Why Shaw Digital Phones Deserves ZERO
July 24, 2006 · Print This Article
Clearly the people at Shaw don’t read my blog ;-(
I got a call from their digital phone sales folks today, who ‘noticed’ that since I have their high-speed Internet and cable, I might be interested in their newest offering, Digital Phone.
Apparently they didn’t ‘notice’ what I’d written about their service. If they had read my blog they would have known that two and a half months ago I did try their phone. The results were so bad that I cancelled the service a few days later.
Interestingly, this is the first time I’ve heard from anyone at Shaw about it. They never did follow up on why I was disatisfied with the service.
Today’s call was a complete fluke, and the sales person was super surprised to hear that I’d used the service and rejected it months ago.
She wondered why I hadn’t kept the service to see if they could fix it. Huh? Let me see:
-I’ll buy something you’ve been advertising as dead simple, no disruption, and great quality.
-You’ll send over not one but two service techs who spend 3 hours putting in the ’service’ which ends up only working on one phone jack.
-In the process the service guys screw up one of my other land line jacks so that it is no longer functional.
The ill-functioning service aside, I’m super ticked off at the holes left in my wall where the service technicians installed the HUGE modem (he never did ask me if it was ok to screw into the wall). I’m equally ticked off that they completely totally screwed up one of my land line phone jacks (it no longer works, period).
And based on their ZERO interest in following up with me at the time, or in the two and a half months since I tried them out, I have ZERO interest in their service.
I will gladly continue to pay for my functional-since-day-one Vonage account.
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24 Responses to “Why Shaw Digital Phones Deserves ZERO”
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I don’t see myself ever voluntarily going to VoIP. I find the delay really awkward.
Either way, might be a case for shaw.screwed.us
I am happy with vonage and ironically happier with Skype - probably because its free and its value to cost ratio is therefore much higher.
We were watching tv one day on our shaw digital cable box and not 5 minutes after we turned it on did a Shaw sales rep call about you guessed it Shaw phone. I sent them on their way and 10 seconds later a shaw phone commercial played. Co-incidence? I hope so.
I have a bed and breakfast and have installed shaw digital phone with excellent results. They had to come back three times to recheck the lines but they did ask me where I would like the modem. I had it installed in the laundry room out of sight. I also installed a second line that was $25.00 a month for my guests. The advantage is the saving in long distance calls. I now don’t pay any long distance charges and my guests can call home every day if they like. They were courteous and checked all phones but some old phones are not compatable with the system. So I through them out and bought 2 more at $25.00 at Canadian tire and they all work well. I also bought the v tech phone that gives you 3 phones off one phone line. That isn.t a good system as the phone is looking for the base and if your house is large the phone can’t always find it so I only use 2 of the three phones and bought the cheap $25.00 phones to put in other areas(must be 900 watts) They checked all my lines and yes one wouldn’t work so they found another in the same outlet. They also cleaned up the mess of lines that Telus left and cleaned up the system. I am very happy with all the phones but in a big house it does take time to get what you want. I have phones everywhere in the house with no addition cost to me and I pay the same for my digital as I was paying for my telus package but now I can eliminate my Primus long distance that was running $30.00 to $50.00 a month. I highly recommend the shaw digital phone system. I now have my internet, TV, and telephone all with shaw and I pay one payment on my VISA a month. Easy, Easy, Easy!!!!! I don’t work for shaw!!!!
Can’t understand your bigsnit re Shaw digital. Tried Vonage, worst phone experience ever, dropped calls, no 911, pure garbage. Got Shaw digital, Hi speed Internet and Cable bundle for $5 more per month than I was paying at Telus. Free unlimited calling anytime in North America plus 1000 free min/month UK and most European countries and low calling card rates to many other countries world wide.
My wife has a big family in Scotland and loves to keep in touch with them regularily by phone. Since we have Shaw digital for almost a year now we have saved over a thousand dollars on calls to the Uk alone plus many hundreds of dollars on Canadian and US calls.
Shaw digital is the best phone service I have ever had
in my 75 years to date on this planet. No problems whatever since installation, not one or with any of the other services in my bundle.
Life does serve us a lemon from time to time, but that does not mean that all lemons are bad. Get used to it, there’s probably many more coming your way that you will have to learn to deal with
Good Luck
You know, honestly, you seem like a really cranky stubborn person who’s mad at everyone. My digital phone service has worked great from day one and my line is incredibly clear. During a power outage I was able to use my corded phone without any problems. Shaw has a thing called a ‘free service call’ where they’ll send a technician out to your house for free to fix any problems you have. Going all irrate over something without attempting to remedy the problem doesn’t solve anything.
Hey Jiggy - I had 2 Shaw technicians in my house for hours. One of them managed to totally screw up my other land line while here, and when I called them to fix their mess, it took days to get someone on the phone who could actually deal. I guess it depends on your expectation of “service”.
Just curious - I don’t really follow your power outage point - land lines don’t rely on AC and always work during a power outage. That big black box Shaw put on your wall has a rechargeable battery in it that keeps the modem working when the power goes - I think it’s good for 4 or 5 hours.
As for ‘going all irate over something without attempting to remedy the problem’, all I can say is that my starting point for a new, better service doesn’t include having to ‘remedy’ a problem at all. Funny that - as much as I have no love for Telus, the phone line works dandy - without the need for a free service call.
Glad your Shaw phone is working - mine didn’t. I’ve heard since that the early roll-out in BC was plagued with problems because Shaw decided to use a different system here than elsewhere in the country and they had lots of early problems.
r
Robert did you ever get your other phone jacks working also is it a house or apartment. Sounds like you got hooked up at the beginning of the phone launch the reason there was two techs as 1 was in training. I urge you to try it again I will bet your results now will be much better. Yes i am biased as I am an installer of shaw digital phone and your right it is voip based but we run on a dedicated network that doesn’t eat up your band width as like vonage if your levels aren’t done right you won’t have much success with the service.
Hey there,
I did get my other phone jack working, but that was quite an odyssey as well, until I ended up just doing it myself.
http://blog.bigsnit.com/index.php/2006/10/18/320
I switched back to a Telus land line.
Robert, we don’t live in a utopian world. Mistakes happen. Clearly you didn’t make any sort of attempt to remedy the problem, therefore your experience isn’t really very credible to people reading it. What’s it going to be next… bad tasting Swanson meat pies that you didn’t follow the instructions on?
i have been having problems with my shaw phone since may. after a long wait, they fixed it for a short period of time however, the problem reverted back. once again (already the end of july), it is taking them a long time to fix it and “have to be sent to a specialist” but could not give a time frame on when they can fix it.
i gave them 24 hours and will definitely switch back to telus. why pay for something they could not deliver?
i appears that shaw phone sucks!
We had the worst Shaw digital phone experince. Our voicemail was down for four days on easter weekend. Shaw didnt fix the problem because they were all off. I even heard some of calgary had no phone service and they didnt fix the problem because they were off. also our phone had a constant echo. I was with Shaw for phone service for almost two years. The main reason why I canceled was because they were really rude to me. they said “oh its just a phone use your cell phone” then I said i dont have one and they said “oh well thats not our problem maby its time to get one” and he yelled at me saying that. at the end of may I switched my tv phone and internet to mts (manitoba telecom services). this is a great site you have. thanks
Hy Gordon,
sorry to hear your experience was so bad. it seems that some poeple are quite happy with the SDP while others certainly are not. what DOES seem to be a huge determining factor is the type of customer service people are getting.
r
My wife and I first decided to try Shaw Digital phone in our Calgary apartment in since we make quite a few long distance calls and saw that we could save some money on the phone bill by switching from Telus to Shaw. We had the digital phone, cable TV, and internet all switched over to Shaw on a package deal. We’ve definitely saved money because of it but not without a few headaches such as intermittently noisy lines (static sounding), voicemail problems (leave a message on Monday and you get it on Friday for example), neither of these is a huge deal to us… because of the savings on long distance. Every couple of months we have to call Shaw to get them to reset our line because of something weird like for example today our phone isn’t ringing when it is called.
We moved to Edmonton in February of 2007 and decided to continue with the Shaw service in our new condo. When the technician came over to install the modem he told my wife that the only place that he could install it was in the living room, and we would only have one working phone jack after the installation. So that’s what we were left with… he also left us with a huge coil of coaxial cable (about 35 feet) on our living room floor… also our voicemail didn’t work, again. Anyways when I got home from work I saw the shabby installation and also that we only had one working phone jack. Fortunately for us, I’m fairly adept at dealing with electronic issues. (I have a Diploma in Electronics Engineering Technology and I am also a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer in Avionics) I knew that the installation was a result of pure laziness and/or lack of knowledge/training. I also knew that it would take at least a few days for Shaw to get around to sending a technician out to redo the install, so I went ahead and re-did the installation. An hour later the entire installation was neatly out of view in the basement, and ALL of our phone jacks worked.
I recommend using Shaw Digital Phone service if you are only doing it for the financial savings like us. I would also recommend buying an answering machine as opposed to using Shaw’s unreliable voicemail system.
Hopefully reading this has helped a few people to know better when a Shaw technician tries to feed you some kind of garbage about not being able to use all of your existing phone jacks, or that the only place he/she can install the modem is on your living room floor.
Thanks for reading and good luck.
I find that A LOT of the technicians that Shaw hires are very inexperienced in basic cable wiring. I guess the demand for digital services is so huge that Shaw is bare able to fill that demand due to lack of truly qualified field technicians, and hence why so many incomptent cable installers have not been filtered-out of the hiring process. I’d say about 80% of them have had no previous experience and are currently learning on the job site.
Oh my… this is great to read the pros and cons.
I am a VERY recent switch from Telus to Shaw and I thnk even though i don’t even have the service yet, I may cancel!
I recently moved from a basement suite to an apt and wanted to get a phone installed before I moved in (for ring up purposes). Also I live 8 hours away from my family and sick mother, so having constant ability to contact her is very important to me… so that being said, I researched my move and made decisions accordingly…
I emailed shaw to find out how long it would take to get a new phone and was told 48 hours to have the phone installed. Telus couldn’t make those timelines or even come close so i scheduled my switch. I ordered the service on Feb 25th, called to confim on Feb 29th and called again on March 14th to find out nothing had been done. I am now scheduled for the earliest installation - April 11th…. 46 days without a phone, without an easy way for communication with my family and without the ability to ring up friends….
Telus will charge me 45$ for the move and will take a week… I’m so disheartend by his whole process…
Aimee
woaw, talk about lack of customer service. how frustrating and annoying. you might want to look at getting a vonage line, even for a short period of time, though you’ll need an internet connection to do that so if you have cable in your new place that might work out.
it’s amazing to me that this is still going on. clearly the competition for phone service hasn’t really improved service any - it seems that instead of just being ticked at Telus we can be annoyed by more than one company. sad.
maybe the cell phone is the way to go - at least you can get one right away.
robert
I work for Telus as a Technician. For the most part the Techs do their best to make the customer happy. There are occasions where the higher ups will make promises or reassurances that cannot be met, and who takes the full brunt of the customer’s wrath? the frontline of telus…the Technicians. Telus right now is hiring contractors to do some of the work(repairs, installs). And from what I have seen first hand the work is sub-standard. From what I have heard these contractors are paid by the job. The more jobs they do the more money they get, so you tell me if quaility will be a factor for them. What I wish Telus would do is to provide reassurance to their workers that full time employement is available when you reach the expected probationary period. I know some techs that have gone 3 years and are still temporary status with the company. When I go to work I work hard and I do my best to provide the best services that the customer expects. They pay my bills and all they ask for in return is good customer service and quaility work. Plain and simple. And yes I do understand that there are those in the company that dont feel the way I do. And that is a complete shame for any company. The equation is simple but the math is hard for some to understand.
well im doing a high schoool project for my ISU (Independent Studies Unit) in business and i have to find things wrong with different ISP ex: Rogers, Bell, AOL, etc. Well i know that you guys are focusing on Shaws phone service and basically how totally crap it is andd thats nice n stuff ( i have vonage(basically also crap)) but do u know an disadvantages about Shaw’s Hi-speed internet service??
First I have to say I can’t agree with any thing in your blog. My experiences with Shaw have been good no great. Internet is top notch and all I recommend to people, the Digital Cable I have some grips about but I have yet to call them about the problems, I have just been lazy about it. I have been on Shaw Digital Phone for 6 months now and it has been absolutly flawless. One mistake people make is that its VOIP, its not. Shaw Digital Phone is a digital phone service not Voice over IP. Its a dedicated digital service. The only real issue I have with the service is the big modem that comes with it. I wouldn’t mind a smaller modem with no battery in it as a option. When you look at the value of the cost of the service with the features it comes with to what Telus offers and to get the exact same features you save a decent amount of money and get much more. I am a very happy customer of Shaw Digital Phone and think every one that gets good service from it should dump Telus. Fact is not every single house or area will have great service from any provider for all services. Internet, Traditional Telephone, ADSL, Cable are all victums of bad service areas here and there.
How can you “not agree” with what he wrote? You don’t “agree” that this happened to him? You don’t feel that if you had the same experience, you might take the same action? There’s a ridiculous undertone by Shaw supporters of “I had a great experience, therefore Robert must have done something wrong.” Shaw’s installers messed up, and Shaw’s customer care didn’t handle his complaint properly. Why should he have continued to use the service simply because YOU had a good experience?
Jiggy it sounds like you were getting your number ported and it didn’t get finished, the port was probably rejected, which could have been Shaws error or possibly your previous provider, these things take time, you should give things a full fledged try before judging.
Shaw digital phone? May 27 2008 - Shaw had an “outage”. This was discovered when I tried to contact 911 - three times, unsuccessfully. Why? No service on the phone lines - Shaw had an “outage”. Did your Shaw Digital Sales representative inform you that essential services will not be available during an outage? If they tell you otherwise, ask for that guarantee in writing, prior to install. They market as if they are not VOIP. Check out their site. Considering switching to Shaw Digital Phone? I made that mistake and to have no 911 when needed (which they had guaranteed would NEVER be unavailable) is absolutely unacceptable. Would I suggest anyone get Shaw Digital Phone??? NO - Are they good for anything other then long distance? I don’t think so. Shaw is not reliable. They are not a Phone service like Telus or Bell where 911 is always available. Especially when needed. Shaw has fatal flaws. Consider yourself warned. Basically they are a very expensive long distance package.
- Oh and this is a really old thread, but it seems the information remains the same - Shaw sucks!
Just curious if anyone has had any problems with receiving calls from a Telus or Bell celphone.. We have just switched to Shaw Digital and are unable to receive calls from those providers
Well if you think Telus doesn’t have there problems think again!! EVERY company has problems I switched to Shaw 2 years with NO issues except for that one short outage. How short a few hours, think that is bad my telus in fact everyone around in Willow Park Calgary had to endure 1 week of NO SERVICE with telus, 911 concerns for a week you tell me!! So would I ever go back to old single pair phone service over a managed coax delivery No way. Just try the Telus TV service delivered on single pair technology and see how you cannot put enough perfume on a pig to make it pleasant to kiss.
I will just stay with Shaw, cheap, and oh yeah I can have faster internet with more then just 2 Telus TV’s, being charged for long distance is just a past bad memory.