Hey Telus,

I’m the Guy that you keep phoning to sign back up with you for a long distance plan. Nah, I had enough of your crap after you took the Yak unlimited away. I’ll stick with Primus.

I’m also the Guy you keep charging $6.95 system access (?) a month plus 911 fee on his cell phone every month. Heard recently that the cell phone market will be opening up to more providers. Can’t wait, ’cause I’ll also cut my cell off with you Clowns.

Also been listening to you promise me on 26k that high-speed is coming……………8 years now. So, I signed up with a small, wireless, private provider and gladly pay them every month. ANYONE is better to give my hard-earned money to as opposed to you bastards with your licence (CRTC) to print your own money.

I highly reccomend more people do the same.

Direct Energy, you’re next!

One of the issues with ADSL/DSL is range, from the problems your discribing im guessing it was not range, I have recived a few calls about these problems but some nonetheless.

Its good to see that they solved the problem for you, did they ever say what exactly it was they did? where i work i have seen multiple issues that could cause what your issues were ranging from Using an old modem all the way to Bad wires all the way up on the pole =X.

I really am sorry to hear about this bad experiance you have had with us =(. Im glad they were eventually able to fix it for you tho.

overall id say they both have their benefits, but i will personally stay with cable for now as the speeds are WAY faster.

There was only twice when I wasn’t satisfied, and when I called the problems were handled quickly and professionally. Once while still on the Home Networking Package, I found my speed consistently at 1.5Mbps. I called and the tech could see that my modem for some reason was training at 1.5Mbps rather than 2.5Mbps. The problem was fixed in less than 24 hours. A similar problem occurred when I first switched to 6.0Mbps. The speed just wasn’t there. I called them and this time it took them a few days to sort out and tweak the line. As for outages, not a single one since 2004.

Just a couple of tips for those that have to call Telus help, some may seem fairly obvious or silly, but nonetheless to save time, do them.

1. Remove all your own networking equipment (ie anything that wasn’t provided by them) such as routers (wireless or not). The best is to connect directly to the modem via ethernet. If you don’t do this beforehand, they will have you do it and end up wasting a bunch more time.
2. Gather a bunch of information on ping times, traceroutes, and bandwidth testing. The more information you have available the more seriously they will take you. They will still have you do their thing, but once this proves to be inline with your own testing, they will escalate the call to their Tier 1 tech support (if they’re not able to fix it themselves).

In terms of bandwidth testing, I like to use Telus’ FTP site (ftp.telus.net) using the command line ftp program. Login is ‘anonymous’ and the password is an e-mail address (I always used my telus e-mail address, but I’m sure it will work with any e-mail address). Once in switch directories (cd pub > cd size-test). Once in the size-test directory, issue the command ‘get eight_meg’. It should download a junk file of 8 megs into C:\Documents and Settings\(your username)\ . Once downloaded, ftp should issue an average speed. This is likely to be the best transfer rate you can get with a Telus connection as it comes right off their own network. Also it couldn’t hurt to confirm the information at another bandwidth testing site (www.dslreports.com, http://www.pcpitstop.com, etc).

I am the first to complain when things don’t go my way, but really I can’t support the bashing of Telus as my experience personally and professionally (I am an EET) has been excellent. Nothing is perfect, but they will try their best to correct any problems you have (if the problem is their responsibility). I also can’t comment on how well Telus compares to Shaw, I have no experience with Shaw’s as an ISP. If it’s anything like their cable TV service though, I’m glad I passed. A friend of mine back in the 90’s was a Shaw internet user in Calgary. He complained that his service was down more than up and he was continually fighting to get pro-rated for the time his service wasn’t available. In fact it was his experience with Shaw that convinced me to go to Telus straight away.

Here’s what bandwidthplace.com says about my current connection.

2.1 megabits per second

Communications 2.1 megabits per second
Storage 251 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 4.1 seconds
Subjective rating Great

I’ve tweaked my wireless settings and managed to eke out a few more k/sec – nothing too dramatic, but every byte helps… 🙂