, you're better off with Bell. Routing wise, its a toss up, not sure which is worse. Latency, I think that Bell wins, hands down. It will be interesting to see what happens to the system latency when DOCSIS 3.1 upstream happens.
Edit: Also note, running VPNs thru the Hitron Puma 6/7 modem is problematic, as is streaming to services such as Twitch, Youtube and any others that use RTMP as a streaming protocol.
If that's the offer from Rogers, Bell should be willing and able to cut Rogers grass whenever and wherever possible. Same in the other direction as well. Won't know until you ask the question.
Edit: check your inbox for a message. Select or click the number shown on your avatar at the upper right hand corner of the page when you're logged into the site. Follow that link (number or avatar) down to your message inbox.
Hello @Den03,
Welcome to the Rogers Community Forums!
Not getting the speeds you are paying for is never a good feeling so we definitely want to look into this for you to see what could be causing the speed issues.
Firstly, we'd like to thank you for your loyalty to the Rogers brand for 45 years, that is quite an accomplishment! From what you've described its possible there could be a signal issue on your line and we'd like to troubleshoot this for you to find a solution and get your speeds back up to where it should be.
Please send us a Private Message to @CommunityHelps so we can get started on this for you. If you are not familiar with our Private Messaging system please click here.
We look forward to hearing from you!
RogersTony
@Den03 drill down into the laptop's Device Manager to see the wifi adapter name. Copy that name and run a google search so that you can eventually find the specs for the adapter. There is a very good possibility that your brand new very expensive laptop has a cheap 2 antenna wifi adapter onboard. If so, then yes, it will severely limit the data throughput on wifi. Unfortunately we keep running into this situation, again and again, brand new expensive laptop built with a cheap 1 or 2 antenna wifi adapter. Not saying that's totally applicable here, but, given what we've seen in the past, I suspect that plays a large part in your disappointment.
A couple of items to note:
1. The 4582 only runs a maximum 80 Mhz bandwidth for 5 Ghz wifi channels.
2. If you look at the following Modulation and Coding index, http://mcsindex.com/, down the right hand 80 Mhz column, you can see the maximum connection rates available with a 400 nano-second guard time between broadcasts. If the adapter doesn't support 400 ns guard times, then you're looking at the left hand 80 Mhz column.
3. Look specifically at the spatial streams column. That column basically translates to 1, 2, 3, antenna, etc, etc. Depending on how many antenna your wifi adapter supports, that will determine where on the chart the wifi adapter will run, in terms of the connection rates.
4. To determine the actual transfer rates, multiply the connection rate by the fraction indicated in the Modulation and Coding column.
5. To determine what connection rate your laptop is using, right click on the wifi icon at the lower right and select Open Network and Internet Settings. Select View your network properties in the pop up Status page. The link speed will show the wifi speed for a wifi pc/laptop, or, the wired connection rate for an ethernet connected pc/laptop. Using that connection rate, and knowing how many antenna are installed in the laptop, you can then calculate the theoretical data rate that you will see. As you walk around your home, that connection rate will change, based on the signal levels and signal to noise ratios.
That data rate will be the result of the modem settings, the signal levels and signal to noise ratios at both the modem and laptop. Its up to the end user to optimize the modem settings and select the best operating channel based on who you're competing with. Have a look at the following post, which contains settings that I recommend for modems and routers:
http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Internet/slow-wifi/m-p/399949#M47222
I need to update that post, but one addition that will be useful is another wifi scanner from Lizard Systems, which can be downloaded here:
https://lizardsystems.com/wi-fi-scanner/
You can get a freebie personal licence by following the get licence link for the wifi scanner on the following page:
https://lizardsystems.com/purchase/
Ok, so, give that a go. Determine what you have onboard for a wifi adapter and see if its causing major limitations for your wifi performance. Then, adjust the modem's wifi settings as suggested and change the operating channel to 149 or higher. In this modem, there isn't much choice. When you select the 80 Mhz bandwidth, the only selection for the higher channels is 149-153-157-161. Select that channel group. With third party routers, you would have a choice of the base channel, here, you don't, unless the modem automatically uses 149 as the base channel. You really need to look at the channel usage with a wifi scanner to see whom else your competing with. If you are competing with your neighbours that can cut your throughput rate rather drastically. I've been keeping an eye on what channels my neighbours are using and running speed tests to see what differences there are. Running an Asus RT-AC86U and a laptop (ultrabook), with my neighbours using a different channel, best I've seen recently is 650 Mb/s. That laptop is most likely a two antenna laptop. With my neighbours using the same channel, I'm down to just over 300 Mb/s. Ugh..... So, despite my efforts to maximize the wifi throughput, and practically sitting beside the router, that same channel usage is a killer. Only way around that is to buy a laptop with more antenna, or possibly use ubiquity access points. From what I understand, Macbooks have three antenna, and from what I've read, I believe the only laptop with four wifi antenna is a gaming laptop which was released this year. Other than that, its slim pickings.
So, hope this puts the situation in perspective. Despite spending a lot of money, and doing the most that one can do, you can still end up with less than expected wifi performance. But, if you do some research, you'll understand why, and possibly what you can do to change that for the better.
Also note, beamforming is not enabled on the 4582. Beamforming might not make a huge change, but, if it was enabled, it might result in the modem - laptop connection rate running at one level higher, maybe even two if you're lucky. Every little bit counts. Multi-User MIMO? No one really knows, other than the engineering staff. So, if your laptop does support MU-MIMO, see if you have to enable that, and look for any improvements when it's enabled.
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