Telus or Shaw

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I also got the run-around with Shaw and they try to add $5 here, $10 there and my bill would suddenly jump every couple of months. When I call, they would say "oh, I don't know why that charge is there. Do you want me to remove it?" Well duh!!! Then got a sweet deal with Telus when Optik was just coming into Burnaby. I called up Shaw to cancel my services and the rep lied through his teeth saying that he would price match and I would keep all my channels and have high speed. Instead, they billed me almost $40 more than my Telus price, cut my internet to "light speed" (which is almost like dial up) and cut all my channels to just the basic which is about 24 channels. When I called up a few days later, and found out that the Shaw rep had lied, I blew my top and cancelled everything with that company. Since then, they send me a notice at least twice a month with new offers which they wouldn't offer when I was originally planning to switch.

Been very happy with my Telus TV. I can PVR 3 shows including a HD channel and watch a fourth recorded show at the same time, while using my internet and having my wife and sister-in-law downloading on their laptops. They even through in a free second pvr when I installed a LCD tv on my back deck during last year's Stanley Cup playoffs.

I calculated that compared to my Shaw billings, I will save well over $2000 over the 3 years contract. NEVER GOING BACK TO SHAW.

My Telus bill (TV including HD & 7 packages; High speed internet and free land land) was about $48 for the first year, then $65 for the next year and is still under $80 for the last year.

My last two Shaw bills were in the $120-$135 range and I had NO pvr, no HD channels, only Channels 3 to 55, regular high speed, and a no frills land line.

Since switching, I literally saved enough to buy an extra coral colony or two just from the difference in bills between my old Shaw and my Telus TV.

$135 vs $45 (or even <$80 now). Hmmmmmm.

Even at $120 for Shaw, I saved/am saving over $2100 over the three years contract. And when I phoned Telus, they threw in 6-7 free movie channels for three months just for fun.

My sister had to buy her Shaw pvr and its the one where you can only watch one channel or pvr it, you can't watch a different channel while pvring. Kinda pointless to me.

Anthony

[AquaPin]

I was with Shaw for over 10yrs, switched to Telus a few weeks ago, NO REGRETS. Faster internet connection, love the PVR linked to all the TVs, nice bonus laptop, plus I save $17 a month (after the promo price, even more $$ right now). Shaw had no interest in being competitive when I initially called them. However after I gave them notice of termination, they the suddenly had all new pricing available to me...too little too late.

Jason

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Originally Posted by AquaPin

Shaw had no interest in being competitive when I initially called them. However after I gave them notice of termination, they the suddenly had all new pricing available to me...too little too late.

Yup, Shaw seems stupid that way. I wonder how many customers they lose every month because of this backwards approach. I just call Telus when any of my promos are over and they give me a new promo to help drop my monthly bill.

[mike31154]

I'm with Shaw since moving to Vernon. Getting a bit annoyed with the TV side of things these days, although I'm not sure Telus would be any better in that regard. My daughter & her partner are with Telus & seem to like the deal. Trouble for me with switching is Telus would have to come in & install a bunch of new wiring I think. Not too keen on that. With regard to my comment on TV, I simply find with almost any standard service provider, there are way too many channels but nothing worth watching & commercials taking up half the programming time. I can't stand paying for a bundle that includes a crap load of channels I don't want with too much advertising & most of them switching to paid advertising late at night. The stuff I really want to watch costs extra. None of them (that I'm aware of) allow you to choose a specific range of channels & pay for only those. Netflix & the like are starting to look real tempting with your choice of what you wish to watch & when for $8 a month? And with the newer smart TVs coming out these days, you no longer need an Xbox or some other device to subscribe to Netflix. I think the fat corporations like Shaw, Telus, Rogers et al are going to get a bit of an eye opener in the not too distant future when folks start figuring this out & migrating to on demand TV providers. I think they might already be getting nervous since a Shaw rep phoned me this afternoon asking if everything was ok with my service.

There, my rant is done. I'll probably stick with Shaw for internet.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Originally Posted by mike31154

There, my rant is done. I'll probably stick with Shaw for internet.

My Shaw internet was tortoise slow, while my Telus Optik internet is fast, even when I have 2 or 3 other people streaming videos on their laptops. Does NOT affect my wired PC's speed at all.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

My Shaw internet was tortoise slow, while my Telus Optik internet is fast, even when I have 2 or 3 other people streaming videos on their laptops. Does NOT affect my wired PC's speed at all.

At the moment I'm not what you would call a heavy internet user. Don't stream much, but perhaps if I go with Netflix, that would change, since it would have to come over my net connection with Shaw.

[Doug]

Thanks for all the views everyone. Its much appreciated.

I agree Mike, about the many fill in channels we are forced to take in packages. I imagine if all providers had a choice where you only pay for channels selected, most of those fringe channels would go the way of the dodo bird, as very few would watch them.

[mike31154]

Yeap, channel overload big time. I can count the ones I watch regularly on one hand. I pay an extra $5 a month for DW TV so I get a bit of a European/International flavour to my programming with NO ADVERTISING! For sports I like to watch the odd soccer match, but those channels are not part of my bundle & cost extra, along with most other programming I find worth watching. I like local news & stuff so I watch CHBC for that and guess who owns the network? Shaw. Last year I dropped a bunch of channels that were making my monthly bill just too hard to take. Trying to spend a little more time in the real world instead of the fake world of 'reality' TV. I could spend hundreds a month if I used their pay per view service! They must think I'm made of money.

I didn't talk much about hardware in my last rant. The Motorola HDTV cable box I purchased when first subscribing to Shaw is somewhat dated by today's standard. I think they're in the process of bringing out new ones. Another reason I'm hesitant to switch providers is the hardware. That stuff is getting obsolete almost as soon as it hits the market these days, just like LEDs or even TVs themselves. I thought I made a pretty good buy a few years back with my LCD TV, but the thing's already a dinosaur. Only one DVI input, no 3D and certainly no 120 Hz refresh rate. Back to the Shaw cable box. It's a power hog, warm, even hot to the touch even with the TV off. I measured the wattage last year & the thing uses over 40 watts just by being plugged in. It needs to be powered to retain the Guide & Menu info, but I've started unplugging the thing at night now. This means it takes 5 to 10 minutes after plugging back in to get all the Guide info loaded back up. I can live with that to save the wasted KWhrs of having the thing plugged in 24/7. Might not seem like much, but over the long term, that's a lot of wasted power.

The box also comes with a myriad of inputs such as USB, ethernet, smart card etc. None of these are enabled so pretty much useless. I phoned Shaw one day to ask why and/or how I could use these ports & they had no clue. I got the proverbial Catch 22. The box manual says to contact your service provider about those features & the service provider Shaw, says to get the information from the manual. I did not buy the box with the hard drive for PVR option. They wanted way too much extra for a stupid hard drive inside the box. I managed to find the info on the net (some home theater forum) on how to use my notebook hard drive connected to the box to record programming. One of the Shaw reps I talked to said "Really, how did you do that?". Duh. Anyhow, conventional hard drives are quickly being replaced by Solid State drives. So all you folks with the built in PVR hard drives already have dinosaurs as well. This is another reason I wouldn't be too hasty to switch at the moment. Not sure what Telus Optik hardware has in it, but I doubt they are Solid State drives at this point. We're only now seeing the odd notebook computer being offered with Solid State drives & they're still pretty pricey. Either way, PVR is not an option I'm that excited about. If I'm not home to watch something, so be it. Can always catch up by streaming or web cast on the interweb.

Whew! Another novel...

[StirCrazy]

ok since no one from Kamloops has answered you. I will

out here Shaw seams to be the better deal. I am partial to shaw so I will state that now, and i have internet/phone and HD digital TV. 5 people on my street are changing from telus to shaw, they switched from shaw to telus two years ago when the optek came out and have had nothing but problems. I have had shaw for 3 years and the only problems I have had is from the PACE HD box, they changed them out for the motorola boxes (3D and EVO ready) and all problems are gone. one thing to note is with optek if you are using your internet for downloads it does affect your TV bandwidth, where shaw doesn't. if you want to be able to record more than two shows at once (if you looking at PVR and HD) go with the gateway you can record 6 shows at once and watch them anywhere. my other niebour has just telus internet and he is switching because of lousy speeds, but I think that one is a factor of us being 14Km or more from the main hub, and we all know the farther away you are with telus the slower it is.

are you here now Doug?

Steve

[ashr]

I work for Shaw, Let me know if you have any questions. Just PM me