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.
