We have been getting a lot of complaints lately about clients Shaw high speed Internet service slowing to a crawl suddenly, and Shaw support being no help in resolving the issue. The Shaw techs are quick to blame the clients router or tell them that they have a virus. I actually stumbled across the fix this past summer. I have implemented it at a few client sites with good success.
Shaw has been changing their network around in the Calgary area for the last 8 months or so. As clients are moved off the older network they are being moved into a new IP address range. These new IPs start with 70.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx as opposed to 68.xxx.xxx.xxx. The problem occurs with Internet Explorer and one of it’s settings.
To see if you are affected open Internet Explorer and go to a site that lists your IP address like www.whatismyip.com or www.ipchicken.com. If you see an IP address starting with 24.xxx.xxx.xxx you will be affected.
In IE go to the Internet Options settings (in IE 6 click on tools, internet options, or on IE 7 press the alt key to bring up the hidden menu or click on the tools button). From the dialog, click on the connections tab, then click on the lan settings button at the bottom. Uncheck the automatically detect settings checkbox and uncheck the proxy server checkbox. Click OK then click OK again. Close IE and restart it. Your home page should load faster, and checking your IP address using one of the sites above, you should now see your IP address start with a 70 number. Your browsing should speed up and you should be able to access almost all web sites properly again.