I have the pleasure of working with various clients around the city and they are split between using Shaw Cable Internet and Tbaytel DSL Internet. At my office I run Shaw Extreme and see consistent fast speeds. At some of my clients there is a noticeable slow-down, so much so that many of them have asked their staff to use traditional FM radios vs streaming radio online to preserve as much bandwidth as possible. I decided to run some tests to do a comparison between our two ISPs in Thunder Bay.

Here are some of my findings, I did my best to isolate the connection from other network traffic during the tests to get the optimum results and posted the best of several tests. I have tried various speed tests including the ones each ISP provides but have found that SpeedTest.net gives the best unbiased results.

Tbaytel DSL Business Line with Static IP

Test #1 Fort William Location

Test #2 Port Arthur Location

* The second result is more typical but there does seem to be quite a bit of inconsistency from one day to another which is more than annoying.

Shaw Extreme Business with Static IP

Test #1 Fort William Location

Test #2 Port Arthur Location

* I didn’t even isolate this computer on a network of over 60 workstations running Citrix with open connections to half a dozen remote offices and hosting several highly utilized websites.

Conclusion

The numbers speak for themselves. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions to who provides the faster Internet speeds. However, if Tbaytel does offer fibre in the future, the tables could turn. It is also important to factor in throttling – how ISPs will limit traffic across specific protocols. If your primary use of Internet is for torrents and downloading then Tbaytel may be a better choice as they do not throttle anywhere near to how Shaw does. If you think you are going to 100mbs downloading torrents on one of Shaw’s new plans, this is not going to happen.

Apparently with cable Internet your speed will suffer when others in your neighbourhood are utilizing heavy bandwidth, but I have never found a noticeable slowdown over 10 years using Shaw Internet. With the need for high Internet speeds becoming necessary in every home to access services like Netflix (especially when they go full 1080p), having a good solid fast Internet connection will make all of the difference.

In the past I have done other Tbaytel/Shaw comparisons and will be revamping these in the future as both now offer Internet, Phone and Digital Television. For the most part what I have found is that prices are very similar, it is the quality and the support that counts. Both have good technicians but both will make you wait on the phone to speak to one.