Review by Jeruvy 
UPDATED: 166 days ago
member for 2.5 years, 11 visits, last login: 123 days ago
 Calgary,AB
 $45 per month
 "Typically a very reliable connection"
 "Very poor tech support. Tyrants who make policies irregardless of customers"
 "Becoming a telco faster than most telco's."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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You figure that if you get cable TV, telephone service and internet service and you're being billed nearly $200 a month that you'd get very good service and that Shaw would be willing to do everything to keep you a happy customer.
Alas that is not the case. Shaw does not provide good service. Many service calls will not result in 'fix it the first time', actually it's fix the problem, break something else. Before we get into the service aspect, lets go over the various packages.
For internet there are several options. You can get HS-Lite, regular High Speed, HS-extreme, and HS-nitro.
Lite has very reduced bandwidth and if you are an avid downloader you'll hit limits very quickly. If you occasionally read email or web sites and use a IM tool or two and don't play online games heavily then this would be a very economical package to choose. However Telus' DSL lite is better than this one because again, you upstream rate and latency is substantially better. Downstream is nearly identical (~1.5Mbit/sec). This costs about $20 a month (not including package discounts). for the same money as Telus you get better performance from the Lite package with Telus.
Regular HS is the normal package, the one I subscribed to 10 years ago now. This gives you typical HS cable performance and allows for a reasonable amount of bandwidth (~3Mbit/sec). This package is about $30 a month.
HS-extreme is the gamer's choice, and the package I'm on now. Essentially you get a 10% better ping rate to improve gaming. Downstream is improved (~5Mbit/sec). This is an additional $10 or about $40 a month, however by owning your modem (with shaw you never 'really own your equipment' which I'll explain later) you get a $5 discount on this package.
HS-Nitro is the heavy downloader package, this is about the same crappy upstream rates but downstream is a whopping 20Mbit/sec. But without any improvement on the upstream rate, this isn't any better performing than extreme. Even many Shaw tech's feel this is no good even for power users. I feel the reason they added this package was an excuse to charge more to heavy downloaders. This choice costs a whopping $99 a month.
The equipment is ok, nothing fantastic and Shaw is a heavy user of Motorola products. As we have seen for the last couple years on Wall Street, Motorola has been operating very poorly. It's losing market share in it's core markets, it's had manufacturing issues, it has not been very innovative since cutting back it's R&D and is struggling with finding new markets. This is a shame for what used to be one of the greatest semiconductor firms in the US, but today it's nothing more than a cell phone maker with a couple extra products that they typically sell to OEM's like Shaw.
Whenever you buy a Cable TV set-top box or a Internet modem, you can buy these directly from Shaw ( and even get free delivery with setup!) but BEWARE! Do not buy extended warranties on these products from your retailer, it's a waste of money. Shaw will charge you for your equipment (or it's hidden in your monthly rate for shaw digital phone and Internet) but for cable TV you pay on top of it. They will add a couple dollars each month to your bill for 'support' of your box. The good thing about this is that it means that if your box breaks, Shaw will simply send someone out to replace it.
However getting a service call can be very time consuming. You have no guarantee that the tech has the proper training for doing the service calls. Last summer when my analog cable went to pot, I had to have FIVE service calls with FIVE technicians to fix my problem. This problem originated due to the fact that my CABLE MODEM was picking up weird IP addresses from their router. In the process of fixing this, they wrecked my telephone, and most of my cable channels.
I finally had to 'tell the technician how to fix this' and watched his every move. Since then this resulted in solving my problems, until one day my amplifer on my cable died. Yes a Motorola product that simply went poof after about 6 months. Thank god I didn't have to pay for this, not that it was expensive, but now I have another newer Motorola amp. I'm waiting for this to die in the next month or two as it would be about six months since it was replaced last.
Additionally if you use some VOIP provider for your phone OTHER than Shaw, you must pay an additional $10 to get QoS on your line. Yes they drop performance as to improve their own VOIP product, Shaw Digital Phone. Jim Shaw seems to think this is a value to the customer. No, it's gouging the customer and anti-competitive behavior I think.
Yes I'm a long time Shaw customer, and I'm also a long time Telus HS customer, and I can tell you they both give a good product, just PRAY you never need support. Really...given the rapid change of technology this just isn't realistic.
I think it would do Shaw and Telus a great deal of service if they just decided to actually CARE about it's customer base and not treat it like a statistic. Shaw used to use eService for it's service tracking, and this is terrible software!! Much like many of Shaw's policies and procedures they leave a lot to be desired.
Recently they have taken incredibly draconian measures to deal with Spam. They used to say they did not 'filter or block any ports', but this is not true. They filter port 25 constantly now, and as a result email is no longer reliable with a Shaw account. What's next? port 80? 443? 53??? They 'are' actively pursuing bittorrent users and killing the ports they use especially if encryption is used on the port. Who made them our God?
If you have problems with this also then a report to the CRTC and the governments anti-competition agencies would be happy to lodge your concern.
Note: I see the responses to my 'review' and they themselves simply don't acknowledge the accuracies vs. the advertisements.
Regardless of whether the phone runs on separate equipment, QoS affects both if you allow it. I suggest if you disagree, then run some tests and post it.
Other's seemed to disagree with my bandwidth. Well as of today they are accurate. Shaw simply cannot give you close to what they are selling. Speedtest.net has indicated the same trend if you compare ISP's over a year. This may not be a 'shaw' problem specifically, but if you are buying services keep that in mind.
So if anyone wants to say this is 'inaccurate', obviously hasn't worn my shoes.
Followup comments:  | 
careful
@shawcable.net
| Inaccuracies Shaw and Telus lite-speed services are identical, 256Kbps down and 128Kbps up. For the most part, they always have been identical. This time last year they were both 128 down and 64 up.
High speed is 5 Mbit/sec down and 512Kbit/sec up. Xtreme is 10Mbit down and 1Mbit up, Nitro is 25Mbit down and 1Mbit up.
You cannot (at least through Shaw) buy extended warranties on modems and DCTs. All DCTs sold today come standard with 3-year warranties, which includes as many free replacement units as is necessary. Rental units of course have unlimited warranties. If you subscribe to a digital package then any additional purchased DCT is charged a $1.99 "digital services fee" which goes to the company that maintains and programs the on-screen guide.
Modems essentially have unlimited warranties - you can exchange your 10-year-old Cybersurfer or Terayon for a brand-new DOCSIS for free even if you have purchased the modem, so long as the old modem's failure was not the result of malicious action or theft.
You are not REQUIRED to subscribe to the $10 QoS option for VoIP. It is an optional service which very few people use. Shaw does not intentionally degrade VoIP packets. VoIP is inherently unstable and is subject to the conditions of the network it travels on. With a DOCSIS modem, good signal strength and at least High speed most VoIP products will work just fine.
Port 25 blocking is a common measure used by almost all major ISPs to fight spam. Shaw was the last ISP in Canada to implement it. Previous measures of contacting customers with infected PCs and setting limits on email accounts were tried and proved ineffective, as they are wont to do. Some people simply aren't interested or have the knowledge to secure their PCs. If you require third-party outgoing email servers, most providers will allow you to use authenticated SMTP port 587 for outgoing mail, which is not blocked. | |
| 
erts
join:2003-02-23
Vancouver, BC | Much inacurate information This review is very inaccurate. QOS is note required for one thing. Speeds a misrepresented. Service levels are much higher. | |
|  | j1ggy
join:2007-07-30
| Re: Very poor review Very inaccurate information, obviously no research was done. One interesting note:
"Additionally if you use some VOIP provider for your phone OTHER than Shaw, you must pay an additional $10 to get QoS on your line. Yes they drop performance as to improve their own VOIP product, Shaw Digital Phone. Jim Shaw seems to think this is a value to the customer. No, it's gouging the customer and anti-competitive behavior I think."
Shaw's digital phone doesn't run over the internet, it runs on a completely separate intranet used soley for phone bandwidth. Complete fabrication on your part.
~j1ggy | |
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