The Lesser of Two Evils: Shaw or Telus in Victoria?
UPDATE: After some confusion (see the comments), I’ve established that the cable provider is in fact Shaw, not Rogers, in Victoria. I’ve adjusted this post accordingly.
Maybe it’s just the plodding web access here in Morocco, but today I visited both Shaw and Telus’s websites today to scope out Internet access when we settle in Victoria in April of this year. They both offer a premium service at 5 or 6 MB/s and a 60 GB maximum per month for about $40 to $45 (before all those ridiculous extra fees). I assume there are discounts when you package Internet access with a landline (unlikely) or TV (likelier).
This is like voting for a prime minister in recent elections. Which is the least distasteful choice? I’ve complained (and heard many complaints) about both services in the past. Which is, uh, less worse? My criteria would probably be:
- How long does it take to get service after signing up?
- How reliable is the service?
- Who’s less likely to penalize me for exceeding the 60 GB maximum (a real concern, now that you can download HD movies that might average 4 GB)?
- Who’s less likely to filter network traffic and selectively decrease download speeds for bittorrent traffic and the like?
- Whose corporate policies are less repugnant?
What would you recommend? Maybe I should just go with carrier pigeons?
When we lived in Yaletown, I could circumvent this sort of red-state, blue-state problem by voting independent and signing up with Novus. Are there any such alternatives in Victoria?
January 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I don’t know if its true but I have heard that both Telus and Rogers have stock in each other, therefore they get paid no matter what carrier you use. That is why there really is no incentive for them try hard to keep you.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Shaw is at our door the second they said they would be. They hooked us up and we haven’t had an major problems in a year since. There have been a few outages but they usually only last a couple minutes at most. We haven’t heard from them and we download a substantial amount (more then the package permits). The only complaint is that they throttle bit torrent traffic. I was with telus before that and it was often slow and to get someone on the phone was an exercise in patience.
Go with Shaw. Run Transmission. Learn about port forwarding. My two-point-two cents.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Second vote for Shaw. I have had Shaw, Telus and Rogers at one time or another.
I have found Shaw has better support and service, as well as consistently better speed. I am pretty sure I blow through my bandwidth allotment occasionally and I never hear from them.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Hmm… looks like my comment got eaten.
Basically, another Shaw vote.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Are both Rogers and Shaw in Victoria? Or just Shaw?
January 28th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I recently tried Rogers Portable Internet. It worked fine in the West End, but when I moved to a place near Vancouver General Hospital it would not connect at all. The problem was diagnosed by their tech people as “to much interference between my location and their tower at Ash and King Edward.”
I tell you this to lead into this: Rogers internet customer service is lousy. You have to wander through their voice mail system, get referred from one to another (Internet reps know nothing about portable Internet) and when you get to the right department you have at least a 20 minute wait for the correct customer service representative or tech person.
I spent hours with them over a 2 week period (because I agreed to try out the “outdoor portable” unportable modem).
And key steps you might want to take on you account cannot be done online–like cancelling service. And if you do not do your purchase in person at one for the stores, you cannot get any help from a store.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I am fairly certain it is Shaw in Victoria. I don’t think there is any Rogers cable in BC anymore, but I could be wrong.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I’m confused. I just entered V5W 1X5, a Victoria postal code (for, ironically enough, Rogers Chocolates) into Rogers Cable’s ‘do we serve your area’ checker, and got passed through okay. That seems to imply that Rogers does provide Internet in Victoria.
I visited Shaw’s page, and they tell me (based on my IP address, I guess), that “High-Speed Xtreme-I is currently not available in your area.” Gee, they don’t have an office in Morocco?
The small print on this page indicates that I can’t get their super-fast (up to 25 MB/s) service in Victoria.
Besides calling them, I don’t know how to determine if Shaw provides service in addition to or instead of Rogers in Victoria.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
V5W 1X5 is a Vancouver postal code.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
We have Shaw here in Edmonton, and I’ve been fairly satisfied with the service I get. A note vis-a-vis Shaw/Rogers: I’m fairly certain that Shaw/Rogers share the same network for their internet and voice communications. When I first signed up for Shaw’s phone service, I’d occasionally get Rogers’ error messages (in fact, a cursory google search reveals the two did a bunch of asset-swapping in 2000). So it seems that the choice between Shaw and Rogers in western Canada is really just a matter of choosing which customer service department to talk to.
I don’t have experience with Telus; however, a friend of mine was on their service and switched to Shaw after having problems with Bittorrent traffic. I personally haven’t had any issues with Bittorrent on Shaw.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Geet: Er, you may be right, but that’s what Rogers Chocolates has on their website for their Victoria address.
I believe you are right, because I just tried another Victoria postal code (V8W 9W2, that of the RBC museum), Rogers says they don’t offer service there. I’ll adjust the post accordingly.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
We have been using Rogers for a few years now and try not to deal with the tech support, as noted is a pain. We have not gone over our limit but have seen on other web boards that Rogers might not be charging for going over any more.
The service techs are pretty good about showing up on schedule. The only major complaint was when we moved and it took nearly a month to get our service changed over.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Telus tech support is a such a joke, last time I moved, they would not come and re set up my DSL line. I ended up having to use my DSL modem as a sniffer to find out which twisted pair the service was coming in on. ( I finally found it coming in on a pair that was terminating in the basement of my home, thank God for Wi-Fi routers!).
January 28th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I’ve had both (in North Van) and would easily take Shaw over Telus for the simple fact that you can easily setup a Shaw cable modem without having to install any software or having to authenticate on their servers using a clunky web-based tool. It’s always been plug-in and surf with Shaw for me. If you change your router, it’s always a pain on Telus.
But that’s just a personal preference on the installation aspect.
I’ve found Telus to be slower than Shaw - I had both for awhile to compare and dumped Telus after a month. This was on a mixed computer household of Macs and PCs.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Another vote for Shaw.
I’ve been connected through Shaw in Burnaby, Vancouver, and now Langley. The service has always been faster than when I used Telus. I now use Shaw for HD, Internet, and Digital Phone. I don’t hesitate to recommend them for a second. Their customer service is so far superior to Telus it’s not even funny! Their product’s better too.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Shaw. Lesser of two evils.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I have the telus extreme or enhanced or whatever package. I’m not in Victoria mind you, but in Burnaby I find it pretty underwhelming. My upload hasn’t ever gone over 70Kbps, and down I maybe get 300 if I’m lucky.
I’m sure all of those other factors like old phone lines,distance from their servers, having curly hair, and being born in June have an effect, but I tells ya I’m going to try out Shaw now that my contract is over.
They haven’t ever sent me a note about bandwidth though, and I’m sure I push their “limit”.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Your mileage will vary based on the area you’ll be inhabiting. With Telus, you get more of a dedicated line and a more consistent bandwidth (they also seem less likely to ding you for downloading too much). With Shaw, you can get higher speeds during non-peak times, but peak times can slow to a crawl if you have heavy-using neighbors. I do find that Shaw seems to have better uptime than Telus though. Oh, and in my experience, the customer service of both companies isn’t very good.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Try yak…they offer high end Telco products and services without all the Telco pricing schemes..no contracts, no hidden fees and no bullshit.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I’ve had both Telus and Shaw — I ranted about Telus just before I dumped them, but the service itself was fine. It was the customer treatment I didn’t like.
Telus’s DSL throughput depends physically and directly on your distance from the central office (CO). The farther you are the slower your connection (and I was pretty far). So Shaw has been generally quicker for me at all times. Their tech support has been pretty good. So I’d be okay with sticking with Shaw, which (from people I’ve talked to) is a big improvement from Rogers.
There are occasional brief outages with either service. Some of my Shaw outages seem to have been my base station, which I’ve now replaced, but they have been helpful diagnosing problems, and most of the time the outages resolve themselves relatively quickly.
If you can find an alternative to Telus and Shaw, at least give it a shot in a vague attempt to keep them honest. The Bell/Rogers Inukshuk wireless network does seem to run in Victoria, but then you’re buying into another oligopoly, of course.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Shaw offers high speed internet as well as local phone service and cable television in Victoria.
Info from the shaw.ca website:
Shaw
861 Cloverdale Avenue
Sales & Customer Care: (250) 475-5655
Technical Support
(24/7/365): (250) 475-5655
Technical Support
(24/7/365): 611 on a Shaw Phone
Hope this helps Darren!
January 28th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Having moved from Victoria last summer to wonderful, wintery Ottawa, I’ve had the pleasure of using Shaw and the disappointment of using Rogers. Rogers charges more but has less reliable service. If Shaw moved out east, I’d switch to them in a heartbeat. They’re pricey, but very reliable and very helpful when things go awry.
I wouldn’t recommend Telus to anybody.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I’ve subscribed to high speed internet from both Telus and Shaw in Calgary, and Shaw has provided far superior service. Outside of regular maintenance windows, my Shaw connection hasn’t gone down in 2 years (knock on wood). I’ve also found their customer support to be far easier to deal with.
On the flip-side, Telus support ePost billing (a positive for me) while Shaw has a customized online billing service (meh).
January 28th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Stop downloading porn on the internet.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Shaw. Their customer service has always been excellent for me.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Key decision point: Do you want to run third-party VoIP?
I run a small phone company in Victoria called NaTel. (http://www.natel.ca, horrible website). We can’t provide service reliably to Shaw customers - they deliberately degrade quality on VoIP calls to promote their own IP-phone service. (Vonage sued them back east for it).
Having said that, I run Shaw at home and have managed to make it work. I’ve also tried 3web, which is a third-party reseller of Shaw… pretty disappointing.
If you can afford it, go for a Bell Canada business-class ADSL circuit.
Oh, and to second the post above - Transmission with DMZ in the router, and change the default port - works great.
Joshua
PS - If you’re back in BC, and in my hometown no less, we should talk more about some consulting work.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
One thing to note (coming from an insider that used to work for Telus, and worked specifically on Telus TV) if you order from Telus, and get their TV package, they won’t harness your internet signal at all… They can’t. You need the bandwidth for the tv signal. And, they can’t tell what data is being used for what, so you aren’t charged overage fees, ever.
Not saying you should go for Telus, but that’s just a tidbit most people probably don’t know.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:17 am
I know…don’t go to Victoria. I think (totally selfishly) that you guys should come back here. As in, close to Vancouver. As in, closer to ME.
Vancouver is nice…c’mon. Hey, first month back in Vancouver, I will pay for your connection. It is my April special. We want your business back.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Wow, so that’s about
Shaw: 25
Telus: 0
Though Tanya’s note on the TV thing is intriguing.
Thanks for all the input. I’d say my decision is pretty clear, eh?
January 29th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Make it 26: Shaw’s customer service is so good, it makes it onto my “companies I actually don’t mind calling when there’s an occasional problem” short list.
Telus’s customer service, on the other hand, is like being hungry when the only thing in your fridge is too-old left-over take out chinese food. Unpleasant for sure, and something’s probably going to go even worse for you.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:15 am
With those results, I guess you don’t need my vote; but it would be Shaw.
I’m still commenting though because you asked about the other services and bundling. You do get a discount on additional services. We have long had the TV/Internet bundle. The wife and I do download a lot also, and so we did get the occasional warning, but no further action. My wife was tired of the calls, though, so we pay the $10 extra for the Extreme-I to raise the limit to 100G. We haven’t had a call since, and the connection is noticeably faster.
More recently we added on their phone. We started by putting the in-laws on it, as they live in Abbotsford like us, but their kids are throughout the Lower Mainland. Abbotsford to Vancouver or Chilliwack is long distance with Telus, but Bowen Island to Chilliwack is all local with Shaw. Perhaps they might have a similar expanded region in Victoria?
We then also joined because of the savings. With the Shaw plan, there are none of the hidden fees Telus has like the 911 fee and the long distance admin fee. The savings are quite a bit, even more because we get $5 a month off sine we have their other services, and the little bit of long distance we now have is much cheaper at 4 cents a minute, including the first minute.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
where’s the post saying you are moving to Victoria? link please! please re-consider!
February 27th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I used to also for for Telus, and I quit because it is one product that I can sell anymore due to the fact that I don’t believe in masking your flaws just to get sales. I believe in transparency in business. Yes, Telus is a company that has been in the business for quite some time, it awards its employees very well BUT let me ask you one thing? Why doesn’t Telus employees subscribe to their own company’s product? Belive me, they are the hardest people to sell it to! Telus TV uses the same bandwidth as your internet and it will definetely affect the speed of your internet which is at the present a bit slower than the high speed shaw is offering. Yes, it is a little bit cheaper than shaw, but you get what you pay for. Telus tv is also cheaper than shaw, their packages offers double the # of channels shaw is offering for less than shaws full cable (classic cable). But if you turn on 2 tv’s at the same time. guess what, your internet will be significantly slow down. Well, if you’re a person who doesn’t mind all this, then well go for it. If you’re a person whose tv and internet runs all day, then I don’t think this is the right one for you. I quit my job because I couldn’t continue selling something I don’t believe in anymore. HD is available, so i wonder how it will work with your internet because HD uses a lot more bandwidth than digital. Goodluck!
May 13th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I like shaw
June 18th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I’m a computer tech here in Victoria and I have been using Telus six years now. When Shaw recently called and offered a deal on their service I decided to give it a try. They were giving me a free month so I ran them both for three weeks as a test. Basic Telus ADSL is 1.5Mbps, Shaw is 5.0 Mbps. My telus connection tests out to 1.25Mbps very consistently. (I live right downtown.) When the Shaw installer hooked it up we went right to Speedtest.net and got 5.5Mbs download and 485 upload speeds. Haven’t seen anything close to that since. It has varied between 4.2 and 1.2Mbps, averaging about 2.5 over that time. This was still faster for less money so I decided to cancel Telus and stick with Shaw but when I called Telus, their Loyalty and Retention people sweetened the deal so I now get their fastest “Extreme” service, 6Mbps, for less than I was paying before! It pays to haggle with them. By the way, Telus service has been great. It wasn’t a while ago but the Canadian telecom overseeing body made them clean up their act and it’s been great since. I ran into one snarky guy with Shaw, but other than that they were good too.
So one for Telus.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
We’ve been using Telus in Victoria for almost 2 months now (we live 7 blocks from downtown), after living in Kitsilano for many years, where I used both Shaw and Telus at different times.
Everyone else in my building here uses the Shaw bundle. So I was forging new ground by bringing Telus in. The main reason we decided to stick with Telus was contentment, keeping longtime email addresses, and a horrific past experience with Shaw’s billing.
So far the results are mixed. The service guy came out quickly and was courteous (are they learning?). You can’t Telus TV in Victoria yet, so I can’t take advantage of the full bundle.
One thing I notice is download speed is slower than back in Kits, and we get dumped more frequently. It’s livable, but no one in the building complains about Shaw, except for some minor comments about occasional static on their phone.
I guess on balance that Shaw is the better choice, at least until Telus TV hits town.
What did you end up choosing Darren and how’s it working out?