As far as Shaw goes, we switched and the bills are lower than I was paying Telus. I had a calling package with Telus as well and I'm saving $25-35 a month. My work ISP does happen to be Telus and my cell phones are Telus Mobility. Three months after I switched, I received a letter from a VP at Telus offering me a free 19" LCD, a deal on DSL, lots of Long Distance, etc if I'd come back. I called them and asked where they were for all the years I was with Telus. The girl admitted that it cost 5 times as much to get a customer as to retain one. I'd asked them lots of times over the years what package would be better and cheaper but the answer was always that I was on the best rate for my usage pattern. I could hardly afford to call my family in the States because the rates were too high. A cheap rate for Alberta where my wife is calling all the time, but not for the US. To get that I'd have to get another package and my Alberta rates would go up. My Shaw internet is their Extreme which is usually 10mbit and Telus' Home DSL is 1.5. When I moved 6 years ago I asked Telus about switching to DSL (as long as I was moving anyway) but the switching station near me didn't even have the physical room to add DSL. I asked them when I moved to let me know when space was available in case I wanted to switch. They never did. When I called them they said they'd added it but all available space was taken (this was repeated again a couple of years later). All in all, there wasn't a single thing (aside from the free monitor that I didn't need) in Telus' offer that was better than Shaws package. I guess my only complaint is that twice we've had problems where the phones have died with major outages. I still had my cell phone in those instances.
As for pricing, if you're paying to have a basic phone and then add DSL and then add VOIP, the numbers I've looked at don't make Shaw that expensive. David Brewerton Calgary ----- Original Message ---- From: John Greep <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CLUG General <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2006 12:39:49 PM Subject: Re: [clug-talk] Shaw outage? I couldn't comment on latency and I think the mafia reference is still a stretch. I agree that you can set up your own VOIP relatively cheaply, but you'd have to support it yourself. One of the factors behind Shaw's price is their support. Shaw will come to your home for free if needed. Other VOIP providers won't even think of it. Telus will come, but it costs extra. The other factor is that Shaw has a large cable infrastructure that you're paying to use. VOIP rides on top of that and requires you to pay Shaw (or Telus) anyway. Compared to VOIP, Shaw's prices are steep, but they're definitely not the same service. Compared to ILEC's like Telus, the prices are a bargain, the service and pricing is simpler, and the quality is nearly indistinguishable. Just as a note, to get started quickly, Shaw had to make an arrangement with a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) to get access to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). Once Shaw becomes a CLEC themselves, the fees associated with arrangement will be gone. That makes Shaw able to port numbers faster, but I could also expect there should be room to lower prices. John Gustin Johnson wrote: > Mafia style protection payments are officially voluntary as well. > > Cable is not the greatest for latency sensative apps. But we do have some > of the best bandwidth in the world. VOIP will catch on, and if you know > what you are doing, you can make existing technolgies work well without the > relatively steep price of SHaw's phone service. > ___ > Sent with SnapperMail > www.snappermail.com > > ...... Original Message ....... > On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:13:13 -0600 "John Greep" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> The Shaw QOS is entirely voluntary. Any VOIP traffic shares bandwidth >> with all IP traffic without prejudice. All Shaw is doing is giving >> preference to your VOIP traffic on their network if you pay extra for >> it. Mafia style implies that they will interfere with your packets if >> you don't pay. There's none of that going on. >> >> Shaw's voice traffic travels on a separate IP network from regular >> Internet traffic, so the quality is better than traditional VOIP. If >> the back-end network appears to be lacking, it is only a matter of >> time. Shaw has some very smart people working there. Consider that >> their phone service was implemented within a year. Nobody else can put >> together a service that fast with as good a quality as your seeing. >> >> John >> >> Gustin Johnson wrote: >> >>> It still relies on Shaw's IP backbone, so it is only technically not a >>> VOIP service. The VOIP part is moved from the customer premise to their >>> back end. End result is that the service is only as reliable as the >>> > back > >>> end network, which is not quite there yet (for all VOIP providers). >>> >>> I find it reprehensible the VOIP protection racket that Shaw is runnig. >>> Although I don't really sympathise with the major corps fighting the >>> > "Net > >>> Neutrality" thing (I like the idea of Microsoft and Google footing the >>> > bill > >>> instead of me), I also do not Mafia style business practises. >>> >>> Just my obviously touchy 2 cents. >>> Cheers, >>> -- >>> Gustin >>> ___ >>> Sent with SnapperMail >>> www.snappermail.com >>> >>> ...... Original Message ....... >>> On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 22:05:41 -0600 "Graham Monk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> wrote: >>> >>> >>>>> You are right - I was just speaking to one of Shaw's technicians >>>>> >>>>> >>> yesterday and >>> >>> >>>>> he told me that it is not voip (does not use the internet at all) and >>>>> > is > >>>>> using a completely separate cable channel to their internet service. >>>>> >>>>> >>>> To "their internet service" >>>> >>>> It's voice, it goes to "their internet service" How is this NOT VOIP? >>>> >>>> Sorry, you just pushed one of my buttons, the " It's not VOIP" line >>>> that Shaw spouts, sounds far too much like a justification that an >>>> incumbent provider uses for charging twice as much as anyone else. >>>> That and the fat that if you use a competing service on something that >>>> is not Shaw extreme you tend to find the quality less than optimal. >>>> >>>> graham >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> clug-talk mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca >>>> Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) >>>> **Please remove these lines when replying >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> clug-talk mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca >>> Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) >>> **Please remove these lines when replying >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> clug-talk mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca >> Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) >> **Please remove these lines when replying >> > > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying > > _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
