Shaw digital phone

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by FFR

Ok Look loser. Grow up and learn to have a civil conversation.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Had it since January with not a single issue. Call display works just fine, as does voicemail and all other features.


You heard wrong. Shaw Digital Phone does not travel over the internet. Slow internet will not affect the phone at all. This is NOT voip like vonage. Shaw has a dedicated system for the phone. I've had my internet go down, but not a hiccup with the phone. Get your facts straight before you speak next time.

This is all news to me... echo's on digital phone? Are you all sure you aren't thinking of other voip providers?

Shaw's digital voice DOES travel over Voip. They use Bell for local PSTN.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by FFR

Ok Look loser. Grow up and learn to have a civil conversation. Disagreeing with someone does not give you the right to be rude about it.

Wow, you're an f'n ######.

There, now you know what rude is.

[ken0042]

I think there is a misunderstanding of what Shaw is offering. Yes, it is a product that uses VoIP. On that there is no debate it seems.

We use VoIP at work for some of our phones. But the calls travel over our local network; and not over the Internet.

My understanding is that Shaw has also set up a seperate network so the Digital Phone calls don't actually travel over the internet. By doing this; the aim was to make the product as much like POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) as possible.

The QoS link provided above is something that Shaw offers to customers who use other VoIP providers like Vonage. The problem that can happen with Vonage (and others) is that if Internet traffic is heavy in your neighbourhood then the voice packets can get dropped. With data the packet just gets re-sent, and we see that as a slow internet connection. When a voice packet gets re-sent, it comes through as an echo. QoS assigns the voice packets a higher priority, so they are less likely to be dropped in high traffic situations.

My anicdotal experience has told me that with the 5 people I know with Shaw Digital Phone; most have said they have noticed little or no difference in quality between Shaw and POTS.

Perhaps there could be an issue with some people with regards to saturation of a local node because Shaw has too many people in one neighbourhood on their phone service?

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by ratech

And yes, it is VOIP, and it is dependent on your internet connection. For me though, $55 vs $19 is a no brainer. $36 bucks to use a slightly more reliable infrastructure isn't even close to worth it. So far I've had zero outages for my Shaw internet.

It is not dependent on your internet connection. You don't even have to have shaw internet to use their phone service. Shaw has a completely independent infrastructure in place and it is not VOIP like vonage, etc.[/quote]

If you followed the conversation you'd realize I was talking about VOIP services such as Primus/Vonage.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I think there is a misunderstanding of what Shaw is offering. Yes, it is a product that uses VoIP. On that there is no debate it seems.

We use VoIP at work for some of our phones. But the calls travel over our local network; and not over the Internet.

My understanding is that Shaw has also set up a seperate network so the Digital Phone calls don't actually travel over the internet. By doing this; the aim was to make the product as much like POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) as possible.

The QoS link provided above is something that Shaw offers to customers who use other VoIP providers like Vonage. The problem that can happen with Vonage (and others) is that if Internet traffic is heavy in your neighbourhood then the voice packets can get dropped. With data the packet just gets re-sent, and we see that as a slow internet connection. When a voice packet gets re-sent, it comes through as an echo. QoS assigns the voice packets a higher priority, so they are less likely to be dropped in high traffic situations.

My anicdotal experience has told me that with the 5 people I know with Shaw Digital Phone; most have said they have noticed little or no difference in quality between Shaw and POTS.

Perhaps there could be an issue with some people with regards to saturation of a local node because Shaw has too many people in one neighbourhood on their phone service?

Part of the story is that Shaw was actually putting lower priority on voice packets intentionally to try force people to their phone service, or to pay for this QoS crap. There was a big battle between Primus and Shaw over this. I'm not sure what ended up happening, but I haven't had an echo in several months.

[Bobblehead]

It is still ongoing, Vonage has requested the CRTC to step in (this was done on March 7th).

Shaw uses the same infrastructure as their internet to get from the house to their nearest router, Between the phone and this switch they use VPN to tunnel to the switch. At the switch they route their VOIP traffic through a subnet they have initiated. It will use the same infrastructure as part of their internet, but they will have it tunnelled so that it doesn't interect (in a logical sense) with regular internet traffic, and it will be routed through specific routers until it gets to the specific POTS lines it needs to connect to complete the call.

So it does go through the same IP infrastructure as the internet, but since they own the backbone they can just partition a bit of it off (and not use 'the internet') for their own offering.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I think there is a misunderstanding of what Shaw is offering. Yes, it is a product that uses VoIP. On that there is no debate it seems.

We use VoIP at work for some of our phones. But the calls travel over our local network; and not over the Internet.

My understanding is that Shaw has also set up a seperate network so the Digital Phone calls don't actually travel over the internet. By doing this; the aim was to make the product as much like POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) as possible.

The QoS link provided above is something that Shaw offers to customers who use other VoIP providers like Vonage. The problem that can happen with Vonage (and others) is that if Internet traffic is heavy in your neighbourhood then the voice packets can get dropped. With data the packet just gets re-sent, and we see that as a slow internet connection. When a voice packet gets re-sent, it comes through as an echo. QoS assigns the voice packets a higher priority, so they are less likely to be dropped in high traffic situations.

My anicdotal experience has told me that with the 5 people I know with Shaw Digital Phone; most have said they have noticed little or no difference in quality between Shaw and POTS.

Perhaps there could be an issue with some people with regards to saturation of a local node because Shaw has too many people in one neighbourhood on their phone service?

Shaw uses the exact same method that Vonage does. The only difference is that Shaw controls their internet network so that they can prioritize their voice data packets over the data, data packets and vonage does not have that control to do so. Vonage can ask a Shaw, Telus etc to 'prioritize' their voice packets, but the network provider has no obligation to do so. That is a nutshell is the difference between Shaw and vonage.

All Voip phones have to eventually go back into the PSTN. As cable companies have never offered phone services before, it is far cheaper to use the PSTN that is already set up and like I said, Shaw uses Bell. If you have a shaw digital phone or voip phone (same exact thing) then your number is actually in a Bell switch the the voicemail that you use is an Octel voicemail in the Bell switch as well.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

It is not dependent on your internet connection. You don't even have to have shaw internet to use their phone service. Shaw has a completely independent infrastructure in place and it is not VOIP like vonage, etc.

If you followed the conversation you'd realize I was talking about VOIP services such as Primus/Vonage.[/quote]

Which are the same type of service. it is all a question of prioritizing that data. And YES it is dependant on yoru internet connection. In fact, if you have a SHAW voip phone, expect your internet to be slower than before. You will only notice it during peak times as if you are talking on shaw's voip phone and are surfing, expect you're surfing to slooow down. If it is a REALLy busy peak time you may lose your voice connection as well.

[8sPOT]

Well I don't know about VOIP and all that jazz but I've had digital phone since summer of 2005 and have had zero problems with it.

To me, the service itself is just like Telus or any other provider.

The best part is that once a month when the bill comes I know how much it is before I even open it.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by 8sPOT

Well I don't know about VOIP and all that jazz but I've had digital phone since summer of 2005 and have had zero problems with it.

To me, the service itself is just like Telus or any other provider.

The best part is that once a month when the bill comes I know how much it is before I even open it.

A 'digital' phone is a voip service.
Not all of them have problems and as time goes on there will be fewer and fewer problems

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by White Doors

If you followed the conversation you'd realize I was talking about VOIP services such as Primus/Vonage.

Which are the same type of service. it is all a question of prioritizing that data. And YES it is dependant on yoru internet connection. In fact, if you have a SHAW voip phone, expect your internet to be slower than before. You will only notice it during peak times as if you are talking on shaw's voip phone and are surfing, expect you're surfing to slooow down. If it is a REALLy busy peak time you may lose your voice connection as well.[/quote]

You might want to fix your quote as only one sentence of that was actually mine.

[FFR]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Wow, you're an f'n ######.

There, now you know what rude is.

I love how people on this board take people's words and delete the ones that don't contribute to their own opinoin. I'm glad you think I'm ######. At least I was right in what I had to say about Shaw. Where as I was told to be quiet and not speak because I was wrong....Riiiight and that's not rude.

In any case...does anyone think Telus will come out with something to "combat" the Digital Phone Service...awhile ago my parents had a $20 plan thing that allowed them unlimited long distance within Canada/USA as long as it was after 6. Now I know that is not nearly as good a deal as Shaw becuse there aren't restrictions on it but maybe Telus will come up with a plan for unlimited long distance for a certain charge?? Or is Telus going to be on the way out...

[Bobblehead]

If voip catches on it will drive down the cost of those plans. Telus already uses voip on the back end for much of their long distance (and has done so for a few years).

Actually, as per another thread, Telus is upgrading and offering TV service. Hopefully they hurry up. Competition is good!

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

If voip catches on it will drive down the cost of those plans. Telus already uses voip on the back end for much of their long distance (and has done so for a few years).

Actually, as per another thread, Telus is upgrading and offering TV service. Hopefully they hurry up. Competition is good!

Bell and Telus will both (are) offering VOIp as well. Almost all of Bell's netwrok infrastructure is on VOIP and when they are done will be the first in the world to do so. Telus will push Voip hard in the east and Bell will push Void hard in the west the opposite of where their ILEC infrastructure is.

[White Doors]

Yeah, I know hulk - the quote thing did something weird. no worries.

[White Doors]

Competition is AWESOME! Hopefully the CRTC stays out of it!

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by FFR

Ok Look loser. I've used Shaw Digital phone. I've experienced the slowness. I used to call my friend in Kingston a lot last year but I gave up because it was too frustrating for me to use. Just because you havne't experienced this happening doesn't mean that it doesn't happen and is no right for an attack on me.

I apologize for attacking. I'd appreciate the same back from you. Did you have a tech come out and check your line at all?

Originally Posted by FFR

And why do you completely run off on me and then immediately following pretend you're all nice and ask politely about this echo on other people's phones. Isn't that almost exactly what I said but you decided I'm stupid and they aren't.

In your post you had 2 issues. One was slow internet affecting the voice, and echoing over long distance. I was replying to how you said slow internet affects the call quality. I then went on to ask about the echo, because I haven't heard of that before.

Originally Posted by FFR

Grow up and learn to have a civil conversation. Disagreeing with someone does not give you the right to be rude about it. By the way Shaw does go
over the internet....the IP network.

I'll keep the civil conversation in mind. The shaw phone is internal IP... it doesn't travel over the intenet externally of the shaw network. In that way, it is just like Telus. Vonage travels through the internet and is routed through the states, even for canadian calls.

Originally Posted by FFR

Whether or not they use a different separate and managed server is irrelevent. They still use the internet. My point is that when there are a lot of people talking on the phone such as on long weekends and holidays like Christmas the phone does slow down and have a delay because there is so much information passing over the internet lines.

Seperate/managed server is irrelevant? That's like taking your car to a gas station to fill it up, and choosing the type of gas with your eyes closed because it's irrelevant.

Originally Posted by FFR

Link: http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsSer...nhancement.htm

Thanks for the link showing that regular VOIP users (vonage, primus, ie not shaw) have the ability to upgrade their QOS which shaw already surpasses. After reading it further, it even states the phone doesn't travel over the internet.

Quality of service issues do not apply to Shaw Digital Phone because Shaw Digital Phone operates on its own separate, managed network. Voice traffic distributed along this network is never shared with public Internet networks, so you can be confident Shaw Digital Phone will deliver the service reliability and performance you expect.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by White Doors

Yeah, I know hulk - the quote thing did something weird. no worries.

And mine messed up too!

[White Doors]

Blackarcher, that seperate managed network is the priority packets of the voice information taking precedence over the data portion. As far as I can tell Vonage is the exact same thing, except that they do not have any infrastructure at all and have to ASK the shaw's, Bell's and Telus' of the world to prioritize the information on their behalf. They don't have to. Vonage should step up to the plate and pay extra for the prioritized info, but instead they asked CRTC to regulate it.

I wouldn't be putting a penny of my investment money into VOIP providers without their own infrastructure backbone.