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Email this9:18 am
December 23, 2011
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I know most of all have our love hate relationships with the likes of Telus, Shaw and Bell as well as other first party providers of phone, television and Internet. While at this point I still feel ripped off by Shaw as when I moved back to Telus they (Shaw) charged me a one month penalty fee for not providing them an impossible 30 day advance notice I still feel Shaw has crappy customer service, crappy retention program, and crappy maintenance of their lines and equipment. The fee is no longer charged due to complaints to the CRTC and Shaw did no back peddling to satisfy those that they stole from.
I have dealt with Telus for 47 years except a 2 or 3 year stint with Shaw and that was all due to Telus not providing the speed of Internet I was paying for and compounded with their poor customer service during those last few years I moved to Shaw. And is highly unlikely I would return to
Shaw for a number of reasons. I have been back with Telus for 3 years with a basic phone and tv package and an intermediate internet package. Today I am paying approx 30% more and back to low speeds of internet and am comparing today's rate to the non discounted rate that we started with. Our internet speed is 25 and usually is during the day but any time after 7 pm it can drop to as low as 1.38! A few months ago they upped all internet rates by $5 and also began to charge for going over your download allowance if you did not buy unlimited for an additional $10 or $15 per month. Today I received my monthly statement by email (as they charge $2 to mail but have since very silently dropped the $2 fee).
Today.....I finally clued in...duh!! Why were all internet packages jacked up by $5. Why wasn't the increase prorated based on your internet type, why wasn't the jack up $4.31? Duh.....they eliminated the bundling discount!!!! As all their bundling discounts are $5 for each service. And we all know that the bundling discount revenue is what they base on how they can operate with profit and any non bundled billing can go to their Christmas party fund.
So here I am back with Telus and have to phone their technical support and talk to some newbie with a flip chart telling to uplug this add tighten that!!! A no fix situation at my cost of wasted time. I have asked if I cancel TV how do I return their equipment....no answer...what is the problem.....we will refer you to the retention dept. What a hassle!!
So I am told Shaw internet speed can be affected by the number of users in the neighbourhood while Telus ADSL is supposed to be a dedicated line to your home. So why the drop in speed.....what has changed.....more customers taken away from Shaw????
Telus shouldn't have entered the internet market that is where they seem to fail!! And not to mention why do I pay for all those junk channels that we NEVER WATCH. Folks we are paying for "those" channels. The CRTC pick and pay or skinny package is a farce and the big 3 actually hide information about them and their folks have been trained to steer you away from them.
So if I go third party for internet you will get either Shaw or Telus as a back bone.
So I pay Telus
Phone 25
Internet 68
Tv 33
If I drop the phone for VoIP i lose Home insurance discount for alarm monitoring BUT that loss of discount is compensated from a much lower VoIP plan.
So if piece meal out I can get
VoIP phone for less than $5 a month with a one time equipment charge
Internet unlimited higher speed ADSL for $70
TV from free using apps and a questionable android box (<= TV only) and replace my Bell dish with a small digital antenna.
Or TV pay for $8 a month for a subscription of basic tv over the internet with the channels we watch without the majority of junk channels we now pay for.
So that is $83 vs $126 a $43 savings per month or $516 a year.
9:27 am
May 15, 2007
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What I do, in short:
* Use a VoIP service for phone
* Use Shaw or Telus for Internet and sometimes TV. I call back whenever my term / deal is going to expire and talk to the retentions department. I either say I want to leave completely, or I want to cancel TV. If they can give me a good deal for another 6 months or 1 year, I continue. Otherwise I keep only Internet or switch to the other provider. When the other provider cannot give me a reasonable deal anymore, I switch back, at which point I am considered a new customer again and am able to get one of the advertised promos.
12:31 pm
October 21, 2013
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I can't really help but can add my bit to the story.
We assist with a very elderly relative who only has basic home phone and cable TV through Bell. We have found that even after an hour or more on the phone, and after they've promised a certain deal, they often don't honour it. It is always extremely complicated, with a combo of rebates, fees, charges, etc., so that it's very difficult to follow and to know if you got what was agreed to. We also found that after a few months (on a deal that was promised for one year) they quietly stopped the deal and went to something more expensive. AND, if you phone them again, and spend another hour or so on the phone going through various levels of CS, they pay no attention whatsoever to what you were promised before. Even if you have carefully noted who you spoke to, when exactly, and what was said, they simply don't care. All they want to do is to make you start all over again.
We now have Rogers at our house, but they're not really any better.
2:42 pm
December 23, 2011
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Peter good point....pick a VOIP and it works with any Internet Provider and negotiate for the other 2. Just out of curiosity what VOIP are you using? Most of our calls are with in the lower mainland and we rarely use LD. I like that most of the VOIP providers give an app as well for iPhone as long as they work good. I have a paid Magic Jack app and it isn't that good. So secondly to what you use, does it have an app and does it work well? I was thinking of OOMA.
Loonie thanks for your input. Bell is not a huge player in BC only over-priced satellite TV, a Mickey Mouse internet package that I doubt anyone has out this way, and of course mobile service. I have used them for both Mobile and Satellite and can reassure you that I don't trust their customer service at all. Shaw has similar bad customer service and I must say that Telus are good for customer service but as we all know there is no competition amongst the big players. The only competition there is amongst them is, who can gouge best.
7:43 am
May 15, 2007
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I use https://voip.ms/, which has a ton of features such as voicemail to e-mail and allowing me to forward to my cell phone. I use a pretty old phone from work: the Linksys / Cisco SPA 942. If I'm travelling, sometimes I'll use the CounterPath X-Lite software for calls. This setup requires some technical configuration, and I know there are more user-friendly options out there. Way way way back I tried the magicJack but I really didn't like the call quality at the time.
4:32 pm
October 21, 2016
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I use Primus VOIP with more than a dozen features (I love the call-blocking...) for $16/month with the first 3 months free with a 2 yr contract. I use TekkSavvy for internet for ~$50/month (25Mbps down, 2.5 Mbps up and unlimited download). And I installed a great antenna (~$80) in the attic and get about 16 channels in HDTV (the signal is better than Rogers HD and Bell Satellite cause the signal is not compressed and uncompressed). I also have a MagicJack with a US number.
Bundle packages are designed to make a prisoner of the customer. I should know I used to work for a phone company...
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