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.
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
have you ever had trouble receiving calls from the U.K.? I have family over there and 3 different people have tried calling my number today and cannot get through, shaw technical support tell me that the problem is british telecoms so I am interested to know if anyone else is having the same problem, if so he may be right
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. 🙂
I am actually on the phone (on hold) with Shaw again. My 71 year old parents went hi-tech and opted for Shaw over Telus. At first Telus tried to scare them into paying a huge cancellation fee and after my Dad said ‘NO WAY’ they offered him a discount. If you can’t screw the old people who can you screw…way to go Telus.
The Shaw switch came on September 8th, today is the 15th. After being told by Shaw that everything was looked after during the switch; today he has no phone. So I get a stressed out call. Did I mention my Dad is recently out of hospital and recovering from an Aortic Embolism that burst. He might need to phone an Ambulance at any time. So I get on the phone with Shaw at 2:30pm today. They try and blame Telus, Telus tries to blame Shaw. The phone number was never ported. So he has a dead connection. He lives in an apartment. No one can buzz in. After being told a few times that Shaw is looking after it, they decide the best method is to get him a new number and it would be activated by 3:30 pm or they would phone me on my cell. At 4:00 I get my 93 year old Grandma to go check on her son to see if the new Shaw phone is working because I get a “number not in service” if I phone. I am back on hold with Shaw then transferred between Kelowna and Vancouver and cut off while I am on hold. So I phone back and get Kelowna. She emails the Tech guys and they are going to phone me right away. That was half an hour ago.
They know how important it is to have phone access. Whether Telus screwed up or Shaw screwed up or both. I really do not care. I just want it fixed. I have lost 3 hours of work over it and it looks like I am going to be driving and hour and a half to stay in Maple Ridge at the Legion Towers with him to make sure he is all right.
Both Telus and Shaw really dropped the ball big time on this one. Telus’ scare tactics on the pricing and between Shaw and Telus not getting the number ported and then arguing about who is at fault. And Shaw for their lack of disciplne to return a call.
I was very calm with both of them as I know it is not the fault of the workers. When I did get off I was waiting for a supervisor from Shaw. Go figure.
The http://www.olgezr.com site is from dad in the hospital. Right now between Shaw and Telus they have just pushed him on an island and out of contact with anyone. And neither one is doing anything about it so far. They both should be ashamed.
[ED NOTE] the olgezr. site linked in the comment is expired. not sure if Glen mistyped or ???
r
Glen forgot to renew it last week. Too much on my mind. It will be back in a few hours. Time to phone Shaw again……
And Dad went down to try on the phone again to get Shaw to fix it. You can tell his blood pressure it is alittle up. I have edited a few choice words. I can’t blame him though. I have been told a few times a tech is on its way. He was just told no tech is coming. I have not received a call back from Shaw as promised. I was on hold and hung up after I got this email. I guess this is one for the news.
email from Dad is below.
———————————
Got Shaw on the phone, their good tech support experts, 604-629-4010. Told them the phone number 604-477-**** which they had assigned me did not work. On hold for twenty minutes. Then a voice, a person, what is the problem, no phone, no intercom, no nothing. You said you would look after Telus and you didn’t what is going on? Well is the light on in the black box? I have been to the black box before and I am four floors below it and I can assure you there is no f&*%ing light on. Your other wonderfull and knowledgeable technician told me to plug it into another socket and I also told him things were working fine and I was not a f&*&ing Shaw technician. I told her I had medical problems and may have to phone an ambulance and let them in and nothing worked, how was I to do that. She said I don’t know but can’t get a technician until tomorrow. I said you don’t work 24\7\365 as advertised? Yes, but can’t get there. I said F&*& Shaw you are worse than Telus. I may go back and to hell with you. Hung up. I also told her that Shaw has bullsh*%$ed me since day one. I don’t think I made a friend but it has not been my day.
Wow, I don’t care how bad a company screws up, that is no way to treat a call center employee.
With all due respect, your dad needs to learn to respect the ‘little guy’. You should be ashamed!
These call center people have a very difficult job and they do their best to appease customers. Often times, they must deal with complete lunatics, the CS reps sometimes hear racist comments, insults, and even veiled death threats. The CS reps have limited ‘powers’ in what they can do. If there are no agents available to send to your dad’s home, what did he expect him/her to do? If your dad isn’t getting satisfaction, his next logical step is to escalate the call to a supervisor; NOT ream out the lowly call center rep..
I did get a call from a Supervisor around 7pm that night. I did get the same “I am Sorry”, “I understand” but in the end they showed up at 3 pm the next day.
They couldn’t push the number through when they did a last ditch change the number to Shaw and give up trying to get the Telus number ported. Just so he could have a phone. In the end we borrowed one of those pre-paid cell phones and just put minutes on it. He did have a phone last night at least.
Yesterday when they tried to push the Shaw number through, we find out the reason today was a faulty Shaw box. Still all those people that promised to phone me back at Shaw never did. It took 4.5 hours out of my time. More than one Tech Support made my dad feel like it was his fault the box wasn’t working. He is fully bandaged and they made him crawl behind the Entertainment Center to change the plug to a different outlet. They did everything they could to put the blame elsewhere on on my father when in the end it was a faulty Shaw box.
He knows how to reset and reboot and check plugs on his own. The Support just assumed because he was old that the problem was on his end. Time for a new Training Program Shaw.
They brought in the new box and still could not get his buzzer on the apartment door working so people could buzz in – no matter how many wires they ran. The apartment manager came to check up on them and mentioned that the buzzer is a common problem and there is only one person in Maple Ridge who works for Shaw that knows how to do it. The two Techs they sent out today both knew his name. So this ‘guy’ the only guy that can hook up the door buzzer is coming out Friday. I know that Shaw contracts out but really – get some kind of proper training program together on the service and tech side. Don’t take the elderly for granted, in Maple Ridge they can be a big part of your business. Or could have been if it were not for this debacle.
Will will find out on Friday if this ‘guy’ can actually hook up a few lines so the buzzer works.
To date I still don’t have an answer to who screwed up on porting the number. I have heard from a supervisor at Shaw but not a peep from Telus. I really hope this does not go on all the time.
Next post is Friday. Did they get a buzzer or not. OI!
I have had the phone with Shaw since Feb06 (and live in an apartment); the only time I have ever had had a problem was for 3 -5 hours in March of this year. It might have had to do with the construction of a new apartment building near me. I don’t know. I got a new number from Shaw so I didn’t have to go through the delay with Telus of keeping the same number so I cannot comment on that. All in all, I have relatives in Australia, Toronto and England so it has paid off really well. I am extremely happy with the service.
I have had a few friends that have tried the Shaw VOIP system and have mixed feelings. Better service than Telus, but not as robust. Good for the single bundled billing, service kinda sucks.
VOIP is reliant on the Internet connection you have. and the connection your ISP has to other ISP’s. Quality of service on the net can be an issue with VOIP phones. I have switched to a VOIP digital VIdeo phone. The plans are better than telus/PRIMUS and comparable to Shaw. Shaw does have one of the best International calling plans. I currently run on the ACN network.
First, let me start off by saying SHAW IS NOT A VOIP
I have had shaw digital phone service for nearly 8 months now, and have never had anything to complain about. For the limited troubles it has had, the difference in costs more than makes up for that. I think sometimes we forget how relatively new the service is, and obviously there has been some growing pains experienced by some users but for the price its nothin to much to put up with
Just started using Shaw digital phone a month ago, bundled with internet. Price is great. The main flaw, that is not identified by Shaw, is that digital phone services CANNOT receive collect phone calls. This is a major issue that is not addressed in any of their information upon registration. Seeing as this is a service that has always been an automatic part of the telephone system, it should be clearly identified and stated upfront before new clients choose Shaw or other digital phone services. It is not only a flaw of Shaw, but all digital phone services. This flaw must be corrected if this is the future of phone services. It is not often, but it is essential that collect calls can be received.
Glen you need to ask yourself if the 5 or 10 dollars you saved was worth it, I have heard nightmares about porting to shaw a lot and frankly I had terrible service from them when i had digital phone. I can guarentee that the port issue wasnt telus as there is a small company who actually does the porting for them.
they disconned my phone 2 days early on a move, they screwed up and installed it in the worng new address and then disconnected me when i refused to pay for the month where my service went down 9 times.
Telus may cost a bit more but it WORKS!
I live in Maple Ridge and have had the Shaw Digital phone for aprox 2 months now…we have a lot of static on our lines…the techs have been out to our house twice now and it is still very noisy. Our phones are 2.4 mhz should we buy new phones? Can some make a recommendation regarding a good digital phone…I have heard not to buy a 6.0 but to stick with a 5.8, not sure why or if it is even true??? Any advise?
I live in Kamloops and have decided to take the leap of faith from Telus to Shaw. We have moved into a new house and are still trying to get it installed. Last Friday the tech was supposed to arrive between 4 and 6pm. At 4:30 pm I found a note under my front door that he had missed me. He must have tapped lightly and ran without knocking hard or ringing the doorbell. I spent around two hours of cellphone time speaking to different Shaw reps at 310-shaw. Finally I reached “Ben” who sounded helpful and promised a tech would arrive Saturday. I hung around all day (luckily I had a lot of work to do) and at 4:30 called 310-SHAW again. It turns out Ben did not book anyone at all. Shaw then said someone would call Monday with a time. When they did call it was the original tech that came on Friday. He lied to my wife and said he knocked and rang the doorbell. He said he would come between 2 and 4 but my wife has to pick up our kids at that time so he said “I’ll try to come at the end of the day”. I found this all quite annoying so I called Calgary and spoke to a “manager”. He was helpful and said someone would be over after 4:30. He promised a different tech would arrive. So far Telus is still worse, but Shaw is so far in the running. We’ll see what happens later today…
the quiet door knocker made me laugh. my home office is upstairs and there’s one particular courier company that must :
a) pre-fill out the ‘we were here but you weren’t’ form
b) ring the bell
c) run as fast as possible
d) jump in the truck and drive away
I swear, I hear the bell, get up from my desk, walk down the 14 stairs, open the door, and …NOTHING….they’re already gone
good luck with your phone
I have been with shaw for over a year now. In the beginning there was some minor problems. With any new service there are bond to be bugs to work out. Shaw services are awesome and I will never change. I used to be with Sasktel before shaw. Sasktel are the worst crooks out there. I wanyted to get a cell phone through Sasktel, they told me I would need to put a 300 dollar deposit! I asked them why? They said it was from a previous bill that had not been paid. I was like ?????? I asked how much that so called bill was. They said it was 12 dollars, lol. Anyways I told them to go screw themselves and I still haven’t paid my final bill. They will never get it! LOL. As for shaw, awesome phone service, awesome internet, awesome everything! Highly impressed!
Robert – I think it’s funny how you are praising your VoIP service as being so reliable because really, you are just praising Shaw Cable in that sense. You mentioned you have their High Speed Internet…. Guess what your VoIP phone line runs through? That’s right… your Shaw internet connection!!
Guess you can’t completely bad mouth Shaw services because you are obviously satisfied with their Internet service.
Oh and PS…. I saw this blog post was from 2006. Shaw Digital Phone was still a baby back then. As others have said in their comments, there is always bound to be some bugs with new electronics. Things have improved immensely since then. Not saying that you should give it another chance if you don’t want to, but if you tried it for “a few days” and then cancelled, you didn’t give it much of a chance, did you?
J – obviously the voip service uses the high speed cable – one of Shaw’s ‘selling’ features was the fact that it isn’t vanilla voip.
In any event, there’s a difference between ‘some bugs’ and not working properly right out of the gate. The post is old and if Shaw wants me to try their service again, I’d be happy to – but I’m not about to pay for the opportunity. I hate to say it, but my clunky old land line from Telus works just fine, and loathe as I was to switch back, I did and haven’t really looked back.
r
Shaw Digital Phone Sucks!!
As a Shaw customer, I am completely dissatisfied with the poor quality of Shaw digital phone which is very much inferior to Telus and worse than phone service in third world countries.
The digital phone is not reliable at all. In the last two years, I’ve been with Shaw, the phone has been down at least three times. Each time when it was down, I lost days of phone service. Last time this happened a month ago when the phone was down for three days because Shaw doesn’t have enough technicians to fix right away. By comparison, when I used Telus for 10 years, the phone had never been down at all.
The long distance capability is extremely poor and completely unreliable. Shaw claims that the digital phone is not a VOIP and better than VOIP. In fact, it is the same, if not, worse than VOIP, so I really question whether this is actually just VOIP with another name. Every time we make international call to Indonesia, the conversation is always disconnected. So, for every phone call, we have to dial and redial for at least 10 times to reconnect. The voice quality is extremely poor, so we have to shout very hard so that the other party can hear us. Very often, the other party can’t hear us at all. So, we have to hang up and dial and redial again. This reminds me the old telephone technology in early 1900s which seems it’s still used by Shaw digital. Probably Shaw will blame the phone service in Indonesia because as a third world country, it can’t deliver reliable phone service. However, that’s not true at all. When the phone communication is disconnected, sometimes we asked the other party to call us back. And when they call us back from Indonesia, the voice is very clear and no interruption at all. So, I can conclude that Shaw digital phone technology is inferior to the phone service in a third world country and that is really a big shame for Shaw. Again, also to compare this with Telus, we never have problem at all in long distance call.
So, for anybody who thinks about switching from Telus to Shaw, please think that again!!
I tried Shaw once and they gave me someone’s old number who was on the run from creditors….so guess what….the creditors wouldn’t believe me and kept harassing me. So I asked for a number change on a weekly basis for 6 weeks. Finally I just had it disconnected because they were always telling me “it’s Bell’s fault”.
So I went back to Telus and what a nightmare. They told some bank in BC that I was someone else (guess who again…someone in debt and on the run) and GAVE them my phone number. So the nice bank shared my UNLISTED number with everyone else out there who was looking for that same person. It was at this point I thought “geeze maybe I should be avoiding my bill payments since everybody out there who phones me up calls me a deadbeat anyway”
I complained to Telus and they offered to help by selling me more services for more of my cash and putting me on a do-not-call list. Well a month after being on the list I started to get about 10 calls a day from telemarketers. After talking to a friend “in the biz” he let me know that they sell that list to whoever pays. I phoned Telus to confront them about this and they offered to lower my bill. So I had that disconnected.
Back on Shaw and things are great……until 8 days ago my phone goes dead. I contact them and they say they will have it back online tomorrow. It was back online for me, but now whoever calls me can’t get through “that number is not in service”. So now they tell me that it’s Bell’s fault again. They “took” my number and won’t give it back. Finally after 4 days they contact me again. They can’t get my number back, but they can give me a new number that will work right away. That was a Friday…..come Monday the phone still doesn’t work. So I phone to cancel…..again. This time I get Mr. I Can Do Everything. He will fix my problems. He will credit my bill. He will call back by 6pm today. Well now it’s 2 days later and he still hasn’t called and my phone still doesn’t work.
I know that Shaw sucks. I’ve been twice bitten by them. I know Telus sucks….and I really hate them. Somehow this must be fate telling me that I don’t really need a phone because every provider has become stupid.
i personally like Shaw…. have had no issues… other that it going out for 45 min every few months while they do modem upgrades. had them do the transferring the number over from telus with no issues… other than telus taking 8 months to refund us money they owed us… we spend $25 less a month for a the same features and don’t have to pay $3 a month for the ability to phone long distance… then $.30 per min if we do. have never tried vonage but never really was an option for us and haven’t had any problems in the year we have had it. the big black box the guy hid so you don’t notice it. and it’s an apartment building so he had to go up and down stairs to switch things in the main room but that’s the buildings fault not his. but like i said… just hated telus… the phone line on its own was fine… but dealing with telus and having to pay an over inflated bill was ridiculous. but the industry in BC needs competition and telus didn’t have any so hopefully Shaw service will benefit the quality and service that telus customers get. and truthfully if the phones do go out for the 15 min.. we have cell phones… and one person i didn’t know who had Shaw phone go out for 2 days got a free month of phone service as compensation…. you would never get anything like that from telus… friends i had waited 2 months to get internet hooked up with telus… but it is peoples experiences and it sucks you had a crappy one. hopefully the company learned and it won’t be crappy for the next person.
Hooray for Shaw! I have no complaints about my Shaw digital phone- I have 2 lines- the only problems have been with Telus- they are not friendly- to say the least- & I am extremely happy to be through with them.
I’ve used Shaw Internet for years- never had any problems- always get great customer service from them.
They are still a fledgling company, & they have to interact with all the other service providers- which isn’t always easy- so I figure we can give them a break- at least they’re trying! Telus was the only game in town for so long- they just thought they could do anything & get away with it- & did.
I have more services, a ton of features, for about $50.00 a month less than Telus. I’m glad I switched!
Shaw as a company sells their services even if they are not ready for prime time. To me that is just so wrong. In BC they just went to digital on the TV but all it did was to make the problems worse. Shaw uses whatever equipment they can get by with in any one area. If they can sell you phone service then fix it later that is what they will do but, the monthly billing will continue. Same goes for Internet and TV. Digital breakup in BC is a real problem. The cause? Shaw. To deliver what they call HD the company is compressing the bandwidth to the point where they are running above 800 Mhz over 550 Mhz and in some cases 300 Mhz cable. The fix is to add more amps & this only adds to the problem. But hey, its all ok because Shaw is working on it. This is False Advertising.
if you are having problems with Shaw and Telus, try the ACN digital video phone. It is 20% cheaper than both and works GREAT!
Today iI check for my messages and yet again found I had an expired message. This is the fourth time this has happened- every time it’s the same thing. I listen to the expired message and it’s already months old, i’ve not heard it before. There is no option to save it, just to delete or forward or listen to it again. This is pretty frustrating. Another problem with my Shaw landline is that it doesn’t recognize phone lines that are not shaw they always register as “out of area” whether it’s my neighbour down the hall or not. I’m not happy with Shaw not working when the electricity is out either. I do like the unlimited long distance but with a Yak account my bill could be kept decently low. I am going to switch back to Telus.
I’m kind of boggled why anyone has a landline at all these days. I’ve been on cellular only for the last 5 years with no regrets.
I work with people with disabilities and assist many people with the job of getting a phone service. 99% of the time everything is ok. Unfortunately the 1% was so heinous I have to share. Shaw was told ahead of time a client of mine was going to be using the phone to call long distance and that the client needed to change the service to avoid a large bill. The company told them it was not a problem and the current service would be enough to cover the new long distant usage. Yes as you can imagine it was not enough coverage and the bill came back as $400.00. Yes I told them a love struck boy was calling his girlfriend and the usage was going to be high. Still they insisted the account did not need a change Therefore, I called customer service and explained the situation. They agreed it was their error and said they would pay half of the bill. My client was happy and I helped my client pay the other half. This was just before Christmas. Did I mention this guy receives very very little money each month? The next bill arrives and the bill reflects the other half is overdue plus the new account charge. Not only did they fail twice but also now they have put my clients account in arrears. I called again and received a trainee, after a long talk his trainer took over the call. The trainer was the same guy who promised the return of half of the funds. He seemed confused and assured me he could repair the problem. By the end of the call he told me the machine would not let him fix the problem and he actually sounded embarrassed.
Shaw Steals from the disabled for profit. I have the proof so it’s a fact not slander.
I paid the bill and Shaw you can keep the money you sick f*&^$. I promise to return over and over to share the true mentality and business sense of these thieves. Cowards the lot of you https://shaw.ca/Corporate/Investors/Corporate-Governance/
One word describes Shaw – USELESS! Don’t switch your service to Shaw. I have been with Shaw for about 5yrs, never missed a payment and very loyal. I have been having issues with my for home phone for about a week. I have called them several times such that I even don’t have any minutes left on my cell phone. The least wait time on the phone is 39 minutes. Shaw’s service is worst than the service in a 3rd world country. Don’t be fooled by the useless gift card adverts, it’s not worth it. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO SHAW, you’ll regret it.