Telus → What should I do?

Well I've been with Telus for about a year and a half now, and am none-too-happy with them.

The speeds are decent (though the up rate could be better). I'm an avid Counter-Strike/CS: Source/Battlefield player and need decent speeds.

In December I was offered "faster download and upload speeds for a lower price" by Telus - well loan behold, my bill was around $40 more. On top of that, 3 out of the 4 weeks of that month I did not have the higher speed they promised me. I was assured this was an "adjustment" month and the next bill would be less - well it was less, but it was still around $30 more than what I was paying. After the third month I called them again and they said they would refund me all the extra money I paid and returned my service to the way it was (I still haven't got the refund).

My question - should I stick it out with Telus (which averages 1250/490) or switch to another ISP? If you post a suggestion for which ISP I should use - please post their average speeds.

I'm in Kelowna, BC, Canada.

Thanks.

There was a billing error if what you said is true... there is no way your bill would be 30.00 more unless you were accidentally upgraded to the server 2.5 plan...

I don't know what they upgraded me to, but they assured me it would be cheaper than my current plan yet offer faster speeds.

That's called a 3 year Rate Protection Plan. They lock you into a contract and then charge a hefty min $125 fee to break it.

No, it was no rate lock. It was supposed to be cheaper and it was not - it was a flat out lie.

Either way - what do you think I should do? Stick with Telus or go with another ISP?

How are SHAW's connection rates?

as I said there had to have been a billing error.... it was not a lie because there are plans available that would allow you to keep the same price but offer you the faster speed...

Ya - I said that too, but It's been almost 3 months since they said they'd give me a refund and they have not, on top of that they have implemented a 10GB cap (I know they're not enforcing it right now, but they wouldn't list the cap if they weren't planning to.)

Telus are slow at doing things. A few years ago when they had all those complaints in the summer. My internet was down for a whole month, and I had to use the dialup. Not only I had to nag them to refund the high speed bill, they expect me to pay the $100+ dial up fees where I could not use the high speed internet at all. Not sure about now, but I'm a happy shaw customer, and I still own a telus linksys modem too ^^. I gave my malfunction 3com adsl modem to shaw and they gave me a brand new cable modem :P

There are 2 ISPs that you should try:
(Hopefully, there will be more in future...)

1) Primus / Win-Tel. ADSL. Similar to Telus speeds. Cheaper. NO CAPS. (I'm using this.. and I'm getting better speeds than I got with Telus) Rock solid stability - I hear that their tech support is worse than Telus though (I've never used their Tech support though :P)

2) 3web. Cable. 3web is a Shaw reseller. But much cheaper and NO CAPS. Before trying / signing on with 3web, give Shaw a try... reason: If you're a new Shaw internet customer, you get to have 1 month free of cable internet - and you get to test what 3web will be for you (since 3web is a Shaw reseller - i.e. they provide broadband using Shaw's networks... Shaw hates them, btw). In addition, they sell the cable modem cheaper than 3web (and it seems that there are ways to get the modem for free... if you get a certain deal with Shaw that requires you to stay with them for a minimum of 6 months).

.... That (as far as I know)... is about it (for now)... for us poor folks in Western Canada.

Hopefully, we'll have broadband similar to what some of my friends are getting...

Friend 1:
Lives in Hong Kong, is now on 10Mb/s Synchronous(Up and down speeds are identical) and pays only $20 / month. He now has the option of upgrading to either 100Mb/s Synchronous for about $45/month... or... 1000Mb/s for about $280-$300/month.

Friend 2:
Lives in Singapore, is getting 25Mb/s Up and 1Mb/s Down for about $75/month (It's actually about $33/month - He received a free HP NX6110 notebook worth $1000 with his 2 year signup...)

I also have numerous friends in the States and Eastern Canada who enjoy better broadband than the choices we have here in Western Canada.

Conclusion: ISPs worldwide are moving towards providing faster, cheaper, unlimitted bandwidth broadband... we're just really sloooow here in Western Canada (with the monopoly of broadband that Telus and Shaw have enjoyed in the past years... they've not had any motivation to provide cheaper/faster/unlimitted service).

Broadband in the Asia is very competitive now. I just looked a the magazine from Hong Kong and there are about 5 broadband providers and they are pulling customers like crazy on the street.

edit: the reason they can get super high speed is because of the location. Hong Kong and Singapore is about the size of the greater vancouver only. If 5 broadband provider are serving the greater vancouver only, then it should be easy to reach 100 megabit.

Thanks for the elaborate post :P

I'm considering going with SHAW, but I might not be able to use the resellers for a few reasons.

1) I don't think they would work with SHAW ON DEMAN (which would be 1 of the reasons for me switching)

2) My mom has problems with people reselling service through lines that another company setup. :-/

Im stuck with shaw because of the digital cable =.=

its cheaper if you are using digital cable, otherwise, if you're using basic or you don't have tv at all, you can consider 3web =/

Well you say you're stuck - what's so bad about them?

Also: Ya, I have digital :P

Basically if you have any cable service with shaw, it's really pointless going with 3web. You don't really save anything then because of bundling that occurs with cable and internet with shaw.

TTLoonie: 10mb connection for approx 20 cdn a month? thats ridiculously cheap! are there a lot of isp in hk that offer that kind of plan? if so, do u know the sites of the isps?

Singapore, if you download too much they will come knocking on your door. Also, most people don't have that kind of connection there, the average connection is a 512kbit symmetrical cable connection.

Also, whats the point of having good internet if the peering sucks? Here's my 100mb line in HK:

traceroute to psycho.pfak.org (66.196.34.68), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 59.188.7.1 (59.188.7.1) 2.182 ms 4.567 ms 3.579 ms
2 210.245.171.61 (210.245.171.61) 0.401 ms 1.059 ms 0.497 ms
3 203.98.130.173 (203.98.130.173) 0.648 ms 1.156 ms 0.887 ms
4 203.98.161.3 (203.98.161.3) 1.350 ms 1.955 ms 3.145 ms
5 210.245.171.83 (210.245.171.83) 3.116 ms 3.745 ms 3.743 ms
6 217.239.40.106 (217.239.40.106) 171.811 ms 171.572 ms 172.076 ms
7 so-10-0.core1.SanFrancisco1.Level3.net (4.68.127.141) 169.573 ms 169.090 ms 169.196 ms
8 so-4-0-0.mp1.SanFrancisco1.Level3.net (209.247.10.225) 165.208 ms 227.855 ms 166.438 ms
9 so-3-0-0.mp2.Seattle1.Level3.net (209.247.9.122) 185.125 ms 185.851 ms so-1-0-0.mp1.Seattle1.Level3.net (209.247.10.137) 185.972 ms
10 ge-10-2.hsa2.Seattle1.Level3.net (209.247.9.94) 185.129 ms ge-11-0.hsa2.Seattle1.Level3.net (209.247.9.54) 181.590 ms ge-11-2.hsa2.Seattle1.Level3.net (209.247.9.62) 185.913 ms
11 unknown.Level3.net (64.154.178.134) 185.661 ms 185.047 ms 186.870 ms
12 r2.netnation.com (64.40.105.2) 192.396 ms 189.821 ms 190.905 ms
13 serenitynet.com (64.40.105.75) 187.025 ms 188.353 ms 187.831 ms

The latencey sucks.