Telus Turbo Highspeed Installation

[TurnedTheCorner]

Thought I would make a separate thread about this.

A Telus technician came to the house today to do the necessary to upgrade my internet service from High-Speed Extreme (6.0 d/l 1.0 u/l) to Telus Turbo High-Speed (10.0-15.0 d/l 1.0 u/l)

The process when I scheduled the appointment last week seemed complicated due to a number of factors which I think are largely unique to my situation:

• The sales agent had to create a new internet account for me on Telus' new billing system
• I had a second, unused phone line in my home due to a work-at-home pilot with my employer

The tech was baffled about why the sales rep made such a big fuss of things. I was sent a new wireless gateway in the mail (Siemens) and the tech also brought a new gateway. But upon inspecting my home network, he told me that since I already had a functioning high speed wireless network using the 2Wire gateway, no hardware upgrade was needed.

The technician was here for a little under an hour, and had to complete the following:

• Installed something in the phone jack used for my internet service -- the jack now has two ports, one for internet connection and one for a regular telephone connection
• He re-wired the second phone line so that it works off of my main number. He did this while he was adjusting the phone box in the basement to accommodate the new service
• He had to check the phone box on the outside of the house
• He had to check the phone box in the community -- this happens to be on my property

After checking out everything and doing the necessary tests on the phone line outside, I'm all set-up. He stayed while I did some preliminary speed tests. The address for Telus speed tests is ftp://ftp.telus.net/pub/size-test/



That's a d/l speed of 9.6 Mbps. I also checked some speeds at speedtest.net:





So the upgrade has noticeably improved my d/l speed, which was hovering at ~ 3.0 Mbps. No increase in the u/l speed, but that's to be expected.

The tech appointment itself was a bit of a frustration. Telus was supposed to come to the house yesterday, but no window was given. Just an 8 AM to 4 PM kind of deal, with the possibility of an evening visit from a subcontractor. I called Telus at ~ 1:30 PM and again at 7:00 PM and was told both times that the tech was scheduled to visit yesterday. But there was a no-show. This morning's tech said that on my account records, a tech visited the house at around 2:00 PM yesterday and also supposedly called, and found no one was home. I was at home waiting by the phone all day, and called twice for a status update. So someone's wires were crossed.

Anyway, that's all of the impressions I have. The internet speed itself is greatly improved, the technician who visited the house was very competent and professional, and dealing with the call centre was about the usual hassle of dealing with any of these companies when you call to try and change things.

Peace.

[Cliche]

Edit post, -> advanced.

You can edit the title tag there.

[mykalberta]

If Telus didnt require you to have a home phone, I would switch from shaw in an instant.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

nm

[red sky]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

If Telus didnt require you to have a home phone, I would switch from shaw in an instant.

I don't think they require you to have a home phone. At least I didn't in the past.

[BlackArcher101]

What is the cost of this?

[TurnedTheCorner]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

What is the cost of this?

Well because of all the convolutions with switching my account, I'm not *supposed* to be paying anything for two months. We'll see how that goes. But the regular cost of the service is $50.95 per month. I was told that would increase to $55.95 per month in a year's time.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

If Telus didnt require you to have a home phone, I would switch from shaw in an instant.

Why? Shaw's regular internet service is $41 a month ($32 if bundled) and as shown by the other thread, has significantly faster speed.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Why? Shaw's regular internet service is $41 a month ($32 if bundled) and as shown by the other thread, has significantly faster speed.

the regular shaw is only 5mbps or 7.5 now apparently, comparing to 1.5-6 for Telus. Both offer more expensive options at 10-15 mbps

[Nehkara]

On my Shaw extreme with that Telus speed test I got 1.8 MB/sec. It costs the same (standalone) as the Telus Turbo ($51/month), and for my family much less because it is bundled with our TV, we only pay $42/month.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Why? Shaw's regular internet service is $41 a month ($32 if bundled) and as shown by the other thread, has significantly faster speed.

Some of us hate Shaw but alas if you live your life with only a cell phone, there are little to no alternatives.

[sclitheroe]

The tech hasn't come to my house today as of yet, but when I woke up this morning, it appears that I already have Turbo. Consistent 13 megabit speeds, which is great. My IP address moved to a different subnet as well, so they have made a change on the Telus side already.


On a side note, I'm not sure why Shaw users have to venture into every Telus thread. There are advantages and disadvantages to both services, and even the experience/performance you get seems to vary within the city.

I will grant Shaw users that yes, when their service is humming along, it can be a lot faster, but on average, in my neighborhood, it was not. Telus at 6mbps consistently outperformed Shaw at 10 or 11 (whichever their high end package was 2 years ago), and overall reliability has been much higher as well.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by red sky

I don't think they require you to have a home phone. At least I didn't in the past.

This is called dry DSL, if anyone is contemplating asking Telus about it. It's a DSL line without the voice component activated.

[mykalberta]

Has this changed in the last 18 months? When i wanted to switch I was told I needed a home phone connected to get Internet and TV from Telus.

[sclitheroe]

Well my experience with the installation was pretty anti-climactic. The tech showed up, declared the 2wire modem I already had fine, and no changes to any wiring, filters, etc, required. My house was already on their ADSL2+ network, so no changes were required other than to update my bandwidth settings at their office.

It is much faster than the previous 6 megabit service, I'm quite pleased. Doubly so because work pays for my internet connection.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Just a quick update on this, ~ 2 weeks after install.

I've found that the speed on the line consistently degrades well below the advertised 10-15 Mbps d/l speed. I'm consistently finding that my u/l speed is in the range of 0.5-0.8 Mbps, but the d/l speed is often in the 1=2 Mbps range. Telus technical support seems unable to explain why the speed degrades so severely after the modem reboot. And while they emphasize that the services is up to 15 Mbps d/l, they can't seem to solve why my d/l speed is often barely half of that, and sometimes less than 10% of that.

Anyone know how to escalate through Telus tech support effectively? Any tips or pointers would be appreciated.

[sclitheroe]

Well I got some more bad news to pile on...check your upload speeds, i bet you will find you are capped at about 512 kilobits per second, not the 1 megabit promised (you should see 700-800 kilobits on something like speedtest.net).

There's something going on with Telus' routers (its not your DSL connection, its capped farther upstream). I can't even get Telus to acknowledge there is a problem via email support, they won't even reply to me after telling me it was escalated to tier-2 support.

Turbo users - try it yourself, go to speedtest.net and try the calgary server. Your upload will climb steadily about 500 kilobits, then suddenly, part way through, snap down below 500 kilobits as the bandwidth throttling kicks in.

TurnedTheCorner - this is why I was initially concerned about your upload results, and asked about them. You are capped, just like me. Everybody on Turbo is, or nearly all of us. Check out dslreports.com, there's an entire thread about it, including Telus people admitting there is a problem.

Its totally unacceptable, and I'm sitting on a very narrow fence trying to decide if its time to go back to Shaw.

[ken0042]

Mine on Telus- plain vanilla high speed:


I'm going to PM you the "special" phone number they gave me- supposedly this is only for Winbacks; people moving from Shaw to Telus.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Mine on Telus- plain vanilla high speed:


I'm going to PM you the "special" phone number they gave me- supposedly this is only for Winbacks; people moving from Shaw to Telus.

See, that upload rate is consistent with what every Telus user should see. Unfortunately, those that jumped on the new premium plan are getting the shaft.

[SebC]

Shaw - supposed to be downgraded to regular after the first month, but I think I'm still on Xtreme-I.



How is my download speed that high?