Pioneer on the Internet – Sean Gursky

For better or worse the 2011 NHL Playoffs have come to a close. I was able to watch the Vancouver Canucks play until the middle of June, and with a game almost every other night I had it all. My alcohol consumption increased, I grew a few more gray hairs during the stressful first round against Chicago and suffered the devastation of a second Stanley Cup Final Game 7 loss.

Over the last few years I had some heavy superstitions and there were periods I thought that simply by watching the game would affect the outcome. For a stretch Vancouver won more games when I didn’t watch than when I did. In 2009 and 2010 I grew a playoff beard and on May 11 in both years I shaved them off after Vancouver lost to Chicago after six games.

I felt that 2011 would hold playoff success so I opted to not grow a beard. If I looked like a sleazy pirate after a month the results of going unshaven for two months would be a thing of bewilderment and ridicule.

I kept a routine but it wasn’t as visible, and it didn’t affect my hygiene. Instead of growing a beard I allowed myself to shave except on game days. I would rotate through my Canucks jerseys as I watched the game at home. I didn’t have a set order I went through the decades of jerseys, but each one has been worn several times since April.

During Game 7 of the first round I decided to have a shot of alcohol every time someone scored. It was a low scoring affair with only one goal for Vancouver in regulation, but when Burrows capitalized on a Campoli turn over I didn’t hold back and had a few shots of Alize. That developed the routine of taking a shot of Alize on each Vancouver goal in any elimination game, in addition to having a few at the end of a series. This was all on top of the beer or rum and coke mix I had.

In the rounds against Nashville and San Jose my traditions stayed in check. Because of schedules I wasn’t able to see all of the San Jose games live, but the curse had been broken and the Canucks did fine without me watching. This bit of knowledge was useful when the Finals came and I had to miss a few games due to a U2 concert and Ice Dragons hockey games.

At the end of the Stanley Cup Final this culminated in an all our drink fest. A scoreless hockey game, a difficult first period goal and the weight of a good season hanging in the balance meant that last night got sloppy, something that would have happened if the score was in Vancouver’s favor and they had won.

It’s going to be a long off season, and an even longer time until April when playoffs start back up and I decide how superstitious I am going to be.

My energy levels leading up to the June 1 U2 concert in Edmonton was lower than I would have liked to admit. June 1 was game one of the Stanley Cup Final between Vancouver and Boston and the transportation to and from the Stadium was a concern, but when we returned home from the concert every doubt I had about going to the show was erased by another fantastic U2 experience.

This was my fourth time seeing U2, and had it been my first I would have been more excited, but to me this was just another U2 show, thankfully there is nothing as routine as a U2 show and the delay in the North American tour was the best thing to happen to this tour. The band was able to distance themselves from songs on their new album that weren’t resonating with the crowd, bring out some old favorites and play with the setlist.

U2 doesn’t vary their setlist night to night so when I saw some favorites appearing in Denver, Salt Lake City and Winnipeg I got excited, but it wasn’t until the opening chords of those songs began that I started to celebrate.

Main Set: Even Better Than The Real Thing, I Will Follow, Get On Your Boots, Magnificent, Mysterious Ways, Elevation, Until the End of the World, All I Want Is You – Needle and the Damage Done, Stay, Beautiful Day – Heart of Gold, Pride, Miss Sarajevo, Zooropa, City of Blinding Lights – Singin’ In The Rain, Vertigo – Rocking in the Free World, I Can’t Stand the Rain – I’ll Go Crazy (remix) – Discotheque – Life During Wartime – Please, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Scarlet, Walk On – You’ll Never Walk Alone

Encore(s): One, Will You Love Me Tomorrow – Where the Streets Have No Name, Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me, With or Without You, Moment of Surrender

Having seen U2 three times before (Calgary [2001], Vancouver [2005], Las Vegas [2009]) it’s impressive that there are still songs they add which I haven’t heard. Every tour always had a vintage song or a gem from their experimental 90′s and this show had four new songs in Miss Sarajevo, Zooropa, Scarlet and Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me. I was also incredibly happy to have one of my favorite U2 songs in All I Want Is You added to the set. The show in Edmonton had a lot of things going for it and it will stand out as the best setlist I have heard.

Like in 2009 I thought U2 may have lost some energy of the fans (in 2009 it was the transition from Elevation to In A Little While) and this time it was the one-two punch of Miss Sarajevo and Zooropa. Both are great songs, and while I never thought I’d hear Miss Sarajevo it is an ambitious song to play.

I would have liked more from Achtung Baby (specifically Zoo Station or The Fly) but Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me was incredible and got my biggest reaction.

Unlike past shows I didn’t bring my recording gear to this show. I wasn’t keen on gearing up for a show I had little excitement for, and being free of the microphones allowed me to share a few words between Jenna and the other U2 fans around me during the show. Perhaps foolishly, I expected someone else in the audience of 65,000 to be recording, but so far no recording has surfaced from the show.

The Claw was still a sight to see, and as the night came in it brought rain clouds and the light show was able to begin. It’s unfortunate there is no way to have an outdoor show in Edmonton where the sun sets early but the band made the most of the day and night they had. The rain clouds sparred us and only lightly sprinkled on everything and U2 played until 11:30, clocking in a set close to 2 1/2 hours long.

The political message of past shows was dropped; there was no urge to call Harper or write our MP about refugees but there was still anecdotes, and one included a member of the Edmonton Oilers picking up a hitchhiking Bono in Vancouver. As a nice touch Bono dedicated the final song of the night to the people of Slave Lake. At this time people were urged to take out their cellphones (to act as the 21st century version of the lighter) and the Stadium looked like thousands of firefly’s floating about and the band left under thunderous applause leaving everyone completely satisfied.

There was a gigapixel fan camera at the show and Jenna and I can be seen. I am on my phone, probably trying to get an update on the hockey score before the overloaded cell towers bring the network to a halt. Thankfully I’m not making a stupid face or eating a hot dog.

Until an Edmonton recording is available I will rely on Salt Lake City recording to remember the night, so here is Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me from that May 24 show.

U2 – Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me (May 24, 2011) by leche99.

The move from condo to house last year meant we would be responsible for shoveling snow in the winter. For the last four years the extent of snow removal I have had to do was limited to cleaning my car off on snowy days at work. If there was ever a year to dive head first into shoveling snow this was it.

Every time I shoveled snow I tracked the time in DailyBurn and have some rough figures for amount of times, number of calories and time spent between November 2010 to April 2011 shoveling snow.

There were 140 days between the first snow shovel and the last with the numbers breaking down to be:

• Number of times shoveled: 35 (average one shovel every four days)
• Hours spent shoveling: 36.5 hours (average 62 minutes/shovel)
• Calories burned: 14,194 total (average 405 calories/shovel)

Hopefully the 2011 winter isn’t as bad, but we’ll find out how the numbers look next year.

I voted today. I took advantage of the advance polls just so I could avoid lines on May 2. To me, this election doesn’t matter. Years ago I would have written a few posts about my thoughts on the upcoming federal election. I would comment on the different parties platforms and what my feelings on them were. I never considered politics my strong suit but I felt I had a voice.

With the May 2011 election coming up I just don’t have the same passion I did before. Harper will win, a few seat numbers will change and the country will be in the same position it was in before this election was called. I took the CBC Vote Compass to make sure I knew where I stood, and with some odd similarities to the Bloc Québécois party my allegiance is where I thought it was.

I voted for my parties candidate, but driving around Sherwood Park you wouldn’t know they existed. Based on signage the popular choices are:

1) Independent
2) Liberal
3) Conservative
4) Garage Sale
5) Green Party

The NDP candidate hasn’t been bothered to promote themselves in the County of Strathcona. Signage aside, they failed to show up at a debate a few weeks ago that the other party members attended. For all intents and purposes, the NDP candidate is non existent and I’m disappointed in their actions. Not only is this election a waste of time my party can’t even be bothered to show that they care or want to represent us, which just makes a bad situation worse.

All the same, I voted, my voice will be counted and the day after the election I’ll read how it all went down and quietly judge things I have little knowledge about and have even less control over.

Last week Gord sent me a link to a Craigslist posting asking for photographers to photograph fans at the Friday and Saturday Harlem Globetrotters performance. I applied immediately and received a phone call from someone at the PrintRoom on Monday confirming my application for Friday night.

The rest of the week I was nervous about Friday. I have always wanted to approach people on the street to take their photo but never worked up the nerve to do it, and Friday would be doing exactly that. I have also thought about getting into paid photography jobs for quite a while now and I felt this would be a nice introduction to see if it would be something I would want to do.

I arrived at Northlands early and met Karen, the other photographer waiting in the designated zone. A few minutes later Ella showed up (who applied for the job after I forwarded the Craigslist ad onto her) and then us three were escorted into Hall “D”.

I didn’t dislike the work, but as Travis (the tour manager) said, this is about quantity and not quality so you check your creativity at the door and get through as many people as possible. We were tourists on Travis’ day job and I think it could be repetitive to do this night in and night out. It wasn’t hard work but it was physically more demanding than I expected. For five hours I was walking, crouching, kneeling and interacting with people and once I put the camera down I realized how sore and tired I was.

The highlights of the evening was photographing the Magic Pass portion before the show. Magic Pass was a pre-game performance by the Globetrotters and we were allowed to go on the court and shoot the kids interacting with the players.

After that concluded I was shooting fans against a green screen with a Globetrotter. It was repetitive work but I enjoyed it. When you are processing a line of 60 people deep you don’t have much time to compose the shot so you move around as much as you can, click, rotate the camera to get a portrait orientation, click again and then move onto the next person in line.

When the game started the candid photos stopped and we moved onto photographing the fans. Judging by the amount of photos I took from Magic Pass to fan photos it was obvious I was having a hard time switching shooting rolls. For the 30 minute Magic Pass portion I took nearly 330 photos, but for the game I took just under 90.

I wasn’t uncomfortable approaching people asking to take their photo, and after the second rejection I wasn’t bothered by hearing “no”. However, the problem I had was asking people to take their photo during the game. I didn’t want to interrupt their enjoyment of the game so I would wait for quarter breaks and did my biggest stretch of work during half time where I took 1/3 of my photos.

It was easy to keep track of people you asked when the stands were empty but as it started to fill up you quickly forgot who you asked. At the end of the night I realized I never went back to the people that agreed to have their photo taken but wanted to wait for someone else from their group to return. When the stands started to fill up you could only approach people on the aisles and that made asking people difficult.

I would watch the audience, pick my mark, ask them for a picture and then ask a few others around them. I think my downfall is that I wouldn’t work the entire section. I would get in, take a few photos, and then return to a safe distance to watch the crowd (and the game).

It was hard not to watch the game because it was incredibly entertaining. The game was more than trick shots and hilarity, there was a large amount of basketball skill but yet the Generals lost to the Globetrotters, continuing a tradition of losses that goes back to the 1970′s.

At the end of the day I had as many people decline having their photo taken as I did who agreed to have it taken. I wondered if they were declining because of my introduction, if they genuinely didn’t want to have their picture taken or if it was something else. One of the other workers was able to get a lot of photos taken but they put effort into it. They would walk up and down the aisles and ask everyone they could. Their hard work paid off because a lot of the photos from Friday April 8 are marked with their gallery name of KXL. Mine are listed as SXG and Ella was EXE. MGR was Travis, the photography tour manager.

I was asked to return to shoot the Saturday performance and I declined because I didn’t feel I was giving them the quantity they were looking for. However, looking at the photo gallery and seeing a few SXG’s made me think I did have something to offer. I would probably take more photos of fans on the repeat performance but I was happy to have been given the opportunity to try this, and if something like this came up again in the future I would strongly consider it, but doing it again on Saturday felt too quick.

All in all this didn’t turn me off from making photography more than a hobby. I would like to stretch my creativity with being a second shooter at a wedding but being confined to quick “get in and get out” photo sessions is fine with me too.

Because any photo taken on my Compact Flash card was property of the Globetrotters PrintRoom the CF card dumped and wiped I had to switch CF cards if I wanted to take photos for myself. You can see the limited photos I took here or any of the official photographs on the PrintRoom website here.

It has been a month with Optik TV, High Speed and Telephone service from Telus and I’m still as happy as I was when everything was hooked up. The honeymoon phase is over now and so to begins my first month of paying for the services.

Television
We are becoming accustomed to having TV again. I went from banishing cable all together to having all the channels and I like it. There are some shows that aren’t worth the effort of finding online and that’s where the benefit of having the full program grid of channels comes in. When our trial of all the channels ends we will likely purchase the Lifestyle package, because HGTV and Food Network are just too enjoyable to live without.

I am still waiting for the HD receiver to be upgraded to have the ability to pause live TV, a feature that is currently limited to the HD PVR. At the time of installation in February I was told that this would be enabled with a firmware upgrade shortly but for now I wait.

There were some feature updates to the HD PVR where the previous channels are displayed in the lower right corner of the screen. The firmware update is seamless, and if it wasn’t for any visual improvements I wouldn’t have known there was a change.

One thing I would like to see added is the way to mark a show as watched on the PVR. We are in the habit of stock piling shows for a lazy weekend and if we aren’t diligent on deleting them after watching it can be hard to know what we’ve seen and haven’t.

If you watched a recorded show, stop before the end and go back to your list of Recorded TV you have the option to resume from where you left off. This tells me there is the capability of knowing what you watched and it would be great if that could be transitioned into a visual indicator. Even if it was something as simple as having a green dot beside a recording you haven’t seen yet would be a huge benefit.

Because we delete shows as we watch them it’s not an immediate concern, but it would be nice to have a way to see how much space is left on the PVR.

Telephone
Nothing worth mentioning for telephone service. It works. It makes calls. It sends calls. We always look for the caller ID to appear in the top left corner of the television if the phone rings, and as Murphy’s Law would have it, we rarely get calls to experience this little feature.

Internet
I have had no problems with the Optik High Speed connection over the last month. It has remained reliable with consistent download speeds. The Internet is the most crucial service from Telus and, thankfully, it hasn’t given me any issues or doubts on my switch from Shaw.

The problem I’ve been working on since the network upgrade was the signal strength of the Actiontec V1000H from the basement to the living room. I upgraded my home server to a Gigabit ethernet card and that helped the speed of wired connections to transmit data but it didn’t resolve the buffering when I was streaming content wirelessly to the upstairs Playstation 3.

Looking on the Playstation Media Server forums there are several suggestions to improve performance but I felt it was the Actiontec V1000H that was at fault for not delivering a strong signal strength in the house. To remedy this I repurposed my DD-WRT powered Linksys to a room above the Actiontec router and used it as a Repeater Bridge.

The last time I tried to create a Repeater Bridge I was unsuccessful, but perseverance has paid off as it worked this time and my network has benefited because of it. The Playstation 3 went from 45-50% signal strength to 75-80%. Playstation Media Server still detected an estimated transfer speed of 5MB/s, but at least now I was able to stream SD and HD content without the need for buffering.

As an added bonus, I now have Galactica and Pegasus as SSID’s at home.

So say we all.

As far as Shaw and I are concerned, we’re done. I returned my phone modem, received my final invoice and will have a cheque coming to me for the extra amount I paid.

However, before all of my access was taken away I had a chance to log into the new MyShaw portal and take a look at the fancy bandwidth usage meter. I love data, especially historical data of anything I do, from Google Reader to the music I listen to. If there is a graph about my usage on anything I love it. It was a given that the new Shaw bandwidth meter would appeal to me but I found the results interesting.

The bandwidth meter on DD-WRT was useful but the one on Shaw is just so pretty. I also found that there were some days the DD-WRT wouldn’t track data, and after a few resets I lost historical data so the Shaw bandwidth meter was my first time seeing my Internet usage for the last few months.

Prior to Shaw reducing the download limits on their High Speed package I would have been fine on most months, but when it was dropped to 60GB my usage was consistently above that. In January I increased my package to High Speed Extreme (100GB usage limit), signed up for Netflix and Usenet and my overall consumption actually decreased. If I stayed with Shaw I would have been fine with a buffer of 40GB but I stand by my choice to switch.

What stands out to me is how heavy my bandwidth usage was in the summer months. We were busy painting, doing house work and being outside, I wouldn’t have thought we were online that much but those months were higher than ones in the tv season. It’s no surprise that my upload was on par with download. When it came to torrents I preferred a 1:1 ratio, but I never considered how much that would be on a month to month basis.

Maybe it’s because I’m only a few weeks into my Telus usage and they haven’t processed my first month yet, or that they never intend to meter customers usage, but the Telus bandwidth meter is showing zeroes. For my personal benefit I will keep an eye on my Telus usage and see how it compares to Shaw’s and see what long term affects Netflix, Usenet and having a PVR have on my consumption.

February 9th was my first day with Telus and here is a recap of my experience with Optik TV, Optik TV High Speed and Home Phone so far.

Installation
Two technicians arrived for the install within the scheduled window and spent 90 minutes running cables and setting everything up. The two TV’s I had hooked up were in rooms with a pre-existing coaxial and telephone drop but they still replaced a few lines. They were able to pull a phone line to my entertainment unit downstairs so the modem would sit where the previous one did. The technicians were friendly and helpful for any questions I had.

After everything was up and running I was given a quick run through the PVR functions, the Actiontec router interface and a few other tips on the service. They left me feeling confident in the tools and I didn’t feel that they rushed anything.

Television
I am sure this is a feature with Shaw, but having never used their PVR services (I used digital cable for several years) having the name and telephone number of an incoming call appear on your TV is incredible. I called the house several times just to see “SEAN GURSKY” appear in the top left corner (). We have to cover the length of the house to reach the nearest phone and if we were able to see who was calling we could determine if it was worth getting up or not.

The second biggest wow is being able to pause live TV. By no means is this feature exclusive to Telus, but I never really had the chance to play with this ability and it’s incredible. I never thought I would benefit from having a PVR but now I wonder how I lived so long without one. We will still continue to download shows but now we can fill up the PVR with shows that aren’t widely available or things we don’t follow episode to episode and enjoying watching when we have the time.

Telus has an iPhone app to browse the program grid, view your recordings and schedule a recording. The app is convenient and I could see myself using it frequently.

I did have two problems with the HD PVR but they were both solved by doing a system reboot.

The first was being unable to create a new account for Remote Recording. I was given an “Error 500: Service Unavailable” and every time I tried I got the same message. The next issue was not having any audio on HD channels over my HDMI connection. The video would come in fine, and audio on SD channels worked but just not on HD. I restarted the system and both went away and my question list for Telus support went from two to zero.

Telephone
With the move from Shaw to Telus we downgraded phone features. With Shaw we had caller ID, voice mail, call waiting and probably a few other ones that added to our monthly bill. A part of why the Telus bundle is so cheap is that the telephone is bare bones with one feature. We opted to have caller ID, as our phones have a built in answering machine and call waiting is not something we used that often.

Although, there is a semi-solution for call waiting with Optik TV. If our land line is occupied and someone is calling us they would receive a busy signal but on the television we would see who attempted to call us (the same way we do now in the top left corner of the screen). It’s not an exact solution for call waiting but it’s a nice alternative for the rare times we have two people wanting to speak to us at once.

Internet
I have similar download and upload speeds to when I was on Shaw High Speed Extreme. According to speedtest.net my download speed is nearly 15MB and upload is 0.8MB. If anything my upload speed is lower than with Shaw, but as I am no longer relying on torrents this is not a concern.

I have been using DD-WRT custom firmware on my Linksys router for over a year and I got accustomed to the features it gave me. Now with the modem/router combination of the Actiontec V1000H I’m finding myself a little restricted. There are plenty of administration features on the Actiontec, but it’s not what I was used to or I don’t fully understand how to recreate what I had on the Actiontec.

I had a hurdle trying to figure out how I could administer my SABnzbd install remotely. This wasn’t a problem before so it was a frustrating issue. Previously I set the proper “Port from” and “Port to” for port forwarding on the Linksys DD-WRT and it worked fine. With the Actiontec I wasn’t sure if I have the port forwarding information correct, if Telus was restricting a web server from running or something else. As simple as the Actiontec interface is I wasn’t sure what the optional part of the port forwarding information I had to set up. Ultimately I changed my SAbnzbd install https:// listening port to match the one I would connect to from http://my.ip:port and it worked.

The current issue I am having is signal strength from the downstairs Actiontec to the upstairs Playstation 3. With the Linksys I increased the strength of the wireless signal (TX power) and added Windsurfer parabolas on the antennas. This allowed me to stream SD content without an issue and even 720p across the house.

Currently the Playstation 3 has a 50% signal but it occasionally buffers on SD content. I transferred the Windsurfer parabolas on to the Actiontec but I’m not able to increase the wireless rate to anything above 100% () so I’m at a loss for what to do. I have a few things in mind to resolve the problem but they involve time and money. Currently I’m thinking of:

• Putting the DD-WRT powered Linksys in between the Actiontec and my home server ethernet connection and use the Linksys to boost the signal to upstairs
• Upgrade the network card in my server from the current D-Link 530TX to Gigabit Ethernet card
• Piggy back on the coax cable running upstairs to either transfer the signal from coax to Cat5 or use the coax cable as a lead to run Cat5 up to the living room

With that said, this is my problem and not one that was caused by the Telus service or installation. I need to upgrade my network and I just have to determine the best way to do that. My PS3 Media Server will send 93MB/s to the wired PS3 and 8MB/s to the wireless one (), thus filling a 100MB connection and could account for why it sometimes has issues and sometimes doesn’t.

At the end of the day the Internet connection is reliable, I have solid speeds and while watching Optik TV I never noticed my Internet speed to decrease.

So far my experience with the Telus package has been great. With Usage Based Billing taking a back seat my move may have been premature but I am enjoying life where grass is greener. I may still be in the honeymoon phase of everything so I will write another post in a few weeks to see how I am finding the services then and if there are any issues that have appeared.

To say I loved The White Stripes would be an understatement. I have travelled several thousand kilometers to see them play, followed them for three days on their 2007 tour and they have dominated my last.fm charts since I joined.

Jack White was my inspiration on guitar. The music of The White Stripes is simple, but how he executed it is what made him unlike any other. He would play a plastic guitar, run it through a Sears brand amp and use every defect and imperfection to make something beautiful.

They were my favorite live act, where on any night the audience could get something new. Nothing was prepared. Nothing was written down. It all happened based on the mood and crowd interactions. Their free flying, anything was possible attitude made them stand out amongst other successful commercial acts. Over the years the music industry would change how they were perceived but they remained true to giving it their all, never making it easy on themselves and always being creative.

Perhaps that is why it makes it so hard to come to terms of their break up. They could have carried on making records and going through the motions, instead they took the road less travelled and ended the journey before it ruined what they had.

It is for a myriad of reasons, but mostly to preserve What is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.

I often think back to the road trips with friends in 2005 and 2007, or how Astro will always raise my spirits, regardless of how tired or what mood I am in. The memories I have associated with The White Stripes really will last a life time and I’m grateful for what I have, and with anything good, I just wanted a little more.

I will remember The White Stripes for a lot of antics with the media, a self perpetuated mystery, and interesting music videos. When all that is taken away it is easy to forget how much emotion a simple song can carry and I think the performance of White Moon in the last scene from the 2009 documentary (The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights) is a fitting scene to have your career fade to black on.

Farewell Jack and Meg and thank you for allowing us to join you on this trip.

If you looked at my contact history with Shaw over the last week they would think I was suffering from memory loss. I called to ask about cancellation policies, removed basic cable from my package, upgraded to Shaw High Speed Extreme and then called to schedule a service cancellation for my remaining products…all in the span of 72 hours.

When our cable was terminated on Monday I was surprised by what was left. I thought there would be a few channels like CBC or CTV that would come in, but they were fuzzy. Some channels I thought to be static came in clear like E! or MTV. I wasn’t able to pick up anything using Over The Air and I wondered if I made a huge mistake. We don’t need cable but it’s nice to have something to turn on for news or some other programming, which I thought would be the case with farmer’s vision.

I didn’t expect there to be nothing on the other side of a silent coax cable so I began researching. I went from looking at big and unnatractive OTA antenna’s, wondering if this would be too extreme for me and then wound up looking at Telus’ Optik TV option.

I was still confident on switching from Shaw to Telus but when I discovered the $15-$15-$15 for the first year deal for Internet, Phone and TV from Telus I contemplated signing up for TV…something I disconnected and thought I could live without only a few days before. I wrote down a lot of numbers and different scenarios and when the $15-$15-$15 promo ended after 12 months I would still be saving over $20 for all the services I had with Shaw. Those savings still covers Netflix and a Usenet subscription so I end up with more for less.

Optik TV is a relatively new service offered by Telus so I had a lot of questions about how it works, how it affects bandwidth, limitations of it and everything a Customer Service Rep told me (which was backed up by my online research) made me more sure of my switch to Telus than ever before.

I contacted Shaw and told them all the reasons why I was leaving and scheduled the Telus install for the second week in February. There is no guarantee that Telus won’t change their bandwidth policy and when that time comes I will be where I am now but at least I was able to tell Shaw how I felt with my wallet.

I have been with Shaw since 2006 and never had a problem with their services and was sad to go, but I hope I made the right decision and that I have a good run with Telus. After I have been using Telus’ services for a week I will write again and see if the move was worth it and if the future really is friendlier on the other side.