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Review by SHA1 See Profile

  • Location: undisclosed location
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Very reliable connection. I get 23.77 Mbps down and 2.77 Mbps up 24x7x365
Telus' choice of CPE (Actiontec) doesn't allow nerds like me to use my own gear easily.
Telus works well for me. YMMV.
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I have tried both Shaw and Telus and I prefer Telus because of the rock solid Internet connection and the fact that I actually get the speeds I pay for 24x7. The service has been very reliable for me and I really have no complaints.

member for 12.6 years, 445 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
updated 11.9 years ago







Review by carmelo6 See Profile

  • Location: Canada
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Great improvment over Shaw
Forced to use crippled modem/router
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I switched to Telus from Shaw to take advantage of an attractive promotion. After achieving complete independence from the providers, I thought it would be good to try different providers. I subscribed to a promotional package (15-15-15) where for the first year one pays $15 for TV, $15 for Phone and $15 for internet. Being with a Voip provider I did not need to phone so went with TV+Internet. With the cable boxes and a few additional channell my total came to about $60/month for the first year. This compares quite favourbly against Shaw. Shaw started a similar promotion much later, but it does not last a year, rather 3 months.

Installation took a long time, mostly because the tech was saying the Telus TV can be quite finnicky if the line is not clean enough. So it involved some re-wiring. One has a choice of network cable or coax to the TV box, but the choice will largely depend on the layout of the existing wires. It took about 4 hour to get things right and the tech was very nice (I was helping out too).

First the good news: speed improved drammatically over Shaw's extreme internet. All of a sudden, my torrents downloaded in a matter of minutes as opposed to hours (I now wonder if Shaw throttle torrent traffic and Telus doesn't?). We aren't heavy TV watchers, so I have not noticed an impact on the internet when HD programming is being watched, although I am told that can be an issue.

TV and HD works great and the box has a much more polished and sophisticated interface than Shaw's (it uses a flavour of MS Windows). An iPhone app exist to remotly set recordings on the TV.

Now the bad news: if you want TV you are forced to use on of Telus' crippled modem/router. In truth is not the actual modem that's crippled but rather the firmware Telus installs. If you have anything beyond a basic network, you will cry. The modem does not allow you to do anything much beyond wireless encryption. Really. You cannot exchange it for something else. With some luck I was able to access certain hidden and unsupported features that allowed me to implement some basic features I needed. However, a recent update has blocked that too.

Downtime, I have only experienced it once for about 1 hour. Tech support, I never needed it, but I don;t expect them to be overly knowledgeable. Overall I've been quite happy except for the modem.

member for 14.3 years, 31 visits, last login: 12.2 years ago
lodged 12.2 years ago


Review by freddy25 See Profile

  • Location: Hanna, AB, Canada
  • Cost: $47 per month
  • Install: about 15 days
  • Telco party Telus
consistant d/l speeds, 25 mb service to rural alberta town.
Poor modem/router combo's dropping connection. Crippled software
Best option for high speed internet available at my location
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Telus offered the highest speeds available for my rural location. When i first got connected i was at 3mb d/l with a 2 wire modem/router. Currently have a SE567 with 15mb d/l. Have upgraded to 25mb d/l to be installed in a week (actiontec). Connection has been very stable with two exceptions,(fiber was cut due to construction and QoS locking me at 1.5mb d/l)

One thing to keep in mind is to keep reviewing the prices. I have called in and found out that new upgrades are available and on occasion are cheaper than what i was currently paying for the lower speed service.

member for 20.1 years, 499 visits, last login: 9.9 years ago
lodged 12.5 years ago


Review by ncbnetworks See Profile

  • Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada
  • Cost: $438 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 1 days
  • Telco party Telus
Telus has been GOOD to us
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Have 6 line Centrex system, fax line and ADSL and we own our phones.

Receiving 4 MB downloads on 6 MB plan. Minor glitch on upgrade from 3 MB plan. Telus is very customer oriented...IF...you call them. Otherwise the status quo will remain forever. With new deals popping up regularly it's up to the customer to react.

Tech support above average, but YOU need to know what questions to ask especially as it relates to service downtime.

member for 12.5 years, driveby review (so far)
updated 12.5 years ago


Review by kylez See Profile

  • Location: undisclosed location
  • Cost: $50 per month
  • Install: about 14 days
  • Telco party Telus
Constant speed, get what you pay for.
Manager: Each time you call in you're costing us Money. Maybe it would be better if we just terminate the service.
No bandwidth overage charges, really poor uptime.
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I considered many options before switching to Telus, I was thinking about Shaw back in the day (9 years ago) however their speed was way too inconsistent for me. At the beginning I ordered Telus High Speed 1.5mbps down 1mbps up for $45, the downtime was absolutely terrible for the first 2 years (Down for hours, and once a day), however after that my line has been 100% solid and have not once had my line go down. I upgraded to 6/1 a couple years ago and have not looked back. At first I rented the 3com ADSL modem from Telus as at the time their other modems were complete garbage, a couple years later Telus gave me the modem for free, and started lowering my monthly price starting with $5 and going all the way up to $15 off monthly for $30 monthly. Later I had upgraded to 6/1 and managed to save $5 a month with a price match with Teksavvy. One day a Siemens 567 modem showed up on my front door step, literally. I unpacked it thinking it would be even better than my 3com modem, oh boy was I wrong. This thing was completely borked, it was a mucked up Router/Modem combination that specialized in unstable sync rates, and dropping packets. Later I demanded that I have a Speedtouch 516v6 shipped to my house or I would cancel. I was seriously at this point after being a Telus customer for 8 years, as they couldn't even grace me with a decent modem. Don't get me wrong the 3com was awesome, however the upload speed on it was atrocious (Something like 412kbps). I would like to thank the cancellation department, I have to say 90% of everyone in tech support does not know what they're talking about. Every time I had called Tech Support they were completely useless, and clueless. However, the employees that do help out people on this forum seem quite knowledgeable, and extremely helpful. They're honestly what have kept me with Telus all these years, and hopefully for many more.

Update for Turbo 25:

Well, I guess I moved to Turbo 25 a bit early. Some TS reps still don't know what it is, nor know that you need a VDSL modem for it. I guess I'm partially at fault for not asking for a new modem (They assumed a Siemens 567 would work just fine, which was on file that I had). But any who, I was down for a week~ish after initially transferring. Then constant instability for four or so months (Including Today, and probably the future) using an Actiontec/ALU. Reps insisted I just keep calling back each time I have a problem, so I did. Again and again. Then I went on a crusade trying to get an ALU from Telus (This was a bit brutal. However, I only did call in when I lost sync). Eventually I did get the unit, just not as one would typically expect. The drop outs started to get really bad, so bad that I couldn't stay synced for over an hour. I called Telus and asked for a manager to call me back. He examined how many times I called in (Exceeded 20+ times within 4 months), then proceeded to say if I call in again, regardless of what it is, Telus would terminate my service and cancel my account. After being a High Speed client for well over 9 years (20+ With BC Tel for Phone), one would expect to not be shown the door when they're having critical service issues. But oh well, the company demeanor seems to have changed significantly over the past 10 years. Shaw is a viable substitute at the moment so that's holding me up with Telus.

I noticed I didn't mention peering in the initial review. During the day/evening there's gross over saturation if you're leaving the country (ie The States). On a regular day there will be at least a 20ms difference between the day and night (5AM). On a shared holiday, or major US holiday, I've had up to a 200ms hike in latency (On top of what's there initially).

Anyone else have a similar experience? Everyone on DSLReports really seems to know their stuff and are extraordinarily helpful. Every time I call in it's pulling teeth, and since the Manager explicitly told me to piss off. I'm really in a rut being run over by the company vehicle.

member for 14.9 years, 724 visits, last login: 127 days ago
updated 12.6 years ago

Lesaonar
join:2000-07-25
Victoria, BC

Lesaonar

Member

re: manager

I hope you got the managers name and lodged a formal complaint.
kylez
join:2009-03-26

kylez

Member

Re: re: manager

said by Lesaonar:

I hope you got the managers name and lodged a formal complaint.

Is that what I should have done?
Lesaonar
join:2000-07-25
Victoria, BC

Lesaonar

Member

Re: re: manager

I would've. That's shoddy customer service. You don't tell a customer that if they attempt to get the service their actually paying for, they'll cut them off completely irregardless of how many calls they've received, let alone to go into some form of 'cost effective' rant to a customer. Totally unprofessional to say the least.

Review by bornav See Profile

  • Location: Richmond, BC, Canada
  • Cost: $58 per month (36 month contract)
  • Install: about 7 days
  • Telco party Telus
Extremely reliable. Fast competitive service. Good hardware. Stable.
Cant run a web server as ISP blocks server ports on home packages.
If you have a hard time getting a steady and reliable connection via cable, this is your solution.
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Could not get a steady connection from Shaw Cable at our location. The location was too congested and although Shaw attempted to help, it was apparent that the connection stability was not going to be resolved anytime in the near future. Couldn't even stream YouTube HD during peak hours.

Called into Telus to have the new Optik TV and Internet installed. Could not be happier. Great value and the connection does not drop off during peak hours. They even replaced perfectly fine copper lines that went from our house all the way to the next block. The reason for this was that the "inspector" will be unhappy if the installer did not replace the old copper. He had to climb up on 3-4 power poles and run new copper.

Also, this specific installer catered to every one of my requests during the installation and even let me do half the work so it would be done just the way i wanted it.

Sure enough a few days later, an inspector showed up to review the installation and make sure it was done properly. This was most likely to avoid costly issues down the road when customers run into problems that are on their end.

Overall, A+ service in my book.

We have had the service nearly 4-5 months now.


member for 20.7 years, 101 visits, last login: 11.1 years ago
updated 12.6 years ago


Review by killthraka See Profile

  • Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
  • Cost: $87 per month
  • Install: about 14 days
  • Telco party Telus
TV product is very good better then Shaw,
Presales was a little confusing.
Awesome deal for the money
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Awesome deal for the money.

member for 17.3 years, 14 visits, last login: 12.7 years ago
lodged 12.8 years ago







Review by Old Koot See Profile

  • Location: Quathiaski Cove, BC, Canada
  • Cost: $34 per month
  • Install: about 14 days
  • Telco party Telus
Technical support in Canada via TelusTV options
Offshore call centers
Good service once you know how to workaround calling them.
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Compared to the local Gulf Islands Cable, Telus is absolutely excellent ......... the only issue with Telus is that they undersold their availability. Consequently, I wasted a year with a cable connection, and ten years on Dial-Up.
.
Now I have effectively 5.52Mb download on my 6.0Mb service at my location exactly three miles away from the "Central Office" DSLAM unit (Telus electronically measures it as just over 10,000 feet) and my line loss was measured at 61 decibels.
.
My Quality of Service as determined by MySpeed.VisualWare is consistently 99%.

member for 12.9 years, 164 visits, last login: 7.7 years ago
lodged 12.8 years ago


katovic
join:2011-05-22
Union Bay, BC

katovic

Member

Wonderful

It was good in the 80's now its even better rebranded in 2011!

Review by mauriceh7 See Profile

  • Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada
  • Cost: $64 per month
  • Install: about 18 days
  • Telco party Telus
Turbo25 VDSL - FAST!
Customer support - Epic fail; Supplied Actiontec router, wanted a modem
I privately found a better modem, and support from the community
Pre Sales information:
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Telus is marketing their "Turbo25" product.
It is the basis for their Telus Optik TV and can be had separately for DSL broadband only.
When they installed they upgraded the physical wiring in the premises ( GOOD!)
The install had NO CLUE about connection, setup, or anything else. Just handed me a box with an Actiontec V1000H in it.
I learned fast that one HAS to connect directly, with a Windows PC, and open a browser, to download a stupid "install" program that registers the MAC.
Now I get a connection.
Great, now the MAC of my laptop is the registered device.
I call them, to release it and they admit that the "tool" they need to release a MAC from an account is not yet functioning!
I get into the Actiontec setup and I am not so happy.
All the advanced functions I need are locked out on the custom Telus firmware.
I found modified firmware and that opened things up a lot.
Still, if you reboot or power off the device it will take upwards of 2 hours to get a full connection again.
One in a while they arbitrarily assign a new DHCP lease, and I am out of commission for about 2 hours.
I really did not want this crappy NAT router/ wireless router device.
I asked them fr a straight modem, and they ranged from thinking they can do this, then finding they can not, ione girl even insisted that a Thomson Speedtouch would work as a VDSL device.
Wrong.
I eventually find that an ALU Cellpipe 7130 CAN be run, and in bridged mode.
Telus used to supply them ,but these have been discontinued, so no joy from Telus.
Eventually I found one for sale from a Bell customer down east.
So I am now setting that up.

In general, if you are on this service , be prepared to:
1) Entirely self support
2) Go to the community for answers, when there are any.

If you need something resembling tech support, Telus is NOT for you!

However, the actual network performance is pretty darned good.
I steadily get over 26Mb down, 2.3 up, and around a 24ms ping.



member for 12.9 years, 25 visits, last login: 7.9 years ago
updated 12.8 years ago


tmpchaos
Requiescat in pace
Numquam oblitus
join:2000-04-28
Hoboken, NJ

tmpchaos

Numquam oblitus

(topic move) poor service

»poor service

Moderator Action
This topic was moved to the forum Telus

stated reason was: better place

Review by yyj canada See Profile

  • Location: Canada
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
  • Telco party Telus
Clear Picture, PVR is great, Internet is fast even in evening
Took about 3 hours to install but replaced/checked everthing
With Optik TV in Victoria BC, Telus has gotten its act together
Pre Sales information:
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Got Optik TV plus Optik Internet (15Mbps) with current special and free install.
I am a few block from the Telco where there is fiber, so I get 3 HD and 1SD TV feeds in Victoria BC.
The Internet is 15Mbps (tests with Shaws speed test at 13+)
Internet does NOT slow down at any time of day. Anytime I notice a slow site, I run the shaw test, and getting 13+, so slowdown is elsewhere on Internet. I have not tested max TV feeds with Internet speed yet, but can say that 1 HD and 3SD being recorded while playing back a HD from the PVR did not slow the Internet near 8PM.

Actiontec router/modem/wireless supplied by Telus is great (Wireless N, 1Gbit wired ports). You can only change the minimum needed to make it work, the rest is locked down by Telus to make their support easier. For example, the local network is 192.168.1.x. I needed to change some settings to match that network on shared printers, etc that I have.

Installer checked everything for line quality, and replaced box at house, had to do something back at the swtich where the fiber is, and tested the phone lines and coax inside the house. Seperated the phones and the Internet at the box at the house, so I did not need filters on each phone. From the Internet, he used the coax to connect to the PVR beside the TV.
It took about 3 hours, but I was happy that he had checked/replaced everything that was even suspect. He has not had to return so the extra time he spent testing made me a satisfied customer.

Bottom line is that with this pair of Internet and TV, Telus is a good alternative to Shaw in Victoria.

The bad
The CIS 430 PVR is only 320 Gbytes, but because Telus does better HD compression than Shaw's, it hold about the same hours as Shaws 500Gbyte PVR.

If you have more TVs than you get feeds, that limits the number of different things that you could watch live. Not a problem for me as I have only 1 TV.


member for 13 years, 17 visits, last login: 12.7 years ago
lodged 12.9 years ago