Shaw Outage

[killramos]

Anyone else experiencing a Shaw outage right now?

About 20 minutes ago everythif died (cable is still working so far) but my internet is down and my home phone is dead with no dial tone (queue the telus copper pair fanbois).

Sitting on hold with them on my cell phone for 10 minutes.

Nothing on their web site about an outage either.

Starting to get real pissed off about their telling me to use their online support every 30 seconds. Maybe I would if I had Internet.

Hell I have to use my telus cell to even get tech support

/rant

[killramos]

So the message from our friendly neighbourhood shaw tech support is. Yea we disconnected the services in your area because we wanted to upgrade something. No we do not have an eta for when things will be working. No we do not have any problems disconnecting peoples home internet and phone service at 6pm. No there is nothing I can do to make this go faster or help you.

Oh we didn't bother to update the nifty online network status tool that we have. Doesn't matter if we could have saved you 30 minutes of being on hold.

Fucking clowns. I REALLY hope I get one of those customer service phone calls later this week. Who knows though my phone probabaly won't be working.

200 bucks a month of service and they don't even offer an apology.



Dear shaw as of writing this post 20 people have already seen your shitty customer service. Maybe some of them will consider telus or Bells services in the future. I know i will.

90 minute outage because they felt like it. Finally back online.

[spikerS]

Wanna come to TELUS? I can make it happen.

And as an FYI, if we have to do something like this, and it is planned, we actually notify all customers impacted weeks in advance. It works because it annoys a lot of techs that want to perform work, but have to wait for customer notifications to be completed.

[Mar]

Originally posted by spikerS
Wanna come to TELUS? I can make it happen.

And as an FYI, if we have to do something like this, and it is planned, we actually notify all customers impacted weeks in advance. It works because it annoys a lot of techs that want to perform work, but have to wait for customer notifications to be completed.

Telus also sends people to collections while they're waiting for managers to call them back.

And telling people a manager will call them back within 24 hours is actually more like 3 weeks.

And when they tell you they don't block port 80, what they actually mean is they block port 80.

And if they offer you a free month of service, what they actually mean is that month will cost you $30.

And if you ask them to come install internet alongside your Shaw internet so you can do speed tests on both, they assume you want your whole Shaw system disconnected and the Telus modem screwed into the wall so tight that you need a pair of vice grips and the strength of a thousand suns to remove it.

[Mitsu3000gt]

[Isaiah]

I canceled my Shaw home phone and cable today. Now I'm saving about $100/month. I'd cancel the internet too but I'm not sure we can actually get reliable internet for less than $70 these days.

[16hypen3sp]

Shaw is getting rid of SPEED on April 1st too.

[MGCM]

How do you fix a corrupt company? You don't do business with them ever again, get everyone to stop doing business with them, and post something online stating that the next company to take its customers for granted will recieve the same fate as the previous company. The problem with society today is that ppl do not realize how much power they actual hold over these rediculous companies. What if for 6 months 500,000 of shaw customers in Alberta cancelled their service, all on the same day. Rinse Recycle Repeat for Telus. People are too attached to their tv and internet, im just as guilty as the next person, but if we want to fight back at companies who are ass raping us, then we have to be prepared to give up certain luxuries for awhile to prove to them we are seriously pissed and not willing to accept their bullshit ever again. I say its time to fight fire with fire, sadly I know society is not ready to take back its true freedom. Its easier to just bend over and take it.

[killramos]

Originally posted by spikerS
Wanna come to TELUS? I can make it happen.

And as an FYI, if we have to do something like this, and it is planned, we actually notify all customers impacted weeks in advance. It works because it annoys a lot of techs that want to perform work, but have to wait for customer notifications to be completed.

Thanks spikerS, i will let you know if that becomes necessary.

Looking into some shaw stuff they do list a scheduled outage for this morning in Calgary from 12:00 AM to 2:30 AM for the approximate outage time that my service was down for.

https://community.shaw.ca/docs/DOC-4330

So really either the techs took it upon themselves to do my area at 6pm the day before or Shaw said to themselves "Hey lets not pay the guys OT and we can do the work right when people get home from work!, it will save us like 50 bucks!"

Sounds like at least Telus puts the rocks to their techs to make it happen which is commendable.

It's not really about the outage for me ( i can live with my internet being off) but the way they went about it. Not one part of my support experience with Shaw could be considered positive.

And I created this thread so that the now 200 potential customers who have viewed it can see what they look forward to in terms of support if they sign up. If shaw wants to offer me no recourse for their shitty business decisions I have no guilt providing a review for those practices on the internet.

They just have no respect or consideration for their customers, 90 minutes yesterday my security system, surveillance system, and 911 line was down. Because they felt like it would probably save them a couple of bucks in all likelihood.

[jwslam]

If I was told it was an outage and there's nothing to do about it, I would've demanded a service credit of at least one day. My "day" at home is the evening anyways... I'm paying for something I can't use? UH NO!

[killramos]

^ I asked if there was anything they would do for me over this and they said so there is nothing they can do.

I'm not going to waste my life escalating to the next level of shaw morons. Not my style. Instead I am looking at the lovely fiber optik service that was just wired to my house 2 weeks ago from their competitors. Ill just kijiji my boxes if i switch.

[rage2]

Originally posted by 16hypen3sp
Shaw is getting rid of SPEED on April 1st too.

Speed TV is long gone, the channel was shut down in 2013. What remains of Speed TV in Canada had almost zero original content, and was primarily replays of old content to satisfy carriage contracts. I think Shaw is the last to drop it.

[speedog]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here for a bit.

So with respect to either Shaw or TELUS home internet services, I would suspect neither includes any sort of a guaranteed "up time" clause in their regular service agreement - actually finding any sort of a residential/home internet service agreement seems to be difficult for either provider.

Never the less, I would bet that if one can find said service agreement that there would be nothing in there about rebates with respect to a residential customer's surveillance system or security system not being accessible due to an outage on the service provider's network - my suspicions are that if you want some sort of service level with respect to surveillance or security systems, then you'll pay more for that type of guaranteed service. To complain about one's surveillance system or security system not being accessible because one's home internet is down - just won't fly as you're probably paying no where close to what one would pay for an internet service plan with a guaranteed actual service level agreement built into it.

Now with respect to the 911 line, no one has a 911 line - one can dial 911 and I don't believe that access to 911 is a legislated service. It is a service that is accessible through the public telephone network but I don't believe that it is something that you're guaranteed to have access to.

Now does it suck that Shaw took your service down, sure it does but after having worked for TELUS for over 26 years and being quite intimately involved behind the scenes on the network side, let me reassure you that not everything always goes as planned - sometimes shit fails, sometimes people do stuff at the wrong time. My recent internet upgrade from TELUS would be an example of how to do things wrong - it wasn't rocket science but yet TELUS, in all their wisdom, sent what I would consider an incompetent contractor to do a very simple job and that contractor failed horribly.

Outages (scheduled or not) happen at TELUS as well and TELUS will shit the bed as well, but after being a part of these forums for a number of years it does indeed appear that Shaw is slightly better at shitting the bed then TELUS. Never the less, people need to realize that their home internet service (and many business internet packages) come with probably absolutely no service guarantees.

Quick add - found TELUS' Internet Access Service Terms (link) and more specifically...

Disclaimers

48. You acknowledge and agree that:
1. All use of the Services is at your own risk;
2. The Services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis;
3. TELUS does not guarantee error-free or uninterrupted operation of the Services;
4. Neither TELUS nor its suppliers are responsible or liable for loss, deletion or alteration of any transmissions or data including, without limitation, any e-mail messages, for any material or data sent or received or not sent or received, or for any transactions entered into through or using the Services including, without limitation, domain name registrations, renewals and transfers;
5. TELUS is not responsible or liable for any act or omission of any third party, including, but not limited to, any threatening, defamatory, obscene, offensive or illegal conduct or any infringement of another's rights, including without limitation intellectual property rights;
6. Neither TELUS nor its suppliers are responsible for any content that is transmitted through the networks of TELUS or others or that is sent, received or accessed using the Services, by you or any third party; and
7. TELUS is not responsible or liable for loss or damage to your equipment, software or data arising directly or indirectly out of installation or maintenance of the Services.
8. The information you provide may be stored electronically on a server outside of Canada. The information will be protected with appropriate security safeguards, but may be subject to access under the laws of the foreign jurisdiction.


49. TELUS makes no conditions, warranties or representations about the suitability, reliability, usability, security, quality, capacity, performance, availability, timeliness or accuracy of the Services, any other products or services supplied under this Agreement or the networks of third parties. TELUS expressly disclaims all conditions, warranties and representations, express, implied or statutory including, but not limited to, implied conditions or warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, durability, title and non-infringement, whether arising by usage of trade, course of dealing, course of performance or otherwise.

Yeah, TELUS isn't guaranteeing anything by the looks of the above.

[killramos]

Oh don't worry i am quite aware that they are within their rights to not provide me with always on service. I even stated that i didn't actually mind the outage. I am understanding that things need to be done in every business that require service interruptions and shutdowns.

However it is their customer service over the incident that has pissed me off. My mentioning that i don't have security, 911, or surveillance online when they perform their "upgrades" ( nothing failed here, this outage was 100% their decision) was just an example of serious factors that are important to me that they rendered useless on a whim.

They had the choice to not send me notice of a service interruption. They had the choice to perform the service during a peak hour. They had the choice not to do it during their scheduled interval. They had the choice to blow me off on the phone by hiring a smug rep.

Now I have the choice to consider cancelling my service with them, after all i have no obligation to continue using their service. And I have the choice to post a poor review of my experience on the internet.

People who read this have the choice to consider my experience when making their future internet and phone service decisions.

[anarchy]

Originally posted by killramos
Oh don't worry i am quite aware that they are within their rights to not provide me with always on service. I even stated that i didn't actually mind the outage. I am understanding that things need to be done in every business that require service interruptions and shutdowns.

However it is their customer service over the incident that has pissed me off. My mentioning that i don't have security, 911, or surveillance online when they perform their "upgrades" ( nothing failed here, this outage was 100% their decision) was just an example of serious factors that are important to me that they rendered useless on a whim.

They had the choice to not send me notice of a service interruption. They had the choice to perform the service during a peak hour. They had the choice not to do it during their scheduled interval. They had the choice to blow me off on the phone by hiring a smug rep.

Now I have the choice to consider cancelling my service with them, after all i have no obligation to continue using their service. And I have the choice to post a poor review of my experience on the internet.

People who read this have the choice to consider my experience when making their future internet and phone service decisions.

Fired you a PM.

[DENZILDON]

I think Killramos just wanted a notification in advance so he is aware and if 911 is important to him, knowing in advance he could at lease make arrangements and prepare himself.

I switched to Telus almost 3 years ago and never looked back. Never had any issues.

PS: It does suck that I don't get a new TV if I renew the contract.

[killramos]

Originally posted by anarchy


Fired you a PM.

For full disclosure i would like to thank anarchy for his PM and consideration of my issue and the offer of assistance for my customer service experience (he works for Shaw and has forwarded my complaint on).

His PM offered me far compassion than my 30 minute on hold phone call with an actual customer service rep did.

It is unfortunate that I had to become the squeeky wheel to get the grease and it took an online review to be acknowledged but I am now far more satisfied with the handling of the outage.

[ZenOps]

It is an unusual service time. Usually they try to get things done at 2AM to 5AM to minimize disruption.

Unless it was a major issue that they think they might need 8 hours to deal with if things went wrong.

[DENZILDON]

Someone just got a big discount on their Shaw bill!

[anarchy]

Originally posted by DENZILDON
Someone just got a big discount on their Shaw bill!

For what it's worth, I spoke with the tech guys and simply put, there was a faulty fiber jumper which degraded service significantly so that's why they're working on it at an odd hour. No excuse for the bad customer service though, so that'll be looked at.

Thanks Killramos for understanding.