Family, Finances & Tech
Review of TELUS TV
I’ve been using TELUS TV for over a year now so I figured it’s worth reviewing as Canada’s #2 phone company gets ready to launch their HD service later this year.
The Free Trial
In early 2006, I had the fortune of being selected to participate in the free trial for TELUS TV (TTV). After being selected, a technician completed the installation within an hour because it only involved the installation of some additional hardware (two digital boxes, network switch, ethernet cabling) and some configuration in addition to my Linksys WRT54G and TELUS issued D-Link ADSL modem.
Initially, my TTV experience was average; It wasn’t much different from Shaw’s digital service. Picture quality, channel lineup, and the channel guide were very similar to Shaw Digital. However, being a free trial service I didn’t expect much in terms of reliability . That said, during the trial the picture would often be pixelated and freeze almost daily. The only solution was to reboot the digital box by unplugging the power. More about this in the Reliability section.
Free Re-installation of TELUS TV
I moved to a new place around the time the free trial ended, nevertheless, TELUS re-installed TTV in my new house free of charge (Chris likes free!), but this time the job took several hours. Being a new home, the house was pre-wired with CAT5 ethernet cable throughout, but the termination point in the garage was literally a mess of loose wires. One tech proceeded to clean up the wiring mess, crimping each set with an RJ45 connector and plugging each into the free 2WIRE 2700HG-E Gateway. The advantage of this setup is every ethernet wall jack throughout my house runs through the firewalled router — sweet! He also installed a pot splitter at the termination point in the garage so none of my telephones need DSL modem filters.
Meanwhile, the other tech solved my wall jack dilemma: At the time, I had two TVs: one on the main floor and one in the basement, but there were no ethernet outlets nearby either TV! I should mention that TTV currently only supports two TVs per household. I think it’s a bandwidth issue, so basically, if you have more than two TVs in your house, you’re screwed. But don’t worry, they’re in the process of rolling out ADSL2, which will increase the bandwidth significantly to make room for HD and allow for more TVs (hopefully). 
Upon my request the tech converted all of the phone jacks, which actually run on CAT5 UTP cabling but only uses two of the available eight wires (apparently standard practice in new homes), into dual jacks: an RJ45 (network) and an RJ11 (phone). And wherever I wanted to have more than one network device, TELUS gave me a free SMC EZ Switch. I was able to hard wire my TTV to the basement TV along with my Xbox via ethernet cable instead of the flaky Xbox wireless adaptor (never did get it to work–too much interference).
I should mention, the technicians were very professional, answering all my geek questions, and removing their shoes as they entered and re-entered my brand new home!
Hardware
During the re-installation in the new house, TELUS provided me with the following hardware all for free (depending on your plan, see the Cost section for more info):
- Two RCA (Thompson) IP1000T IP Video Decoder Set Top Boxes: Rear jacks include digital and RCA audio outputs, S-Video, RCA video outputs, an ethernet jack, and two USB ports (not sure what these are for); it includes a universal remote (kinda looks like the Xbox remote–RCA) for up to four devices; the box runs on a Windows OS. There’s no hard drive built in and recording with a VCR is a pain because you can’t tune more than one channel at a time–translation: you can’t watch another channel when recording. But rumours suggest the HD version of the TTV box will include recording capabilities with either an option for an internal hard drive or remote storage available for a per GB charge.
- 2WIRE 2700HG-E Gateway: PROS – All in one router/modem; solid user interface; easy to setup port forwarding and wireless security; includes three internal antennas that offer excellent WI-FI coverage throughout my house (better coverage than the Linksys WRT54G) thanks to adjustable signal strength settings; CONS – no VPN capabilities; UI is slow to load.
- SMC EZ Switch: Plug it into an AC outlet, plug in your WAN cable, plug in up to four devices, ’nuff said.
Features
- Interactive Program Guide (IPG): The coolest feature of TTV is this web page accessible on channel 1. You can access headlines for TV, news stories, sports, weather, and movies, but you can’t surf the web (although it runs on IE). There’s also a ticker scrolling along the bottom with breaking news. All this is displayed with the previous channel (before you clicked ‘1′ on your remote) in a small box to the right, so you don’t miss your show while you read the headlines.
- Digital Music and Radio: In addition to 45 CD quality music channels, TTV offers radio broadcasts from across BC and Alberta. I personally enjoy listening to local hockey broadcasts of NHL and junior hockey towns. Take that Shaw!
- On-Screen Caller ID: If you’re a TELUS caller ID subscriber, your TTV box will display the name and number of phone calls on your screen so you don’t have to leave the couch–gotta love that!
- Reminders with Auto Tuning: As you browse the channel guide, you can set reminders to popup on screen when a show is about to start or have the channel automatically change to the show when it’s about to start with Auto Tuning.
Reliability and Performance
I mentioned earlier that during the trial, the image would often pixelate, freeze, or stop working altogether. Since the trial ended, these issues have been addressed. The reliability of TTV has come a long way and is now to the point where it’s rock solid–I don’t wonder when it’s going to screw up next.
As for performance, changing channels is slow when compared to Shaw’s digital service — I find this particularly frustrating because I’m a channel flipper. So if you like to punch those channel keys, TTV isn’t for you.
Another performance issue arises with the speed of the Internet connection when both TVs are being used while simultaneously surfing the web. The download stream drops from an average of 1350 kbps to around 300 kbps and the upload gets so ridiculously slow that I’m not going to bother mentioning the speed. TELUS explained that the 2Wire gateway is programmed to prioritize packets, and TV packets take top priority over a computer’s packets. They can’t fix this until new hardware is issued, and this won’t happen until HD is rolled out in late 2007. This is totally unacceptable. I argued that I’m no longer on a free trial and was now a paying customer of both Internet and TV services. Therefore I should receive the full services promised for the money I pay. When the TELUS rep asked me how he could make me happy, I said give me full service/speed or give me a discount. So I received a $5 monthly reduction off my TV bill for six months as compensation.
Cost
Unlike Shaw, you have a fair amount of choice in what channels you pay for. You start with the Essential (basic channels) package ($22), then have the option of choosing theme packs ($4.50-6.00), specialty packs (i.e. french or adult channels), or a selection of à la carte channels ($2 each).
As you buy more packs or individual channels, they get progressively cheaper–everything is cheaper in bulk! While you don’t get to select every channel, at least you don’t have theme packs with crappy channels rammed down your throat like Shaw!
I mentioned earlier that the hardware was free. Well, this all depends on the plan you sign up for. However, upgrades to the hardware is included regardless of which term you choose. Pricing is shown below:
Much like their cell phones, TELUS wants to rope you in for as long as they can. So they tempt you with free hardware a free Logitech Harmony Remote if you sign up for three years.
Conclusion
Overall, TELUS has a great TV service on their hands; Shaw should look out when TELUS actually starts to market and go mainstream with it. The reliability issues have been fixed, the hardware and installation are free, on demand headlines are cool, and the technicians are professional, and the price is quite competitive with Shaw. As I mentioned, the WI-FI signal can be jacked up a fair bit, so you may eliminate some dead spots as a bonus when you sign up for TTV.
My recommendation is to wait for the HD service to launch before signing up if you have an HDTV–stay with Shaw in the meanwhile. If you have an old CRT, switch over to TELUS TV now and get familiar with how it works. When you upgrade to an HDTV, TELUS will update your hardware for free and you’ll be good to go.
Update: TELUS recently contacted me about a free trial for their HD service. I haven’t received an installation date yet, but the TELUS rep said to expect it sometime in the fall. My understanding is that my bandwidth will be increased significantly to accommodate HD’s requirements, as well I will receive a new set-top box that includes a built in recorder.
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TELUS ADSL2 Rocks My World
about 1 year ago - 9 comments
For those of you currently on Shaw’s High Speed Internet, I’m sorry to tell you that your Internet connection sucks. Why you ask? Because Telus is testing its ADSL2 service, and I’m one of the lucky few in British Columbia to have a trial fibre optic connection going straight into my house.
This fibre line offers More >
Telus Fibre Optics and HDTV in Vancouver
about 2 years ago - 32 comments
My Telus TV review has been read and commented upon like crazy—it’s my most popular post by far!
To update that post, Telus has recently been working on installing fibre optic connections around my neighbourhood. My townhouse complex is currently being retro-fitted for their new 25Mbps service! It should be up and running by late December. More >
about 10 months ago
It’s unfortunate Telus could not provide Telus TV to those who has the High Speed Turbo plan(10 to 15 Mbps plan). I have an average of higher than 12Mbps internet speed running Linux(Ubuntu) and I am reluctant to return to 6Mbps so I can have Telus TV. I wish they could work around that issue.
about 10 months ago
Even if you were to decide to switch to Telus TV, you would NOT get 6Mbps, you will only get up to 3Mbps – the other 3Mbps is reserved bandwidth for Telus TV (iptv). Yes, I was getting a lower speed – close to 1Mbps w/ my 2 telus setup top boxes running. I complained and got Telus to move me from a 7MB profile to a 15Mb profile. Now I can run both the boxes and still achieve close to 3Mbps. Nothing like your 12Mbps…
about 10 months ago
TELUS now offers satellite TV so you can have the faster 10MB service AND TV. Satellite TV also offers some premiums channels that IPTV does not – NFL Sunday Ticket for example. TELUSTV isn’t perfect, but since I don’t need super-fast internet or HDTV, it is WAY cheaper than any other option.
about 2 months ago
Since my initial Telus TV installation on April 28, 2010, I have G-R-E-A-T picture quality, a whole lot more channels, lower bill plus a lot of other perks. The new CISCO PVR is great as only one PVR is required. You can instruct the PVR to record a program from any one of the 6 HD boxes and can record up to 3 programs at a time.
I was hesitant to move to Telus because of possible degradation of internet speed until the pictures on my Shaw Cable continues to pixelate. After reaching their customer service and explained the situation to them, they confirmed it was a weak signal and need an in-house call by a technician. They could not send someone out for 12 days. On top of that, they refuse to give me a credit on my bill. That’s when I decide to cancel the service regardless.
After my Telus TV installation, I was surprise my internet speed has 11 to 13 M download with 2 TVs on and a program recording on the background.
On yesterday’s Vancouver Sun (May 22, 2010),we’ll have the option of up to 30M internet download speed by the end of the year because of Telus’ agressive optic fibre installation program.
If you’re still using Shaw digital box, you are still getting analog signals from channel 2 to 59. Anything above that is still average quality resolution. With Telus, every channel is clear and have better picture quality.
I give Telus my 2 thumbs up.
Note: to qualify the above testimony, I am not a former/present Telus employee. I have Telus Turbo internet option(15 M) prior to Telus TV installation. Telus has up my internet speed to 19.2M without charge.
Telus got my 2 thumbs up.
about 10 months ago
After 1 year I cancelled ttv,4 or 5 times a month I had to reboot the box.My picture kept on freezing up almost every day.
I had a tech guy out twice to check out the problem last time I got a sixty dollar service charge I payed it and cancelled my service. Then I got a $120 cancelation charge. All that for lousy cheap equipment that dos not work and lousy service. For the last two months I am back with shaw hd and all ok.
about 10 months ago
What a pile of #%$^. Read the comment by Sherri -exactly my experience. They were supposed to install two receivers and installed one. They were also to install HDTV but didn’t. No problem it would be hooked up the next day. 10 days later no HD. Tonight I watched a Canucks game and it was horrible. The picture looked like watching through the bottom of a beer glass, all blurry with white levels way out of whack. My Internet has slowed to a crawl. I have 20/20 vision and I have a hard time reading text an inch high from 6 feet away on a Pioneer Kuro Plasma TV which BTW makes the deficiencies of this service PAINFULLY obvious. It’s a good thing eye charts are not displayed on this service, I would be legally blind. Latency is way up. I am seeing lag over ten seconds at times and even google times out. I am an RF guy and the receiver they installed creates a nasty ground loop. I had to buy a video isolation transformer to get rid of all the EMI and RF they spew from the receiver. And to add a layer of agony to their offering try calling their support. Every friggin day I call and I always get the standard “your order is in the system, we have no control over that division but it will be active in 24 hours guaranteed”. Dont even ask about the attempts to fix my busted internet, that would take another few paragraphs. I have asked for a manager to call me. That was 4 days ago with another guaranteed call back within 48 hours. As for the second receiver, I am also still waiting for the call to arrange an installation which will be weeks away. Here is my summary:
They can not correctly fufill an order.
SD is garbage – I used an old fashioned antenna and it gives a better picture!!
They are unable to add HD in a timely manner.
Telus cannot resolve customer issues in their “guaranteed” timeline which is long enough to begin with.
My Internet was fine until I got Telus TV – now it is unusable for hours on end.
And last but not least I sold my Telus shares today at a small profit. They will fail miserably in this market. I read through some of the posts and it looks all ran fine with a few users but now that they have rolled it out widescale everything is broken.
about 10 months ago
I guess for whatever reason my last detailed post didn’t make it. To sum it up this was the the worst experience I have ever had with an ISP or TV provider.
SD is terrible. I watched a canucks game tonight that looked out of focus.
I order 2 receivers with HD a month ago. I got one and no HD. Ten days ago they told me they would resolve it tomorrow. I have called them every day since and get the same canned response.
The receiver is as cheap as they come. I am an RF designer and this spews out so much RF and EMI I have to buy a video isolator to get rid of the garbage.
I have a very expensive and high quality TV – a Kuro plasma. It really shows up how bad this service is.
My internet now crawls with lag going up to 10 seconds at times. I get periods when my email and any webpage including google times out. They say it’s my computers. Big mistake on their part _ I sent them log files showing all the timeouts on their end. Now after ten days it is at tier 2 who one day will call me back. I am waiting.
At times the picture goes black for no reason and I must repower the STB.
4 days ago I got fed up with the poor powerless employees that work there and asked for a manager to call me back. Response 24-48 hours. Wow – the complaints must be rolling in.
Tomorrow night I will drink a few brews and when the screen goes black Telus can come sweep up the pieces of their offering from the street out front.
NUF SAID
WHAT GARBAGE
about 10 months ago
Update. Today I spoke with a manager at noon who said they were pleased to tell me the HD would be working by the time I got home. I got home and HD is still out but there was a funny smell coming from the receiver. I touched it and it was very hot. I decided that best to avoid a fire I should take it outside. I tripped on the balcony and the receiver fell on the drive way beaking into pieces. Whoops!
about 10 months ago
Great place you have here! We’ve had Telus tv for a year. We signed up for their biggest viewing package at the time. But since then they’ve come out with different packages and we lost several channels in the deal as our package was downgraded and now the package that would give us back our channels cost more. Isn’t this called “bait and switch”? What a rip off! We’ve talked to their loyalty and retention people (what a joke). Supposedly they don’t have the list of what our original channel line-up was that we signed up for. I think it was called watch a lot. What we need is a copy of the flyer with the list of packages with the channel listings offered in Sept. of 2008 that Telus sends people signing up for TTV. We’re seriously considering dumping Telus and we have tv, internet and phone.
Thanks!
about 9 months ago
Patrica – you ended up where I did. I cam calling Bell today to switch over everything that I can. I liked my Telus internet and cell phones (3 of them) but my Telus TV experience was so awful I am leaving them as a customer. Here’s something pretty telling. Canada post outlets maintain a stock of boxes that can be used to return the receivers and they cover the return charges. Returns must be very high to put this type of service in place.
If you can find the flyer you should be OK. I had a similar thing happen with my cellphone. My 2 year contract included unlimited incoming text. Later they wanted to charge me for the incoming text. I sent them a copy of the initial offer and they agreed to waive the charges. I was pretty happy with the Mobility service people, they resolved my issue quickly and to my satisfaction. The TV side is a different story, service there is as bad as it gets.
about 9 months ago
I have had Telus TV for about two years now. Last month i changed to their Satelite TV and my internet speed has doubled. Plus the good thing with this change is that I get movie package for six months free. The bill went down by $20 bucks as well. Good deal I say. Telus Satelite TV is the best.
about 9 months ago
>I have had Telus TV for about two years now. Last month i >changed to their Satelite TV and my internet speed has doubled. >Plus the good thing with this change is that I get movie >package for six months free. The bill went down by $20 bucks as >well. Good deal I say. Telus Satelite TV is the best.
Telus Satelite is plain ol’ Bell Express Vue. Telus finally abandoning their flakey Telus 2-Wire TV for Re-packaged Bell TV as Telus Satelite TV. I laugh at all you lemmings.
about 9 months ago
It’s unfortunate (but very helpful) to read these posts. I was looking for comments on Telus TV (not satellite), because we’ve had nothing but problems for the 14 months we’ve had it. Similar issues of freezing, rebooting, etc.
I don’t want to buy anyone’s box, because I think a lot of them aren’t reliable, and the technology is moving too quickly. But if you want to rent from Shaw, they only offer a crap HD box for rent, not the good one they have for sale. So, I thought Shaw might be the solution, but there seems to be a bit of bait and switch there if you don’t read the fine print.
Reading this forum, it seems all systems have problems, and they vary by location, equipment, subscription type, and the abilities and attitudes of the techs and tech support you get.
Used to have (non-HD) Starchoice, which worked great. Funny thing is, I switched to Starchoice because I was so choked with the service I got from Shaw. Then found out Shaw owned Starchoice.
So, if you only want to rent the box, and are looking for good, reliable HDTV service, it appears that nobody offers it.
I remember when using a telephone and watching TV didn’t require hours of research and tech support. Progress is a funny thing.
about 9 months ago
I have been a TTV customer for almost 3 years – my contract expires the end of this month. TTV has some good features, I agree but I have to honestly say that the bad outweighs the good. I still have problems with the pixels breaking up, the screen going blank or losing the signal altogether and having to reboot. Then there are the other problems with recording, like the screen you have to use to record a program on (yes, you have to program both your VCR or DVD and your “Telus” tv)is suddenly not available so you cannot program it to record while you are out! I do a lot of recording of conflicting programs and when I am out so this is important to me. Another problem I have had with TTV that I never had with Shaw is the problem of Canadian networks over-riding the American networks and the signal is not turned off when you are trying to watch something on an American network but all you get is CTV or Global. This just happened again to me tonight. When I spoke to CTV about this they explained that they let the provider know when the feed is to be cut and it is up to them to cut it. This has been a most annoying problem as I have missed whole programs because of it. The techies at Telus are not helpful at all when I call them about this and blame it on the networks. I also have Telus internet and have noticed a real slowness whenever I have a tv on at the same time. Sorry Telus, I tried but I can’t take it anymore. I’m going back to Shaw!
about 9 months ago
I ordered Telus TV last weekend. The sales rep at the shopping mall offered me a G-R-E-A-T deal with my existing 5 feature phone and internet. Two HD digital boxes are included, free of charge. However, I was forewarned that my internet speed has to come down from TURBO(15 M download) to ENHANCE(6 M download). I agreed. The speed change was done last night in preparation of the Telus TV installation. This morning, I noticed my internet speed has decreased dramatically. I also get an email advising the change.
With Speakeasy test, my download speed was less than 2.5M. I was very, very disappointed. This is very noticeable when you try to watch flash video on youtube or movies. The quality is choppy and sometimes freezes. I called off the Telus TV order and asked to put back on TURBO (15M download).
I search the web and noticed an article saying that unless I subscribe to at least one HD channel, Telus will only provide 9 M(3 M for each TV and the internet router) bandwidth, which explains why my internet is so slow. Even with a maximum of 15 M for the combination of the three is inadequate for quality service.
Unless Telus can resolve the issue in restricting its subcribers to the ENHANCE (up to 6M) internet option, I will not consider Telus TV again.
about 9 months ago
Do you know what you are asking for? You want to be able to download 15meg/sec and watch TV at the same time using one twisted pair. I am sure that once TELUS can break the laws of physics they would love to offer all of their services to you in a nice tight bundle…at premium cost since telcos are evil.
I would suggest that if you want to 15meg internet, home phone and TV on one bill that you look into the telus satellite service that they are offering. Until they start dragging fiber to the door or roll out the VDSL then you wont be able to push all services down one single twisted pair. The only reason that shaw can do it is because they run thick hardline coax to the pole outside your house then step it down to the tiny one that comes into your home. Companies like telus are stretching their networks closer and bringing the DSL closer so that speeds can increase. Again, its just a lame tristed pair so really until the laws of physics change its going to stay limited to about 20megs with current signaling.
All of these companies are doing the same thing, forcing more things down one pipe and trying to bring their network closer to your door step. I am impressed with TELUS TV but we need to understand the limits of technology where it is.
Oh, and to TELUS: HURRY UP AND GET SOME FUCKING FIBER LAYED
about 8 months ago
Hi radiogeek,
It sure would be cool to have fibre to the house but….one word – recession.
I think with TELUS lowering their rates to give us the great bundled rates we are currently getting, it’s probably pretty hard to find enough capital to make that kind of investment….that’s my 2 cents.
about 9 months ago
I ended up wrecking my Telus box and returning it. The customer service I got was terrible. In the end I ended up with Bell Expressvu. A girlfriend of mine also signed up for Telus TV (moving from Shaw) but still has Shaw HD service. This weekend I decided that as a good benchmark I would take over a spare dish and an antenna I had from the good ole FTA days and compare Broadcast TV, Shaw cable, Bell Expressvu and Telus TV. The winner hands down was Expressvu when one talks about picture quality. 4 of us did blind A-B testing where one doesn’t know what sample a or b is. We were able to watch the same channels on each provider. The TV used was a top of the line Samsung LN52A850 (52″).
Quality
Standard definition – the best was Expressvu, followed by in this order – Shaw, Broadcast TV, Telus TV. It was hard to believe but on some content, especially sports Telus TV was worse than broadcast. Compared to the others Telus TV often looked soft with exagerated white shades and poor color rendering. Shaw was only slightly better than broadcast and Expressvu was again only slightly better than Shaw.
HD – Expressvu and Shaw were identical. It was hard to believe but Telus TV was markedly of less quality. While watching TTV we found that when using HDMI every once in a while we would get a black border on all edges and on all channels. This should never happen. We called Telus support and were told that with some TVs the HDMI interface doesn’t work properly and that the TV and box sdliop out of sync. The tech told us that in some cases on some TVs customers get a pink screen. The HD channels offered by providers were basically all the same.
Price
For me I want HD channels, movie channels and some specialty channels. Shaw was the most expensive followed by Expressvu and Telus TV was cheapest.
Technology
Shaw probably has the edge here in that they have a cable plant with wide bandwidth right to the home. I would say Expressvu was equivalent but in the winter you will have to clean snow off the dish and in high rain periods you may see soem MPEG blocking but this should only be a handful of days in the year. Telus delivers everything digitally and it does use a large chunk of bandwidth. This is why you wont get top Internet speeds with Telus TV. This is also why in some areas you can not get HD from Telus. They simply can not deliver the required bandwidth. And this bandwidth issue I believe is at the root of their problems. To deliver video they compress it using what is known as lossy compression. This in layman’s terms means that you lose some of the original content. With some video/audio lossy compression it is good enough that the human eye or ear can not tell the difference. In the case of TTV the video is compressed so far that the eye does see the difference. Have a look at the edges of objects – does it look crisp or blurred. Everyone that watched Telus noticed it.
You can read my comments on service elsewhere on this site but Telus has major problems and they are absolutely swamped with support calls.
My advice if you want SD only stick with Shaw. If you want HD and SD Expressvu is the way to go.If you have an older TV, Telus TV may be a good choice but be prepared taht when you do buy a newer TV that it will look terrible on SD. AS it is I can’t Telus succeeding with TTV and maybe this is why they now offer expressvu rebundled.
about 9 months ago
I totally agreed with radiogeek’s input on October 17. Telus needs more FTTH(Fibre To The Home) connection in order to offer a combination of high speed and multimedia service. In my area, I have two FTTN(Fibre To The Node) fibre boxes at both end of the street, so the fibre connection is closer to my phone jack but this is obviously not good enough.
I have to admit though, since the installation of fibre boxes, my internet speed is closer to the limit of 15M (ususally 12.5 to 13.2M).
about 9 months ago
FTTH isn’t going to happe – the cost of installation is very high. What you will see though is FTTC with the last link being high speed wireless. For TV they could even consider DVB-T which is the terrestial version of DVB. DVB is used for sat TV and works quite well. If Telus wants TV probably best to do DVB-T and Wimax for Internet/phone from the FTTC POP.
about 8 months ago
Realist, you are absolutly correct about it taking a lot of capital but most of the fiber trunks that would feed those services are laid already. The only issue is that right now most areas are copper only from the fiber drop to the house-terminal so that’s why they are leveraging DSL2, DSL2+ and soon VDSL. Fiber is not as pricy as it once was! It would be super cheap to install carrier grade ethernet switches and singlemode/multimode fiber from that to the home. As much as people love to hate TELUS they are doing a damn good job at getting the technology right for new residential developments, however most existing neighborhoods should not expect to see fiber to the home, its just not worth it. They are trying to leverage their existing copper infrastructure which is under attack from VoIP, cell phones, and people moving to other dial tone options. Not to mention copper theft…Now that they have all these spare pairs it allows them to move to 4-wire services like high rate VDSL. If they get into a situation where they need to replace the copper, it is cheap to install hybrid cables with copper and glass or a separate ariel cable for glass at the same time. I should also point out that TELUS has more fiber up than we realize! The services in the CO are slowly but surely moving into remote units that sit in the neighborhood. They call these SAC boxes and they have been installing DSLAMs there. Some of these remotes even do dialtone and TDM based services.
At my office we have telus tv but its on its own link, we also have telus fiber that goes into a cisco device. I am happy with both since the TV is HD and the internet is 100Mbps, now if only I could get that at home…
about 8 months ago
Has anyone come up with a way to record and watch on the Telus PVR?
about 8 months ago
start your recording, go into your pvr recordings and push play on the program you just started recording, then you can switch the channel and it will still record your show.
about 7 months ago
As a long time client of AGT then Telus i wasn’t surprised to find a blog that contained the usual recounts of telus failures. Employee’s of Telus petitioned the crtc a number of years ago in an attempt to block Telus’ entry into the television world. Sadly it didn’t prevent it. I have years of Telus problems behind me but i’ll share a story that sums up telus support.
Telus “Glad to be able to help you today, is there anything else i can do for you?”
Myself “Could Telus look into the same call back system shaw is using currently? It seems to free up a lot of time for users calling in with problems.”
Telus “We are looking into that”
Myself ” But your the phone company, you already offer that service to clients…”
Telus “Silence”
Myself “Thanks much”
Telus has been having Unexpectedly high call volumes for 30 years… shouldn’t someone there have started anticipating non stop calls by now?
At least the future is friendly somehow thanks to them =)
about 6 months ago
Well, I must say I’m not up on the whole technology thing but I’ve had Telus Tv for a few months now and I have not had any problems. I love it. It’s a great price for A LOT of channels. Enough to satisfy all the members in our household. The installation guy was on time, VERY polite, and it took him less than an hour to do everything; phone, net and cable. I love the Caller Id feature and the auto-tuning, etc. The only thing I don’t like, as compared to Shaw, is that you can’t do a general search for movies, and the text is very small. Maybe there is a way to fix these things, but if there is, I haven’t figured it out yet!
about 6 months ago
It’s funny to see all the comments here.
There are a lot of people out there that are not tech savvy. My wife is one of them. TTV right now has been setup to service the average person who doesn’t care about how super fast their internet is or how crisp the picture on their TV is. They have decided to setup the service for the average joe/jane.
All the technical issues with picture quality and such do revolve around bandwidth to the home and any tech savvy person can tell you that the allocations for SD and HDTV that TELUS have used require immense amounts of compression to achieve. This is why you can’t watch swimming competitions on TTV (not that anyone would want to watch that anyway). The picture becomes so pixilated that it is un-watchable.
In a perfect world we would all have FTTH and not have to worry about compression and such. the HD stream would be full HD and you’d have crystal clear pictures. FTTH in Greenfield areas is already a reality and TELUS has fiber closer to your house then you might imagine. They have put huge sums of money into that technology. While FTTH in brownfield areas may or may not happen very quickly in the next few years it will eventually become affordable. Obviously areas with ariel drops will come sooner as burried cable presents a lot of challanges.
The long and the short of it is that for non-technophiles and people that aren’t buying the top of the line Panasonic / Samsung TV’s for their stunning visual quality TTV is usually just fine. I will say that occationally in those homes there are issues with picture freezing and black boarders but for the most part they are not doing to bad in this space.
For those that are tech savvy and/or into Blu-Ray and High Quality video on those expensive Panasonic / Samsung sets. Bring Tech Savvy you should already know that TTV is not the route to go. Even Digital Cable from Shaw uses compression that causes some sports shows on both SD and HDTV to pixelate. The only technology that can provide the bandwidth for true HD Quality is Satallite. Satallite has its issues too. No ability to really talk back to the head end means that VOD and those technologies are not easy to achieve. Most satallite boxes come these days with a LAN port. We can only hope that one day we’ll be able to use them to talk to the headend and request additional feeds and such.
Each technology has its problems and limitations and in the end it’s up to you to decided which things you can comprimise on and which you can’t.
Personally we choose the Telus Satallite and have the 15Mb ADSL service. My wife didn’t care but I cared enough for the both of us.
To each his own…
about 6 months ago
I tried to watch live ttv while recording as prescribed in an earlier posting but had no success. Are there any other suggestions on how to watch another channel while recording on a telus pvr?
about 6 months ago
The two tuner hack on TTV was disabled by a firmware update in the fall. I don’t know for sure as I am not an insider but there is a lot of speculation on the boards at DigitalHome.ca (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=187) from people who claim to know that this is going to be fixed in February.
about 6 months ago
about 6 months ago
I have never used Shaw for TV services. I used to have my TV through Novus which is only available in a limited area of Vancouver and before moving into the Novus service area I had StarChoice Satellite (which I think is now called Shaw Direct).
I switched to Telus TV (TTV) about 3 years ago and have been very happy with this service. When I first switched HD was not available in my area and the PVR had not been released; however, I now have both the HD service and the PVR.
When I initially switched it was the reduced price which enticed me and I now have more channels for less cost per month then I ever used to have with Novus (that is before taking into account the bundle discount on my phone and internet). Personally I have not experienced very many of the issues that are complained about over the web. I have had my box freeze occasionally although I have also had cable boxes on regular cable freeze at other locations and occasionally my old StarChoice boxes would freeze as well so I don’t really see a significant difference there.
My personal experiences with Telus have been very positive – when we moved they were very quick to schedule a date to install the service at the new address and both installs were quick and clean. Any issues I have had with Telus TV have been resolved quickly and with no issues.
Of course Telus TV is a relatively new technology and if you are looking for the more tried and true system you might prefer the established technology of Shaw.
All of that said, for me – living first in an apartment and now in a house – there is no question in my mind that I much prefer Telus TV to any other cable system I have had and I have no intention of ever going back.
about 5 months ago
hi, telus tv work’s great but i’m interested in punjabi hockey night saturday telus tv doesn’t have it but every one else do like shaw,bell, rogers. punjabi hockey come’s on 1 of the cbc ch. i want to know y doesn’t telus have it and when their getting it
about 5 months ago
what do you know about the new TTV HD witrh the 3 program record feature with telus
about 5 months ago
I was switched to the new TTV on Wednesday of this week. So far I am loving it. Internet speed has increased, the guide is significantly improved and the access to 2 HD and 1 SD stream at the same time is much more functional then what I had before. The PVR anywhere is also a great feature – I can now play back recorded programs (and set up a recording) on either of my TV’s rather than having to be in the room where the PVR is. I gather it is not yet available in all areas but if it is available in yours I would say it is well worth making the switch from whatever you are starting with – I have tried analogue and digital cable over the years as well as satellite and I haven’t found anything I am this happy with.
about 5 months ago
CAN YOU DOWN LOAD PROGRAMS TO A LAPTOP TO TAKE ALONG WITH YOU ?? I TRANSFER TO MYLAPTOP VIA TIVO IN NON HD MODE NOW
about 5 months ago
I signed up for Telus TV and it was installed 2 weeks ago. I LOVED it until yesterday when the set started freezing and took 4-10 minutes eacdh time to reset. Last night there was a power failure and now it doesn’t work at all. It is Tuesday and Telus won’t be out until FRIDAY to replace the box. I had Shaw TV for years and I can only recall a couple of hours long service outages. Terrible start and service time!
about 4 months ago
I have had TTV since mid December, switching form Shaw, so I though I would add my experience into this.
First let me say I do not have an HDTV so this probably applies to those of us using the older sets. I switched from Shaw as I was tired of them rearranging the cable channels, especially since the last one meant I could not receive all the channels I was paying for, at least not without paying more for a box. The biggest complaint I have had with TTV is the sales people do not always know exactly what they are talking about. I had a headache trying to adjust my package, took me hopefully 3 tries to finally get the information I needed. The signal, with the exception of one 12 hour period, has been good and is so far comparable with some of the outages with Sahw. I find the on screen guide much more reliable than Shaw, the programs indicated are actually on while with Shaw I found that not to always be the case. For my needs internet speed has been fine, my kids play online games and have had no problem. THe only headache I have had is with the wireless connection to one computer which may be the computer itself.
The cost of TTV, for the package I have chosen, is the same as I would have had to pay to Shaw to get the package I had. I am on the month to month as the discount I get for bundling services covers the cost of the box rental. The channel selection however with TTV is better than Shaw with several extra channels (and only 1 that I miss from Shaw).
So, overall, I have been satisfied with TTV when compared to Shaw. When I move to HD I will probably look into the various offers again but that will not be until next year.
about 4 months ago
I am looking for help with our TV. Since we have gotten on Telus, we haven’t been able to learn to program the DVD & VCR and our 2nd TV is not coming in. It has been about 3 wks since the installation. Thank you.
about 4 months ago
I have finally finished the switch from Telus to Shaw – cable, phone & internet, and everything is better! I get to talk to someone on the phone when there’s a problem, the tv is clear and stable, the internet is FAST. The only problem is Telus won’t stop billing me, but I guess I just ignore them for a while.
Does anyone know how to return Telus cable boxes and modems? They have stern warnings that you will be charged huge amounts, so I thought I would just drop them off. Of course I can’t get through that hokey interactive voice service thing.
about 4 months ago
I just took my boxes to the post office. They slapped a Telus label on them and shipped them for free. Done deal.
about 3 months ago
Alright then, after 17 years with Telus was forced to cancel everything. Word of mouth advertising on my part with how great “the ADSL woked, wow Telus was super”. The customer service was average, however as a computer engineering student lost patience when the support person asked me if my 3-com modem was pluged in. All that aside had no compaints. Last week decided that after Telus refused to send out a modem for my internet (wireless), noting I offered to pay for the unit and was told they dont “offer service”. My wife was instructed to run out to staples and buy our own wireless routers.
Their future was much more friendly prior to cutting my bandwidth in thirds, one for each TV and I guess they decided I no longer needed internet, it was only privallaged to 10 percent. I guess they assume most customers cant affort to pay off the contract, which we did.
I wont forget how much I enjoyed watching the very professional and polite tech that installed my first high speed ADSL service in 1999. I wont forget either how this same company instructed my wife to run out and and pick up the proper hardware better suited for wirless internet and cable 11 years later.
Not even convinced that when people like myself pay cash to void contracts… are even noticed. Im guessing it might take a few hundred thousand more customers like myself to pursude Telus to revist thier buisness plan. One idea is shy away from the 7 figure a day add budget and hire more support staff.
How could the best become to worst so quickly.
about 3 months ago
Just got Telus TV & internet yesteday ,Internet is excellent.
TV picture quality is not… Some one please tell me how to get the picture quality that the TV sales places have..I have never seen it duplicated at a private residence any where.
about 3 months ago
Telus tv is a nightmare. The first pvr that I received was obselete from the start. Every 10min there was a 10 sec mute in sound….especially annoying when watching a playoff game. So, I talked to telus repeatedly. I upgraded to a pvr that was “new”. Well, that meant that I had to pay a 10.00 cancellation fee/mo for the equipment that didn’t work. So I got my new pvr, I can technically record two channels and watch a third. What I got was screen freeze. There are two types of freeze. The kind when the picture freezes, you have to go to the menu, select another channel, then go back to the menu, and select the frozen channel again……..then it freezes again. The other is when the lights on the router go off, or the red comes on, then you have to wait. At this point there just are no other channels. Then recording……….I have alot of blackscreen recordings. I like american idol and I have the series recorded. What I have is black screen recording. My router is replaced, pvr replaced, the line replaced (I have only one tv) Internet is ok. So is telus cheaper? NO NO NO. They will keep you on any 3 yr contract even if the product doesn’t work. I am going to see my lawyer and try to fight telus………if they can’t fix the problem on fri. But definately I am so sorry that I committed to telus tv. It has sooooooo many flaws. They are crooked because I heard about the original pvr (silver) that they just throw discounts to people that complain. That was from calgary. It will end up costing you more and more and the service will NEVER be satisfactory. Yes they are all friendly, but too much complaining about equipment that doesn’t work will get a different reaction. If you are smarter than I and are reading this “before” you get telus tv, DON’T EVER.
about 3 months ago
What a joke. I have had Telus T.V. (and internet , land lines , cell phones) for two years , and while they were installing it they told me HD was not yet available in my area , but would be soon. After checking every few months , Telus said it was now available.
“Great , hook me up” . Telus set me up for the HD installation in 2 weeks , on a Saturday and would have to cut off our existing TV early Saturday morning .
All sounded good until we had a voice mail from Telus that HD is not available in our area , they made a mistake. Well, they cut off our existing TV as planned , and apparently gave out port to someone else (I assume a new subscriber) ,and has left us without TV for the last 2 weeks. After many phone calls, they said a technician would be there on Saturday to re connect us to TV (the way was before they disconnected it). We waited until about 3:00 o clock , on hook up day , I phoned Telus to see when the service technician will be around , and they told me it could be as late as 8:00 PM. Well , he never showed or phoned. A complete day waisted waiting for Telus. It is now Sunday morning , and after on hour on the phone with Telus , they are now saying there is no available port. Here I sit , venting through this blog , while my wife is on hold with Telus. They now say they will call us tomorrow , which is good becaue the ” future is friendly “
about 3 months ago
I just have Telus TV installed today. I have both TV turned on while surfing the internet. I just tested the web speed with http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and the download speed exceeds 10M and uploads at .71 M. A bit slower than the normal 15.8 M and .85 M repectively. I can certainly live with this because I am getting a lot more and paying a lot less than Shaw.
Unless Shaw, the sales and installer are courteous and patient in explaining everything to me. I highly recommended this service.
about 3 months ago
can someone please help.iv had telus tv and internet connected on thursday its now saturday and there is a movie on i want to record.so i follow the instructions to record a programme and a message comes up saying my ‘PVR is disabled’ i dont know what this means.can anyone tell me how to record a tv programme.thanks
about 2 months ago
All in all, I have found Telus TV to be a very frustrating experience. From a poor installation that had to be redone to the frequent rebooting of the boxes, I just don’t find it to be reliable. The choice between arrogant Shaw, with their “no contract” price hikes and hours long wait for tech support to a system (Telus) that fails far too often. Telus’s solution to the problems is to ask me to pay more and get Mediaroom. I say make the system I’m already paying for work properly.
about 2 months ago
I thought that Telus TV would be a good change from Shaw, as I have always had good experiences with them for internet usage. How WRONG could I be? Telus TV sucks my A$$. Issues with the hardware, loss of signal (or in this case, internet), it just continues… and the biggest issue is that they told me we would have HD on 2 TV’s 9 months ago and now say maybe by August… MAYBE?? Maybe TELUS CAN SUCK A RABID COW’S HIND LEG.
To be discontinued…
about 2 months ago
As I ponder going with Telus and wondering about all the negative comments in this blog…I can’t believe how, as a society we are completely sucked in by TV and we can’t seem to live without it. If you really look at it closely, there is really nothing on. I think I’ll stay with no cable and no satellite TV.
about 2 months ago
Didn’t they change up the EPG to Mediaroom or something? That looks like a variant of the same awful EPG interface my SaskTel box uses, although I must add that it looks a lot more tolerable in black and green than that dryer lint purple color they chose for theirs.
about 2 months ago
Have had telus tv and internet for a year and a 1/2 and generally it has been great. Lately the box has been a bit jumpy occasionally in that it takes a few seconds to react to the remote. Internet is fine, think Shaw was a bit faster but close enough.
Biggest thing for me was the free HD PVR box and second HD box free, great deal.
about 2 months ago
I really, REALLY wish I had stumbled upon this site before I agreed to have Telus TV installed in my home. Long story short, been with Telus for home phone and internet for nearly 20 years. Longer than there has been a Telus. Happy times. Now that I have Telus TV and all this awesome equipment, I have the priveledge of lock ups, freezes, crashing internet, and constant rebooting of equipment. Have had every piece of equipment replaced and every level of techy to my house, up to and including the super “batman” level tech, and none of them – NOT ONE OF THEM – knows wtf is wrong. At least the super tech was honest enough to tell me that due to the relative infancy of the HD stuff, it’s still pretty buggy. Well that’s nice, but it’s not worth the frustration.
Seems to me that some people have no issues at all, but the majority seem plagued by some deficiency.
If you’re here because you’re considering switching, do yourself a favour, and don’t.
Here’s wondering what will happen when I push “Submit Comment”
about 1 month ago
I have been with Telus for a long time. When we had problems with the freezing etc a tech came out and told us that it was the modem we had.. they switched that one out to a newer one anod no problems.
I really like Telus TV, happy getting all my shows earlier.
Shaw was crap, I was sick of seeing my bill increase every month by $.25 for some new charge and then a bigger increase a few months later. Shaw was strictly a money grap
Satellite never works half the time.. especially if there is a snow storm out East…
I’ll stick with Telus thanks.. they have been good and I must be getting different techs and phone suport than everone else.
about 1 month ago
2 weeks ago I had Telus TV installed at my home in Burnaby. The installer was on time and seemed pretty knowledgable. The HD quality on my 46″ Samsung seemed somewhat better than Shaw, although I couldn’t really tell. Just for the price of Telus TV, I’d recommend it.
about 1 month ago
I my opinion telus tv is crap. Mine has to reset itself everyday at least once. What a pain in the ass. It still freezes up & become unrespodsive. I have to unplug it wait 10 seconds & plug it back in let it reboot. The tech said it was “because your connections were old.” It was a new cable they provided 6 months before. Still nothing changed after the service call. I’d avoid them.
about 1 week ago
I have Telus TV now for about 3 months. I love it. I had Shaw digital before. I didn’t have nearly as many channels, and i had full cable, and when I asked about HD, they wanted WAY too much money. I would of cost me about $140 by the time i added all the channels I now get on Telus TV. (That does not include the movie 6 pack of HBO, movie centrals and some others I got with Telus) It also doesn’t take into account the fact that – when I last checked with Shaw about 6 months ago, they only had like 10? hd channels available. I have a minimum of i think it is 30 included in my package (highest package they got online) and I added the movie 6 pack to it. Other benefit, they upgraded my Internet from the regular 5MB high speed profile, up to now 15MB. I called the tech department other day, as I heard 25MB may soon be available in this area. Turns out mine is currently at 19MB they said. I tested it out just to see I ran both my HD boxes, and recorded at the same time (HD program) and I was getting about 13MB on my speedtest on my laptop. Not bad at all.
Yes, I did have 2 freeze ups. I have found if i do hold down the channel up or down button and go really fast (it is faster at changing channels that Shaw was that i can see..) then it will sometimes freeze for a sec, or require a reboot as I found in those 2 instances.
Only thing I’d like to see is the USB port enabeld on the Telus PVR (Cisco) so you can plug in external storage to it, to expand it past 160GB or for it to take advantage of a Network attach storage I plan on purchasing for my network anyway. (I think the router MAY be able to take advantage of that, but not sure if the Telus TV can see it yet…) I asked a tech and they said others have asked, and it may be ‘updated’ via software automatic updates at some point.
My inlaws still have Shaw, and they pay just over $90. For what I have with Telus, i pay a bit less than that for everything, and it’s alot more than what they got, and what I had before as well.
That’s my 2 sense. The picture as well looks MUCH BETTER than it did on Shaw.
I say try it anyway if you’re interested, I was given 1 month to see how I like it, even though the 3 year term to get the PVR and the 2nd box free..i like it.
Cheers
KC
about 1 day ago
yeah my Telus TV sucks. its still loading some thing and all i sat down to do after a long day of work is to watch some boob tube. Such is life I will soon stop using Telus b/c of this and other things. So I recommend the same to all of you.