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Review by Bandito 
UPDATED: 87 days ago
member for 7 years, 624 visits, last login: 2 days ago
 undisclosed location
 $42 per month
 about 2 days
 "Value"
 "Shaw doesn't care if you leave for the competition"
 "Beats Telus in my area"
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Shaw's speeds have improved quite a bit over the last few years. However, so has their rates. Shaw has become very arrogant and even cocky when it comes to people wishing to negotiate their features and options. Shaw does not care if you leave or not for Telus. The only competitor they really dislike and will negotiate crazy deals for you to stay is you're currently a Novus customer. Sadly, most people dont have fibre optic cable and consequently pay very high internet monthly fees.
Read more here: »DSL FAQ »DSL vs CABLE?
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Review by HempHog
Posted: 125 days ago
member for 5.9 years, 612 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Okotoks,AB
$50 per month (month by month)
about 4 days
"Extreme 3 months @ 30.00 a month"
"Gaming is impossible at night, servers during non-peak hours are usually 20-70ms, peak hours everything is 70ms plus."
"Terrible, I'm only getting one month of service."
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Download / Upload speeds go to complete crap during peak hours, dido for gaming. At one time Shaw was a good choice, however I highly recommend against it now.
Personally for gaming, or an all around good connection choice I would recommend Telus, at least you get what you pay for.
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Review by landons
Posted: 284 days ago
member for 4.2 years, 48 visits, last login: 7 days ago
Trail,BC
$39 per month (month by month)
"It usually works, again, usually"
"It drops me constantly and the speed is not near as advertised"
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Reliability is key and I'm not getting it. I'd also like them to STOP throttling downloads to 40KB/sec for FTP and down to nearly zero for BitTorrent. A lot of people use BitTorrent to get legitimate files (like open source ISOs and game updates like Warcraft).
Followup comments:  Thanatyr
join:2009-07-18 | No throttling If your torrents are running slow, check your firewall/router port settings. Shaw doesn't limit torrents. | |
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Review by web_tracker
UPDATED: 327 days ago
member for 327 days, 3 visits, last login: 113 days ago
Edmonton,AB
Contract price not specified.
"no contracts, shaw secure is part of the package, which is very reliable."
"intermittent connections, download/upload speed is less than half of what is advertised. Expensive for what you get."
"Check people in your immediate area to see if they have problems with service."
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I first started with high speed lite, then moved to high speed with only small amounts of improvements but neither services provided a reliable connection and download/upload speeds are less than half of that advertised. Sometimes downloading can slow down to about 56mb/sec almost at a dialup speed. They provide a Motorola cable modem. I have had many service calls to improve the services over the last 2 years (at least seven or eight calls), none of the techs were able to resolve the issue. Most of them went through the same steps as the previous tech and were unable to resolve the intermittent issues blaming the issue on this or that. They then state that they will send someone else to rectify the situation within the next couple weeks. This never happens and I then have to call in again. More often than not I would have would be intermittent connection although all the leds on the modem appear normal. I have tried different nic cards, different computers, different operating systems, and they even tried to replace the modem a couple times. Still I would get intermittent connections... page can not be displayed.. but after I refresh the screen, the page it shows up with out a problem. It did not matter if I was connected directly to the modem or via wired router. Also if I was downloading a large program it some times cuts out before download was completed. They have caused a lot of frustrations and wasted much of my time, especially waiting for them to show up, within a four hour window. There was a time when I waited for four hours and they did not even show up or call to explain they could not make it on that day.
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Review by ShawVerySuck
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 1.2 years, 9 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
Richmond,BC
$150 per month
"If you want someone piss you off, you got it!"
"GOOD DON''T CARE CUSTOMER SERVICE"
"God bless your online game won't lag"
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Think it twice!
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Review by darvin111
Posted: 1.3 years ago
member for 1.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Edmonton,AB
$47 per month
about 14 days
"Reasonable speed for price-base package 5 meg"
"port throttling, extreme p2p/BT throttling now throttlings MMO-unresponsive level 2 tech support"
"I am seeking alternatives as Shaw is useful only for surfing"
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After 3 days of solid lag free play on Age of Conan, Shaw is now verifiably throttling the server packets in the same manner at BT or P2P packets, with no way to differentiate implemented.
The level 2 tech I spoke to was unresponsive, advising that customers in the area were abusing bandwidth and that they were trying to ensure bandwidth is available for everyone (scripted much?)
Tracert results time out on first hop from modem out and are picked up with 80-90ms latency down the linem regardless of destination IP. Shaw's own website time's out completely after 13 hops.
Level 2 advised operations are "constantly checking infrastructure for congestion" but he has no information regarding whether or not my area has a congestion issue.
I use Teksavvy in Ontario and have NONE of these issues. Should I have access to ADSL in area I will drop Shaw like a rock, because Teksavvy is actively involved in keeping their customers happy.
very unhappy
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Review by dpjball
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 2.1 years, 4 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Edmonton,AB
$40 per month
about 7 days
"decent speed"
"Bad CSRs Going linkdead often"
"Better off with dial up"
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Up to 5 Mbps download speed
Up to 512 Kbps upload speed ------- speeds are close
60 GB/month data transfer --------never came close to using this
10 Personal email accounts ---- one used
7 No Cost Extras
Up to two IP addresses**
24/7/365 technical assistance ------ no way usually get a CSR not a Tec
bundled
Classic Cable ------ all chanels below 13 are snowy, have more then 1 chanel or completely messed up
High Speed Internet ---------- dropped often
Digital Phone ---------rarely works
$150.00+/month including taxes ------ Never adjusted for any down time like a CSR said it was going to be
I am getting dropped in Edmonton every 5 min to 1hr. Called Shaw they were far less then helpfull. Called 12 times 4 times I got through before my Shaw phone cut out. 3 of the 4 times the phone cut out while talking to them asking the same dumb questions over and over. The 4th time the guy on the other end told me I was calling from a different address .... funny one of the other guys gave me the right address. Anyway I ended up hanging up on him ... he was far less then pleasant. I may end up back with Telus.
This has been going on for over 1 month. We have called from a real land line(telus), they come up with some BS and never come to do a service call. I have used Shaw for the last 4 years never have I been treated like I was today. I used Telus adsl about 5 years ago and never had a problem with CSRs. If there ever was a problem it was fixed PDQ. Really I should not have to go through this for something I am paying for and not receiving. I would be better off with:
1. a real phone
2. dial up
3. basic cable
Most of my Internet is online gaming being dropped every 5min to 1hr is worse then playing with dial up.
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 Review by Lakebottom
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 3.2 years, 571 visits, last login: 7 days ago
Sylvan Lake,AB
$32 per month
about 3 days
"Faster basic service than Telus"
"Intermittent connection"
"It's the service we use because of bundling."
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The connection is really intermittent and drives me crazy tring to work on the internet. We are considering digital phone service but they will have to prove reliability before we go deeper into their service pool.
speed is 3250kb for a 5mb line with a 650kb upload.
We got the newest cable modem just recently, its pretty cheap so it maybe part of our problem with the service. The bundling of service saves about 3 bucks a month.
We are considering ADSL for reliability.
I should have mentioned that this connection is at the church In Sylvan Lake. The connection I use at home is a Telus ADSL 6.0 Extreme.
The church connection is a cable connection which is broadcast wireless with in the church due to cabling restrictions for the workstation. I was having serious problems with the wireless broadcast, so I upgraded the network to an N class router and N class antennae NIC. The security was lowered to almost the lowest encryption, in an attempt to keep the wireless connection stable. The wireless signal strength is low almost all the time but now there are very few disconnects.
The testing was conducted using a wired connection to the router (temp). ADSL would be difficult given the complexity of the phone system at the church. 
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 Review by Manatrite
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 6.9 years, 90 visits, last login: 310 days ago
Canada
$32 per month
about 3 days
"Excellent Uptime."
"unstable pings lately, future price increases due to market uncertainty"
"pick your poison."
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Update: May 11th, 2008
Looks like they finally fixed the ping problems. Some areas are still overloaded and one of the vancouver routers is still having problems. Other than that, I can surf the net and play online games without any awful delays.
However, I am not impressed with the price increase recently.
NOTE: I have dropped Telus and have no plans to go back to DSL. So many problems have occurred lately.
Followup comments: 
YazdiBalsara
Im Not A Guru.. Im Just Here To Help
Premium
join:2004-02-03
| Shaw WHAT the hell, why would someone say stay away from SHAW? have you seen how far shaw has come and the speeds are awesome. Soon to be DOCSIS 3 I hope. I Dont even think we used the full capacity of DOCSIS 2.0 technology so nevermind that. Shaw has come far I remember when everyone was complaiing during the switch from rogers to shaw here in the west and the servers in california or whatever but after the change SHAW has done a great job, With their good Digital Cable Lineup, New Motorola SB5100 modems, and now house phones. I hope shaw enters the Telecom industry! that would be awesome!. Less Monopoly! | |
| slam5
Premium
join:2003-01-10
Vancouver, BC
| Shaw entering into telephone market Personally, I am a fan of Shaw. Their service is excellent and good reliability(NOT perfect). They are a few $$ more than Telus but it is worth it. I do not plan to use them as a telephone provider as I consider phone service to be a critical service(it literally can be life or death if you don't have phone service;look at that couple in Edmonton). It maybe only a decimal digital in difference in reliability but I think it is better if I err on the side of caution. | |
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 Review by pfak
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 1280 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Canada
$79 per month
about 1 days
"Quick installation, no fuss service visits."
"Throttling of P2P traffic on certain nodes, unexplained downtimes."
"Sub-par service, good speeds and liberal caps."
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Being a user of TELUS (formerly BCtel) from 1998 till April of 2005, I did not expect much of a difference switching from TELUS to Shaw. Boy was I wrong; Shaw's service is superior in every way to any TELUS offering. No transparent proxies, no randomly dropping connectivity for days on end and communication on service interruptions to the customer.
I initially installed Shaw in April of 2005 after canceling my TELUS service in regards to labour dispute. I signed up for one Shaw SOHO account with Extreme, and a person was out at my house the next day. They were professional, and got the job done very quickly. The guy was at my house for less then a half an hour (and he fitted a new outlet for my cable modem). I was online right away. I had a few issues (they forgot to provision my account with extreme services), but once that was done the speeds picked up and I was receiving almost the full speed (6.9Mbps/944Kbps). This initial service cost me about $74.95 after taxes, and had free installation, modem and first month free!
Cons: Port blocking and lack of announcements regarding it, excessive unexplained downtime during the day. Changes of static IP addresses every 1 year (the same period as dynamic). Increased prices with decreased value.
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poor service with shaw