How do you like Wind? - Shaw Purchases Wind

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

I still can't get MMS (picture messaging) to work on my N5. I would like to meet this 'somebody'.

Sorry - a bit late circling back to this....

If you have any problems with Wind or Wind-Phone connectivity, the Chinook Store is by far the best location to get help.

Steve was a big help to me getting the iPhone up and running. He's the manager and definitely a wealth of knowledge.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Yellefan

Does anyone know if there is still issues with iMessage & FaceTime on the wind network? Thinking of switching but that would be an issue for me right there.

My koodo LTE is crap at the office and at home, so the speeds of Wind network probably wouldn't be much worse... just a tough call as to whether or not to take the plunge.

I've been using iMessage (frequently) and FaceTime (a few times) over the past two weeks, works just fine. The one caveat...you show up with your email account rather than your phone number. There's a long, boring, technical reason for this but it works.

As Ken0042 noted earlier in the thread, only iPhone 5 models made after April 11th 2013 work on Wind though - FYI. Probably easiest to just stop by a Wind location.

My advice....wait it out another month or so until the iPhone 6 is released. Odds are very high that Wind will become an 'official' carrier with Apple and the technical background issues go away. But if you wanna switch now, it does work, yes.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Temporary_User

I'm glad to be done with Wind myself.

<Summary of the Rest - Made changes to plan over the phone, billing issues, called customer service, not happy>

So I'm clearly a fan of Wind and think they're a really solid provider, but I agree that calling into their customer help line is a terrible experience.

I've only ever done it once, but the experience was terrible....3/10 would be a reasonable score. Language barriers, CSRs don't seem empowered to make any decisions, and just the overall feeling was that they didn't understand the (simple) billing quesiton I had. Telephone service delivery is where Wind is noticeably weak.

The good news....I've found that their store/kiosk locations can provide a lot of help and have good people there. I typically just wait until the next time I'm near Chinook or 17th Ave (imo their best Calgary locations) and pop in for a chat.

Under the 'buyer beware' category....calling Wind Customer Support can challenge a person's patience.

[Ben_in_Canada]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

So I'm clearly a fan of Wind and think they're a really solid provider, but I agree that calling into their customer help line is a terrible experience.

Under the 'buyer beware' category....calling Wind Customer Support can challenge a person's patience.

First and only time I've ever sworn at a CSR on the phone was someone from Wind. Ended up playing Wind roulette, kept calling until I got someone who I could communicate clearly with. (3rd call iirc, she was great, understood what I was asking and got me an answer quickly).

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

So I'm clearly a fan of Wind and think they're a really solid provider, but I agree that calling into their customer help line is a terrible experience.

I've only ever done it once, but the experience was terrible....3/10 would be a reasonable score. Language barriers, CSRs don't seem empowered to make any decisions, and just the overall feeling was that they didn't understand the (simple) billing quesiton I had. Telephone service delivery is where Wind is noticeably weak.

The good news....I've found that their store/kiosk locations can provide a lot of help and have good people there. I typically just wait until the next time I'm near Chinook or 17th Ave (imo their best Calgary locations) and pop in for a chat.

Under the 'buyer beware' category....calling Wind Customer Support can challenge a person's patience.

I found the same thing. The customer support is my one issue with wind, not the out of town roaming which costs me at most five bucs every few months. Then again, Rogers support would clearly understand what i'm talking about and overcharge anyway which wind support has never done.

[Yellefan]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

I found the same thing. The customer support is my one issue with wind, not the out of town roaming which costs me at most five bucs every few months. Then again, Rogers support would clearly understand what i'm talking about and overcharge anyway which wind support has never done.

I didn't think anyone could beat Rogers or Bell in the poor customer service department but Wind really takes the cake. Wow. I decided to take the plunge and switch yesterday and the port didn't go through so I have to call customer service. Aside from barely speaking english, they have no idea what the hell I'm talking about and just keep repeating that the port has been ordered and will go through in 2-3 hours.

I finally gave up and went into a kiosk today. Much better experience and in the process I managed to snag the secret customer service phone number where you can actually get someone on the phone who can help you and who speaks english.

I was so close to cancelling after less than 24 hours, but things worked out in the end. I just hope I never have to call 611 again-- yikes.

So far coverage is reasonable and the data speeds are slower than I was getting with Rogers, but faster than Koodo.

[darockwilder]

Just used this for a week in Portland. For an extra $15 it was indispensable, and worked everywhere I went. Very happy with it, my bill including the add-on was $39.

It actually made me wonder if Americans try to get Wind service and add the US package, similar to Canadians getting a "grey market" US satellite dish with a fake address.

[Yellefan]

So, 2 days in and I'm not overly impressed with my data speeds at home or the office. Hovering around 1Mbps on my iPhone. Is this normal speeds for calgary?

Just curious if maybe there's something up with my iPhone or if the wind data speeds are just slow. I can probably live with them, but still slower than I expected given the discussions earlier in this thread.

[billybob123]

I think it depends on the time of day. I've had Speedtests at 4-5 mbps, but it's rarely during the work day. I've seen down speeds at 0.5 and up speeds in the range of 0.1 at 4 pm. It really seems to get congested during "commute" times. This is all in near NW (Foothills hospital area).

[FlameOn]

It does seem to fluctuate a lot. Though this might be a product of reception than anything else. Up by my house I can get up to 9.5mbps with 500kbps up. It's a little slower at the office and I usually only get around 4-5 there. Though when I drive home near the parking lot it's slow.

[Yellefan]

Ok, I guess it must just be congestion then. I've got full bars on my phone so I don't think reception is an issue.

[Canehdianman]

I get 2 bars at work (near Southland and Macleod) and I generally get 2-5 Mbps down and 0.1-0.2 Mbps up.

[bubbsy]

i think it's easy to love wind, up until the point where you're out of coverage in places where cell phones should just work.

i stream music (tunein radio, soundcloud, songza) everyday for at least 2 hours (gym, and while driving), don't have many call drops, if any (like i'll average 1 drop a month tops). So all things considered, pretty good.

However, this past weekend, while prepping for a party we were hosting on sat night, i made a quick run to the grocery store (suburbs toronto), and fail to connect any calls back home to get clarification on the shopping list. I wanted to throw the phone into the lobster tank.

my company pays for the phone/plan, so am happy enough to enjoy the free phone. Wife is on rogers, and i have contemplated having her switch, but then i think it's best that one of us have a more consistent cell connection line wherever we are.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Yellefan

So, 2 days in and I'm not overly impressed with my data speeds at home or the office. Hovering around 1Mbps on my iPhone. Is this normal speeds for calgary?

Just curious if maybe there's something up with my iPhone or if the wind data speeds are just slow. I can probably live with them, but still slower than I expected given the discussions earlier in this thread.

Haven't run Speedtest in a while (6mths??) but just did it right now...At home (Central Calgary, 3G, 4 of 5 Bars on iPhone): 8.82Mbps Down, 0.63 Up

I'd say this is about typical....although I know I've seen previous down speeds in the 2Mbps range. Dunno if the iPhone makes a difference the Nexus 4 I've been running for the past year or so.

The speeds certainly do fluctuate but I don't think I've ever considered them 'poor' or unsatisfactory. It's always gotten the job done (Streaming MLB.TV in the park, social media, etc)

Wind is (imo) a solid provider selling an average product at cheap rates. It's a quality choice for the masses but there will undoubtedly be some people where they're simply not the right choice.

I still think that the "OMG, I don't get coverage in ABCDE" stories are highly exagerated. Not that they don't happen, but I've never dropped a signal and thought "This never happened with Telus or Rogers". And for a company that is just creeping up on 5 years, I think they're doing really well with coverage/speed/quality.

What I'm interested to do is pop out to North Airdrie (it only take 10 minutes from downtown, right?) and run speedtest while roaming. That could be kinda interesting. I have no idea what to expect....do companies throttle roaming speed?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

What I'm interested to do is pop out to North Airdrie (it only take 10 minutes from downtown, right?) and run speedtest while roaming. That could be kinda interesting. I have no idea what to expect....do companies throttle roaming speed?

Just be aware- I ran speed test the other day and happened to look at my data. The test used about 70 MB of data. I'd want to make sure that the 5¢ per MB of roaming data is in effect first.

[WilsonFourTwo]

^^GREAT catch, thanks!

Double checked and the $0.05 kicked in towards the end of last billing cycle - good to go!

[Yellefan]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

Haven't run Speedtest in a while (6mths??) but just did it right now...At home (Central Calgary, 3G, 4 of 5 Bars on iPhone): 8.82Mbps Down, 0.63 Up

I'd say this is about typical....although I know I've seen previous down speeds in the 2Mbps range. Dunno if the iPhone makes a difference the Nexus 4 I've been running for the past year or so.

The speeds certainly do fluctuate but I don't think I've ever considered them 'poor' or unsatisfactory. It's always gotten the job done (Streaming MLB.TV in the park, social media, etc)

Wind is (imo) a solid provider selling an average product at cheap rates. It's a quality choice for the masses but there will undoubtedly be some people where they're simply not the right choice.

I still think that the "OMG, I don't get coverage in ABCDE" stories are highly exagerated. Not that they don't happen, but I've never dropped a signal and thought "This never happened with Telus or Rogers". And for a company that is just creeping up on 5 years, I think they're doing really well with coverage/speed/quality.

What I'm interested to do is pop out to North Airdrie (it only take 10 minutes from downtown, right?) and run speedtest while roaming. That could be kinda interesting. I have no idea what to expect....do companies throttle roaming speed?

Yeah, it's not that big of a deal for me as I mainly just stream music, but I have been testing everywhere I go and the highest I have gotten is 3Mbps so there must be something up with my phone. Tech support was supposed to call me back about it but they haven't yet, so I guess I just learn to live with it.

My Koodo phone consistently gave me 3-4Mbps so it's probably not worth double the price to get not much more speed anyways.

[Finger Cookin]

I usually get between 3.5-4.5 Mbps with 3 bars. Phone is a Nexus 5.

[Yellefan]

I'm wondering if maybe I was being throttled for some reason as all of a sudden today I'm getting much better speeds. I'll keep an eye on it but it's much better now.

[Swarly]

Not sure if you are testing all in the same location, but I noticed some locations are just worse. At home I consistently get ~1.5Mbps down / ~0.05 up (which is good to load my emails and play Clash of Clans without noticing it being slow). At work ~9 down / ~.75 up. Home is Kensington, work is Mission, figured they would have pretty equal speeds/congestion but apparently not.