Going back to Shaw from Telus

[Melbosa]

Well my promo months are up with Telus Still just over 1 year left on my contract), and turns out paying them out and switching to Shaw is cheaper for me monthly by a significant amount.  Telus' biggest sell point when I called to ask what they could do?  "We have 290 channels sir, Shaw only has 200"... for which I replied, Shaw has 2x times your internet speeds for less and I stream all my TV show content... they didn't know what to say to that.

So back to finding a router for myself... time to look into whats hot and whats not.  Guess not buying Linksys.  Figured Netgear might be worth some checking... you guys have any thoughts?

[Lazybones]

Look into the current ASUS units, believe it or not I am running their latest stock firmware and it isn't bad. (You can also run DD-WRT or Tomato USB variations on several models)

Higher end Dlink soho units also tend to be good.

[Tom]

Ever thought about a soekris running pfSense?

Little pricey though.

Course shaw is bound to give you one of the SMC modems which comes with a 4 port switch and wifi.

[Mr. Analog]

All I have to say is that after having experience my parents Optik TV I'd never switch to Telus, I've never seen such a hard to use system designed for the average couch jockey ever.

The remote layout is awful and the on-screen options are lacking, I mean for me it takes me one or two button clicks to search the listings and find all hockey games, on my parent's remote it's a freaking adventure.

They've started writing down channel numbers FFS.

[Lazybones]

If you go back to shaw make sure you request a bridged mode connection with no wifi and specify you want the Cisco modem. The SMC is a total POS.

[Melbosa]

They give you want they give you now for the modem.  I asked for the Cisco, but they said what ever the tech has is what you get.  I insisted but they gave me the same response.  I did get a bridge mode one.

[Melbosa]

Ever thought about a soekris running pfSense?

Little pricey though.

Course shaw is bound to give you one of the SMC modems which comes with a 4 port switch and wifi.

I am going to run my own Router. I don't want to be spending that for basic home services though - thanks for the idea, and keep them coming.

[Thorin]

Optik TV's 16:9-optimized menu layout with mini-preview (shows what's on the channel you're thinking of switching to) is much nicer than Shaw's 4:3-optimized menu.

Optik TV's ability to remember the previous channel's last 30 minutes so you can swap to another channel then back and still rewind your show is nice (Shaw's PVR doesn't do this).

Optik's internet is way slower and affected by your TV viewing.  This really sucks in a house where there could be six people streaming Youtube and three people watching TV (yes, my kids will do both at once).

Channel count does not make a package good.  It's all about the channel content.

I've never really used the search features on either, I've always just remembered what channel numbers I'm interested in.  Optik's search took several button pushes compared to Shaw's, although once I learned where it was I could remember the path.  My Harmony remote might've helped me a bit as I used both systems with the same remote, so at least the buttons were familiar.

As for routers, which is what this thread is really about I think, I've used DLink almost exclusively at home and they generally worked well.  I did find the configuration UI to be somewhat lacking, but I've always gone for cheaper, low-end routers.  I have an SMC modem and use it as my router; it gets rebooted every couple of weeks or so as it seems to freeze up after too much use.  I want to switch it to bridged mode but then I'd need to buy a new wireless router and am just not there yet.  Although I haven't used them, I've read some good reviews of the newest ASUS routers - everyone talks about being able to change the firmware, though, so I'm surprised to hear Lazy's running stock (better vid here: http://video.disney.com/watch/tokyo-mater-4bb39d8bf71dea8833003b15).

[Mr. Analog]

Thorin OMG hahahaha god damn

As for routers I'm using a D-Link DIR-655, it's okay, nothing fancy. Some decent routing options but nothing to write home about.

The signal / transfer rate of wireless is very good

[Darren Dirt]

The remote layout is awful and the on-screen options are lacking, I mean for me it takes me one or two button clicks to search the listings and find all hockey games, on my parent's remote it's a freaking adventure.

They've started writing down channel numbers FFS.

Amen to that! I finally sat down one day and watched some tutorial videos, discovered how easystupid it is to remove channels you don't want -- including the HUNDREDS of un-subscribed ones (no easy way of saying "select all that are NO SIGNAL and remove from surfing range"). There's some "categories" feature but it's really weak too.

Very glad I only have the most basic of channel collections, pretty much evenings watching re-runs of 1990s and 2000s sitcoms, or crime dramas in non-stop reruns like Law & Order [insert suffix here], or movies (got 2 or 3 of the movie channels somehow, lame selection though).

Yay for netflix and the internetz!

[Melbosa]

Looks like the Shaw Guide is now 16:9 formatted on the Shaw boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bDziycni5Fs

I don't use the PVR function of my Telus Optik TV, which is sad I know... but I really don't pause TV shows cause I forget I have the function on the TV.  I do with my stored media all the time.  Go figure.

I do like the picture in picture and recall picture of the guide on Optik.  Guess I'll have to get used to the Shaw one (you know I have NEVER had Shaw cable in all the years I've lived in Edmonton).

This move is completely about Costs btw.  Shaw doesn't do contracts, so I can switch back to Telus any time I want.  But even sticking with Shaw after there promotion is going to save me over $50 a month in service cost over Telus (even after buying out my contract).

So Asus routers eh... that's two people for that.  I'll have to check them out.

LAZY  - Does the stock firmware let you do Port Translation with Port Forwards?

[Melbosa]

The remote layout is awful and the on-screen options are lacking, I mean for me it takes me one or two button clicks to search the listings and find all hockey games, on my parent's remote it's a freaking adventure.

They've started writing down channel numbers FFS.

Amen to that! I finally sat down one day and watched some tutorial videos, discovered how easystupid it is to remove channels you don't want -- including the HUNDREDS of un-subscribed ones (no easy way of saying "select all that are NO SIGNAL and remove from surfing range"). There's some "categories" feature but it's really weak too.

Never use stock remotes with anything anymore.  All in my Harmony.  Always user friendly.

[Tom]

I've heard good things about Asus, Netgear and Buffalo routers as of late. I would not personally recommend Linksys or DLink for routers at this point in time, though its been a long while since I last tried a dlink, but the last three dlink routers I had experience with were absolute crap and at least two of them outright failed, maybe all three. I've had two linksys routers semi recently, one I bought (for much more than it was worth), and the other I got for free. The one I paid for was flaky out of the box, and the free one was just typical cheap consumer router gear (eventually would get unstable after a while, and need a reset).

I would however recommend the fancy UniFi Wifi APs. I have the Pro, and its durn expensive, but the non pro is reasonable, but doesn't do simultaneous dual band. With the Pro, I get signal at the end of the block. No joke. Useable internet a good couple/few hundred feet away through walls and other buildings.


append: Do you know how many attempts it took to post this before I stopped getting the "other messages were posted" message?

[Mr. Analog]

a lot of activity for sure

Yeah, I wouldn't go with D-Link now good lord, as well their driver support is pretty well non-existent which is worrying at times.

My menus are all in 16:9 yeah, the biggest difference I found annoying between Telus and Shaw was the on-screen options, the layout for Shaw are so much nicer, regardless of remote you use with them.

I pause and record TV all the time, if I'm watching the game and someone calls it's so easy to just pause, as well for a lot of mini-series which I'm either too busy to watch or out when they show (Doctor Who usually) I can watch them later at my leisure.

Or when two shows I want to watch are on at the same time

I find this very easy on Shaw, I found it somewhat hard to get at some of the features when I was helping my parents set up their Optik TV.

The big advantage they DO have is that they can record a show and watch it on any of their TVs in the house, which is a pretty cool.

[Tom]

I like how the OTA HD, 720p captures on Youtube and various other sites (*cough*bittorrent*cough*) are higher quality than shaw's own channels. Even shaw's HD channels are grainy and blocky.