Shaw vs Telus?

[Txiasaeia]

I'm going to be getting high speed in Pincher Creek, AB. I know it's a lot to ask that somebody here has experience with one of these two in a town of 4000, but I thought I'd put that out there.

Aside from that, Shaw Extreme is a 15 megabit/s connexion for $53 or so without a bundle; Telus High Speed Turbo is up to 15 megabit/s connexion for $43 without a bundle. Why would I go with Shaw if it's $10 more for the same speed? I haven't had either Shaw or Telus in rural Alberta and know nothing. Teach me.

[Aske001]

Keep in mind that speed is "up to...". Telus can only hit 15 Mbps in areas close to a CO that has recently been upgraded, and they are so far concentrating on the central urban hi-rise market. Your rural telephone line may be limited to a tenth of that or less. Shaw's speed depends more on how many people are packed onto one node, so they tend to be better in rural areas and worse in dense urban areas.

[zod]

I was thinking the same thing? Does shaw/telus offer their fastest packages in a small town of 4000?

You might want to call them up and ask.

Usually small towns don't have the infrastructure required for the fasted speeds they advertise on their website.

[Txiasaeia]

Both Telus and Shaw have told me that these packages are available in Pincher Creek. I've heard stories from people in other places, however, that were told this, but when they sign up, Telus says that the 6 megabit connexion is the fastest they have available. Same with Shaw.

[Asad_A203]

I was thinking the same thing? Does shaw/telus offer their fastest packages in a small town of 4000?

You might want to call them up and ask.

Usually small towns don't have the infrastructure required for the fasted speeds they advertise on their website.

You would be surprised, I have dealt with customers in TB fully saturating their connection. If Shaw is advertising Extreme I in your area it has to be DOCSIS ready and has to have your SNRs within the optimal range. If DOCSIS modems (i.e. Not Terayon) are available in your area, you are good to go and should be able to hit those speeds. Typically Shaw will not advertise Extreme I unless the infrastructure in place can fully support it.

[mcfc98]

See my recent experience with shifting from Shaw to Telus (for price reasons):

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/shaw-retention-update-telus-awful-shaw-need-better-competition-784901/

[Asad_A203]

See my recent experience with shifting from Shaw to Telus (for price reasons):

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/shaw-retention-update-telus-awful-shaw-need-better-competition-784901/

Shaw used to be pretty big on matching prices with other large competitiors (especially in fairly competitive "value" based markets like Manitoba) but discontinued matching promotions and pricing in an effort to move from being the cheaper product company to that of a product you will pay more for because it is the superior product (it also went into a consistient loop of matching promo and going cheaper and cheaper). Not to mention constant cost reductions discount the product to customers paying full prices. What they found was a reduction in some customers occured but it was mainly people "promotion hoping" and would not remain loyal customers regardless, might as well let the competitiors take the loss or minimal revenue after the promotional period was over. The other people who cancelled due to pricing often went to the competitior and realised the product/service was subpar and returned back to Shaw after the promotion was over. Your situation is actually quite common ;). I agree there should be some sort of loyalty discount to show some appreciation to customers who choose to retain services with Shaw over extended periods of time as opposed to only rewarding new customers to come from the competition (I would at the very least take that into consideration when I was employed at Shaw).

I agree the Novus situation is BS and I would say if you can get the Novus promotion, do it with Novus. I would rather support a small company to keep the bigger companies on their toes than kill of the competition and let the oligopolies keep raising prices and retain their large market shares.

[M-e-X-x]

Neither. Get Teksavvy if you can.

[Asad_A203]

A little bit in response to mcfc98 in powerboost from your thread:

http://imusion.net/asad/Beading/shawspeed.png

This is well passed the initial 10MB file and I am pulling 2.1-3 MB/s strong ;). Under 3 minutes to download ~350MB is pretty quick IMO, haha. I am only on Xtreme-I as well (theoretically 1.9 Mb/s). Most servers take advantage of such management (i.e. download managers) so you can usually use it to help speed up alot of files you download.

[mcfc98]

If you can get that I'm sure it is great. In my experience I never got this huge boost in speed so it seemed like useless marketing tat in practice.

This is from the perspective of having Shaw in two different location over two years in downtown Vancouver and downloading A LOT of stuff.


As for the Teksavvy suggestion. I might have gone that route if you didn't have to pay an extra $10 a month for the dry loop.
I realize Teksavvy do not get a penny of the extra $10 but the bottom line is the bottom line.


Personally I do not need tv or a phone line, just internet.

[ji_hyun_jun]

Purely from the view that you're in a rural area, and not based on the quality of either company, it would have to be shaw (shaw would be superior either way though). As others have mentioned, Telus' speeds decreases with distance, and chances are that Telus hasn't bothered setting up/upgrading their infrastructure in your area.

[Asad_A203]

If you can get that I'm sure it is great. In my experience I never got this huge boost in speed so it seemed like useless marketing tat in practice.

This is from the perspective of having Shaw in two different location over two years in downtown Vancouver and downloading A LOT of stuff.





Yeah it bases allocation on available bandwidth on the node. In congested downtown Vancouver it probably won't be so effective as in a suburb of Winnipeg (and personally knowing they have removed almost all node congestion within the city, lol). I guess a perk to living out here!

[Txiasaeia]

I think it might be worth it for me to go with Telus HS Turbo for their trial period. If I don't like it, I can move to Shaw. I haven't been a HS customer of either and am able to get their trial packages without an issue. I'd prefer Telus because of the price, but we'll see what their performance looks like.

[zod]

I use telus Turbo, but mainly for two reasons.

1. I live downtown Edmonton and there was congestion when I was on Shaw. It'd slow down below advertised speeds in the morning/evening (less likely if your in a rural area).

2. Telus Turbo doesn't currently monitor consumption. If you plan to use a crapload of bandwidth, telus turbo is definately the way to go.

In my experience, the toughest part of using telus, is the initial setup. You end up talking to call call centres in the phillipines, and if stuff goes wrong, its gets annoying.

I download/upload too much to use Shaw, I used to get warnings shortly after I was done trial periods. If telus ever started to enforce caps on Turbo, I'd probably go to teksavvy.