Review by Mango 
UPDATED: 56 days ago
member for 338 days, 479 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 West Vancouver,BC
 $130 per month
 "Reliable, low packet loss, fast, no speed throttling."
 "Techs are very often poorly trained and never admit a problem with Shaw."
 "Shaw is a decent provider most of the time."
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I can't make two reviews for Shaw, so I am going to write my review for both internet and phone here.
INTERNET:
I have been using Shaw's Internet Services since they were available in the Vancouver area. I have found Shaw's internet to be very reliable. I remember the days of Rogers Cable where an outage every few days was common. With Shaw, I might have an outage a year, if I'm unlucky. At my office, we've only had one outage in three and a half years, and it was scheduled, AND service was restored two hours before they said it would be. That's not bad. Ping tests show average packet loss to be less than 0.1% which is also very good.
Although I have heard that Shaw employs severe torrent throttling, I have not experienced this. I have always been able to download at or very near advertised speed, including when I use Xtreme-I. The VoIP issues that anonymice is referring to below have been resolved. They just...went away on their own after a few calls to tech support. It would be good to hear a clear, concise "yes, five other people called about the same issue so we fixed it" but at least it's now working.
The only issue I have is with Shaw's technical support. Fortunately, the connection is reliable enough that I rarely need to call them. I have called them enough times that I know the standard troubleshooting - power off the modem for one minute, remove any coax splitters or extensions, bypass any router or switch and connect the computer directly to the modem, and temporarily disable any software firewalls and virus scanners. Sometimes, the techs want to walk me through all this again, which is annoying, but I understand the reason why they need to do it. But then even when this doesn't help, they refuse to admit Shaw might be having an issue. Or, they claim they've "never seen this before" - I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard that phrase. Has every single tech I've ever spoken with been a newbie?
One incident that stands out was a "tech" who went so far as to to claim that the 10% packet loss and 200ms average latency to the first hop I was seeing (try making a VoIP call with that!) was "within standard operation of the internet connection" and that the connection was "really only designed for things like browsing and email and not intended for VoIP." Then he told me to call back in 24 hours if I was still experiencing the issue. (In case you didn't get that, first he called it standard operation and then called it an issue.) The issue was solved the next day with no interaction on my part.
Some of Shaw's reps have little to no training before being placed on the phones. I canceled Shaw's internet service because I switched to TekSavvy. The rep I spoke with told me I should stay with Shaw because it was cheaper. I told them I was paying $49 for TekSavvy and a comparable plan from Shaw (I needed 1Mbit upstream) would be $60. "Uh...uh...nuh-uh!" countered the rep firmly, in a startling display of wit and intelligence. "Uh-huh," I said, not knowing what else to say. He canceled my account.
My only stellar experience with Shaw's tech support was when troubleshooting my sister's internet connection in Alberta. I did all the troubleshooting I could think of and outlined everything I had done to one of their reps. The total phone call was less than two minutes and I had a truck at my house inside 24 hours. The tech spent about 15 minutes solving the problem, which was a bad connection up the pole.
PHONE:
I like Shaw Digital Phone a lot. Shaw Digital Phone is an implementation of VoIP that is run over Shaw's private network, separate from the Internet. Shaw's reps actively deny that their service is VoIP - I suspect they want to differentiate themselves from providers of broadband VoIP. Actually, in my opinion, Shaw Digital Phone is a textbook example of how VoIP SHOULD be implemented. Because it doesn't run over the Internet, issues caused by latency, bandwidth sharing, and internet outages are entirely eliminated.
As far as calling features go, Shaw provides basic features, but have been taking their time on implementing the more exotic ones. In August 2009 I finally had my install with multi-line hunting. I was the first customer in British Columbia to use this. I was excited to discover (because they oddly don't advertise this) that I not only have multi-line hunting but call queuing! This is a clear advantage over Telus that I think they should publicize. As of September 2009, some of their techs still do not know about these features. Sometimes, I have to explain it when I call.
Shaw installed an Arris modem at my premises. I read reviews saying that these modems perform fantastically well, and I agree. When Shaw first rolled out their phone service, they deployed Motorola modems. Unfortunately, the performance of these were apparently less than stellar and caused a rocky start and bad PR for Shaw. But the good news is that if you've been trying to decide whether or not to switch to Shaw Digital Phone, now's the time.
Much to my amusement, installation required two techs - one to connect the phone line and one to connect the cable line. I was not impressed with the phone tech. At first he insisted on disconnecting the Telus line in the basement. When I refused to let him in the wiring closet, (at this point I had no idea how well I'd like SDP and wanted the Telus line available if I decided to switch back) he then said he was going to "cut the line in the suite back so far no one will ever be able to reattach it." The line was already disconnected, but he wanted to make it impossible for Telus to reconnect it. Not happening. After installation, the line wouldn't ring, which the tech immediately blamed on my PBX. I told him he should plug in his line tester and see if it would ring. He apparently decided my PBX was not the problem after all because he didn't even try his line tester; he made a call to someone at Shaw who solved the problem.
When I decided to order three more lines, the installation was even more eventful. I received three separate calls from three different people at Shaw asking 1) if I was a PBX tech, which they asked already, 2) if I was over 18, which they also asked already, and 3) if I remembered about my appointment, which I did, because I had been called two other times about it.
The installation of the additional three lines required five technicians. I find this humorous because I actually offered to do it myself to save them rolling a truck. The first two arrived the day after I placed my order and dropped off the modem. I asked them what they were going to do, because the number port had not yet been completed. They said they didn't know and left the modem sitting on my desk. Two techs arrived two days later, on my day off, and without making an appointment. They patiently waited while one of the staff located me. They installed the new 4-port modem that the previous techs had dropped off. Finally, a single (!!) tech arrived on the actual installation date to plug in the three necessary cables, and call in the number port. I sincerely hope after watching this display of convoluted miscoordination that Shaw is actually making money.
I decided to downgrade one of our lines to a cheaper package. This is easier said than done. For reasons known only to Shaw, the modem must be provisioned in order of the price of the line. Unfortunately, the line I wanted to downgrade was Line 1. So they had to reprovision my modem so that Line 2 was moved to Line 1, Line 3 to Line 2, Line 4 to Line 3, and Line 1 to Line 4. I am not making this up. They told me this would take two hours. I scheduled the appointment for 8AM because we open at 10. They finished around 1PM, during which our phones dropped more calls than a bad cell. For some reason this broke my Caller ID. Fixing this will involve another "two hours" of downtime. This will be sometime in the next 24 to 48 hours. I find it amusing that I still find Shaw less frustrating than Telus.
Fortunately, the installation has been the only annoying bit - Shaw Digital Phone has performed wonderfully. We've had no downtime at all, other than the above-mentioned Shaw-induced downtime. After a few calls, I found myself thinking that the audio quality was better. I hooked up some test equipment and discovered I was correct - on the Shaw line, much higher frequencies were apparent. Audio quality is not quite as good as Telus when speaking with someone on a cell phone. The volume with Shaw Digital Phone is louder than Telus and causes cell audio to be slightly distorted. This is not a huge issue, but one I hope they correct at some point.
I have tried faxing with Shaw Digital Phone and discovered that I did not need to set my fax to 9600bps as recommended - 14400 worked flawlessly. This is also positive.
If you can deal with random acts of frustration when dealing with Shaw's staff in exchange for a cheap phone line, Shaw Digital Phone is a good choice for you. The price is great, especially for residential users. My parents have Shaw Internet and if they switch to Shaw Digital Phone (and I think they should) it will add exactly $9 to their monthly bill due to bundling. At these prices, Shaw is competing with broadband VoIP.
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Do I detect some gossip?