There are several people here who use VoIP extensively. Most small VoIP users in Winnipeg – as far as I know – use Les’ service ( http://www.les.net www.les.net). Larger business customers (~20+ trunks) have a bit more flexibility, with Shaw, MTS and Bell all offering services, too.
If you’re interested in VoIP, you should come to the Asterisk SIG meetings (and join the mailing list at http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/asterisk http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/asterisk) despite the fact that they often turn into networking (IP, not human) confabs.
In middle-aged-St. Vital (well, it’s not quite Old St. Vital, so what else should I call it?) just north of Bishop Grandin Blvd. & St. Mary’s Rd., I notice that my Shaw performance is highly variable; Shaw has confirmed that my local “node” is somewhat overloaded, and it’s on the upgrade list, but no ETA.
-Adam Thompson
athompso@athompso.net
From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of Hartmut W Sager Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2013 9:59 PM To: Continuation of Round Table discussion Subject: Re: [RndTbl] My Shaw Broadband 50 turned into Dial-up; morph into VoIP discussion
Interesting! I am primarily a Shaw Internet user, with MTS Internet as backup, and I don't experience any large variations at Shaw around the clock (and I'm on at all hours of day and night, unpredictably).
My Shaw plan is 25 Mbps down / 2.5 Mbps up, and I usually clock about 24 Mbps down / 2.4 Mbps up. Moments ago I tested it, and got 17 Mbps down / 2.4 Mbps up. So, aside from any problem you may have had in your local computer and networking, Shaw does have high capacity for handling peak loads in at least some (many/most?) areas of Winnipeg - I'm around Watt & Munroe, but had similar stats around Henderson & McLeod in early 2011 before I moved. (For the record, my ping/latency to the Rainy Day server is typically 0-11 ms.)
My Vonage VoIP is flawless here, just as good as Shaw phone, but interestingly, my Vonage VoIP is virtually perfect even on my MTS Internet, which is typically 5-6 Mbps down / 0.34 Mbps up / ping 57 ms. Both my Shaw and my MTS have very little jitter or packet losses (important parameters for VoIP in addition to up/down/latency).
Hmmm, maybe we should morph this into a VoIP discussion. How many of you fellow MUUG members are using serious VoIP, and what are your results? I have extensive Vonage and Skype experience, Vonage being dead-serious VoIP and Skype less so, but itself superb in its Skype-to-Skype primary form (SkypeIn and SkypeOut are much weaker). OK, have I started the ball rolling?
Hartmut Sager (a pretty quiet member, typically just reading our RoundTable)