Shaw vs. Telus: internet price [non-]war (May2012)

[Darren Dirt]

what the hell happened to competition?

Seems both are pretty similar priced now, and relatively high for what you get compared to the last time we had a mega-thread on the forum here...




I am starting this thread partly to whine and complain, as a result of getting something in the mail from Shaw suggesting I can get their Internets for only $19.99/month for 6 months -- turns out it's for just the equivalent of Telus' "Turbo 10" ... for an extra $10 I can get their "20", which I am considering since right now I have Telus "Turbo 15" for like $45/month. But I'm really shocked at what the "after 6 months" price is even for the most basic web package (I am not bundling with TV or home phone or web extras).



http://www.shaw.ca/Internet/Compare-Plans/
http://telus.com/content/internet/high-speed/compare-high-speed-plans.jsp


So if I am ok with painfully slow page loading and/or virtually NEVER having the kids use WiFi while I am playing city of heroes or watching Youtube myself, then I'm still paying $45/month with Shaw or $40/month with Telus, only an extra $10 per month (either company) and I've moved up to the "20" with reasonable upload speeds as well.

Yeesh whatever happened to the old days when a $29.99 monthly price tag got you the "15" with 1mbps upload (or was itjust 500kbps) ... sad to think I'm considering switching to Shaw just to say like $15 per month for 6 months, since Telus has actually been really stable since those first few weeks when it kept cutting out (back in February 2011 (!!) )





one BONUS with Shaw:
http://www.shaw.ca/Internet/WiFi/ (geez, a LOT of locations in Edmonton!)
(including the nice family-owned place I visit regularly right by my house! "New Way - Pizza Restaurants 13128 - 66 St. 780.478.6200" (!) )

[Lazybones]

Shaw vs Telus only really matters when you look at the caps an speeds offered that are higher than Telus.

At the entry level they are fairly similar.

[Darren Dirt]

Shaw vs Telus only really matters when you look at the caps an speeds offered that are higher than Telus.

At the entry level they are fairly similar.

and I realized 5 minutes after the post that I also have the wifi router courtesy of Telus as part of my $49 package. So I guess I'm gonna stick with 'em for now. #lazyass

[Tom]

Shaw vs Telus only really matters when you look at the caps an speeds offered that are higher than Telus.

At the entry level they are fairly similar.

and I realized 5 minutes after the post that I also have the wifi router courtesy of Telus as part of my $49 package. So I guess I'm gonna stick with 'em for now. #lazyass

Shaw gives you a wifi router/modem as well.

[Darren Dirt]

Shaw gives you a wifi router/modem as well.

Weird that they ain't making any mention of it on their site pages that talk about what is included in their packages, while Telus does make that clear.

dammit, with that info now I'm second-guessing myself... is it worth possibly inconveniencing myself with a possibly different wifi router/configuration/cablemodem headaches just to save a dime or two each month for just 6 months, hmmm...

[Tom]

Shaw gives you a wifi router/modem as well.

Weird that they ain't making any mention of it on their site pages that talk about what is included in their packages, while Telus does make that clear.

dammit, with that info now I'm second-guessing myself... is it worth possibly inconveniencing myself with a possibly different wifi router/configuration/cablemodem headaches just to save a dime or two each month for just 6 months, hmmm...

The devices they prefer handing out are SMC modem/router combos.

[Thorin]

If you have your own wifi router then you don't even need to worry about changing configs when you change providers.

At the low end of the scale, Telus is a little cheaper for internet and a little more cheaper if you're bundling services.  But there's a limit to Telus's speeds that Shaw surpasses.

Telus's TV service (Optik) has a better UI than Shaw's normal service (can't compare Shaw Gateway as I haven't seen it in action).  To get Optik TV you _have_ to get Telus internet, so some people are on Telus internet just because of the TV service.

All that said, yeah, internet service in Canada is expensive compared to most of the rest of the world.  And in the east it's even worse than it is out here in the west - imagine $60 for 60GB, then $1.50 for each GB over.  Having to watch usage would suck.

[Darren Dirt]

The devices they prefer handing out are SMC modem/router combos.

Saturday Morning Cereal?

[Lazybones]

The devices they prefer handing out are SMC modem/router combos.

Saturday Morning Cereal?

As in the cheap network gear company... http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?event=showHome&localeCode=EN_USA

However if you update to a plan on Shaw over 25Mbit and tell them you want a Cisco device in Bridge mode because you want to use your own router behind it you can get better equipment.

[Tom]

The devices they prefer handing out are SMC modem/router combos.

Saturday Morning Cereal?

As in the cheap network gear company... http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?event=showHome&localeCode=EN_USA

However if you update to a plan on Shaw over 25Mbit and tell them you want a Cisco device in Bridge mode because you want to use your own router behind it you can get better equipment.

They still gave me an SMC. But they did put it into bridge mode for me. Considerably more stable.

[Melbosa]

However if you update to a plan on Shaw over 25Mbit and tell them you want a Cisco device in Bridge mode because you want to use your own router behind it you can get better equipment.

In Alberta, over 50Mbit plans only come with the Cisco devices now.

[Lazybones]

They still gave me an SMC. But they did put it into bridge mode for me. Considerably more stable.

Did you have them deliver it and install it? It is much easier to do if you opt to pickup the gear your self, which can be a problem knowing where Shaws office is located in Edmonton.

[Darren Dirt]

All this technical lingo reminds me why i'm glad I spouted trying to keep up on the hardware side of things...

I guess laziness leans me towards staying as-is instead of risking messing up my perfectly fine package and configuration. I don't want to buy my own router, i'm ok if what I am presently using from Telus is lower quality hardware, it's worked good enough for a year for me.

[Tom]

They still gave me an SMC. But they did put it into bridge mode for me. Considerably more stable.

Did you have them deliver it and install it? It is much easier to do if you opt to pickup the gear your self, which can be a problem knowing where Shaws office is located in Edmonton.

Apparently at the time the demand was too high, and they couldn't get them fast enough. The SMC modem is decent enough in bridge mode, so I don't really care. So long as you don't set it down on a bed or something and forget you put it there, it will run fine. (I had it in my spare room there on the bed, it was overheating a lot. turns out the massive number of vents in the bottom are rather important)

[Lazybones]

I don't want to buy my own router, i'm ok if what I am presently using from Telus is lower quality hardware, it's worked good enough for a year for me.

From your other quote

So if I am ok with painfully slow page loading and/or virtually NEVER having the kids use WiFi while I am playing city of heroes or watching Youtube myself

If you are seeing slow down run some speedtest.net tests and see if you are getting reasonable speeds. P2P and MASSIVE file downloads are about the only thing that should cause any kind of noticeable disruption... The difference in regular page load times between a 1Mbit service and a 50Mbit service arn't huge unless the site is ultra heaving on images and flash content.