Shaw vs. Telus Cable TV

[teamchachi]

Originally Posted by Roast Beef

My profile is slower than yours. I get around 12-14mbps download with no TV running. With a couple HD streams running it drops to 3-4mbps. My upload maxes out at a paltry .83mpbs

A few weeks ago they were doing upgrades in the area. I should give Telus a call to see if the High Speed Turbo package is available in my area now.

My TV says I get 1SD/3HD streams (system resources menu). I've tested my download speed at almost 25Mbps so that makes sense. It is pretty awesome if you can get it.

[Roast Beef]

I didn't even know they offered 3HD + 1 SD. The max I can do is 2HD +1SD. Can you record all 4 streams at once as well?

[Bob]

For those of you getting crazy download rates, where are you living in relation to the DSL termination point? I assume the further away you are the worse the speed gets, but I have no notion of how far a DSL run to my house would actually have to go. Back when my parents got DSL (through CADVision, w00t!), we only had about 1.2 Mbps because of distance issues.

[Bob]

Just got off the phone with Shaw (45-minute hold time, grrrr). Mentioned I thought the Telus $15/month service was the first compelling offer I've seen in years (I cancelled Shaw basic 2 years ago) and that the Shaw "offers" I've received in the interim were crap. Prior to the call, I had Extreme-I and basic phone only for about $70/month, now I get:

-Free HDPVR for 1 year
-Free Full HD channels + all basic channels for 6 months (no movies, natch)
-Extreme-I free for 1 year
-Upgrade to the full digital phone package for 1 year

My monthly bill goes *down* for the first 6 months to $59.95/month. After 6 months it goes to $75.95/month, but the dude said I can call at that point and just get HD Sports to save some money. Also, I complained about their "old" PVRs being sucky, so I hope I get the new one (he seemed to think I would).

Interestingly, he also offered me some $85/month package very similar to what others have gotten, but he said this deal is better (certainly is cheaper).

Finally, the dude was an Oilers fan, and mentioned that I could PVR all the game the Flames will lose this year. Of course, I told him the Oilers should be doing their fair share of losing also.

All in all I'm quite happy. Now to deal with Rogers.

[8sPOT]

Just got the Optik TV and Internet hooked up today. My internet is at about 13MBPS with both TV's on.

My initial reaction to the internet was that its slower than Shaw, but after a few hours the wife and I don't see any difference.

I got the XBOX hooked up as a digital box, my only complaint is that you cannot pause live TV through the XBOX but you can record...weird.

I do think that Shaw HD is a little sharper, but again it's only been about 3 hours I haven't seen enough variety yet. The audio for Telus seems much louder and detailed.

The menus are light years ahead of Shaw, fast, efficient and sexy.

If I notice any more positives or negatives I will mention them.

[Roast Beef]

Originally Posted by 8sPOT

Just got the Optik TV and Internet hooked up today. My internet is at about 13MBPS with both TV's on.

My initial reaction to the internet was that its slower than Shaw, but after a few hours the wife and I don't see any difference.

I got the XBOX hooked up as a digital box, my only complaint is that you cannot pause live TV through the XBOX but you can record...weird.

I do think that Shaw HD is a little sharper, but again it's only been about 3 hours I haven't seen enough variety yet. The audio for Telus seems much louder and detailed.

The menus are light years ahead of Shaw, fast, efficient and sexy.

If I notice any more positives or negatives I will mention them.

You can't pause live TV on the "real" satellite boxes either. Hopefully that will be a feature in a software update. I would also love it if they let you use your PC or iDevice as terminals as well. That would truly be TV "anywhere" in the house.

[fundmark19]

So the dream is over telus will not install to my house as apparently all of new brightons ports are full. Looks like im just going to have to buy a new pvr from shaw

[FlamesKickAss]

Originally Posted by Roast Beef

You can't pause live TV on the "real" satellite boxes either. Hopefully that will be a feature in a software update. I would also love it if they let you use your PC or iDevice as terminals as well. That would truly be TV "anywhere" in the house.

I played ball with a guy that said this feature is coming in the next update, he works for Telus

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

So the dream is over telus will not install to my house as apparently all of new brightons ports are full. Looks like im just going to have to buy a new pvr from shaw

How does this even work? I can see it happening in an old community but New Brighton? Wow. You'd think it would be more future proof than most places.

[fundmark19]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

How does this even work? I can see it happening in an old community but New Brighton? Wow. You'd think it would be more future proof than most places.

The installer on my street still thinks its a croc but what can you do. Oh well looks like I am just going to stay with shaw and get another HD reciever or pvr to elimanate the wifes confusion with the home theater setup.

[alltherage]

I just called Shaw too because we moved, and this thread inspired me. I had spoken to Telus however, and they didn't seem to offer me anything as good as what you all have been offered... strange.

Either way, I spoke to the loyalty people at SHAW and I got a polite... but also smart customer retention person. Damn she knew her stuff. I talked about the promos a "friend" (aka people in this thread) received from Shaw after speaking to Telus. She picked Telus apart... that you have to pay per box with Telus, that they offer 89 channels but like 50 of them are music stations... that their service all goes through DSL and that it requires crazy bandwidth...

Anyways, she said since I'm a fairly new customer (Started Sept 09) that I had already enjoyed 6 months of promo-pricing... which is true, and a month of free internet... which is true, and that it was a little early for her to justify another promo. (literally, she has to justify it to a manager)

She went on to offer me Home Phone service for $15/mo for a year instead of only 6mos before it goes to $21/mo (phone will be a new service for us, we used to use our cells only).

I told her $30 over the course of a year wasnt that great ($5/6mos). I asked for free HD box rental and she came back with free lifetime rental and new hardware which can be upgraded to the PVR for $150. That will save me $13 a month... not amazing but it doesnt hurt, and will save us $150. Its basically like getting my phone service for like $7.

Anywho, thanks for the inspiration... I'm going to call them again in a year or so and get them to sweeten the deal.

[Mazrim]

Just got off the phone with Shaw. I got what I expected based on this thread.
- Free Lifetime Digital Box rental for the CRT TV.
- Free PVR Rental for the HDTV.
- High Speed Internet/HD Plus.
$68/month for 6 months.

I can buy the PVR after 6 months for $350, but she suggested looking for one on sale at a store or on Kijiji before doing that.

[FlamesKickAss]

so frustrating, just moved to a new house and can't optik there without running a new line and they wont run it where the existing line is as it cuts over the neighbors yard, so they want some trees trimmed and one removed, if it was my house no problem but being that I am a tenant not as easy.

[iggyntangs]

For anyone w/ Shaw, do you know which receivers that they have will support this MPEG-4 format for the NHL-CI preview?

Any help would be appreciated. They're offering me a free PVR rental for a year and I'd like one that would support this preview.

[Barnes]

The Motorola DCX 3400 and the newest Pace one.

[Jiggy]

Originally Posted by Roast Beef

My profile is slower than yours. I get around 12-14mbps download with no TV running. With a couple HD streams running it drops to 3-4mbps. My upload maxes out at a paltry .83mpbs

A few weeks ago they were doing upgrades in the area. I should give Telus a call to see if the High Speed Turbo package is available in my area now.

I have shaw extreme and I barely get to 2mpbs . I had shaw high speed berfore, and I couldn't even upload and surf the internet it was soooo slow.

[Mtt48]

I have shaw extreme and I consistently get 14-15mbps. What is your setup Jiggy? You may have a crap router or something that is slowing it down. I had a really crappy dlink wireless router for a while and I would get dreadful speeds. I returned it and got a better router, made all the difference.


With shaw I have always received incredibly close to the max transfer speed.

[Flames0910]

So we called in to Shaw today because we got screwed when we upgraded to a digital box. We used to get SD channels 2-50 but the digital box disabled everything past 20. Shaw tells us that we weren't ever paying for the others but we got it because of their mistake (not true, we did pay for it, but we have no way to prove it....clearly the plans were different 10 years ago.)
TLDR; for the past 6 months we've been paying more money for <20 channels. (we pay $90/month for 2-20 and internet)

The icing on the cake? Our second TV without a digital box didn't disable the channels so I could still watch hockey games in the basement. Now it's been crippled as well.

So today we wanted to add SNET West and One to watch the game. I checked the website before calling it says you can add two channels for 3.95/month.

But you can't. And they'll give you a runaround about having to have tier 1 ($14/month) in addition to tier 2, but basically the website is wrong and they can't do it. And there is no way to individually add sportsnet west (except for the 3.95/month option which doesn't work)

So I've been looking into Telus and it looks like a basic bundle would be $103/month. Problem is, at this time, we don't need an HD digital box. Do they have a cheaper rental for standard def or are you forced to rent the more expensive HD option?

Shaw is supposed to call in the next few days with 'the best offer they can make' but I would like to go into it knowing all the options.

[fundmark19]

Just call shaw tell them you are leaving add a home phone and then pay 90 for a month with free pvr and all of the channels and dont have to fight with them anymore

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

Just call shaw tell them you are leaving add a home phone and then pay 90 for a month with free pvr and all of the channels and dont have to fight with them anymore

that's one question I was wondering about though.

With three years you get a free PVR rental from telus. If you don't have an HD TV, can you get a digital box as a cheap rental? The only one listed on their site was the HD Box