Shaw HD-PVR Retention Type Deal

[jimmerz]

my dad's shaw account was recently fully transferred to under my name (i am a full time student)
all i needed to do was quote them my student number and send in timetable

i got the same deal as above and it is good for 1 year

[Sharks316]

Been with Telus now for first month. It is no worse or better IMHO than Shaw. My internet speeds are fine for what I do. My download speeds are goods when downloading. I have three TV's in my home, but rarely have three live feeds at once and use the internet at the same time.

I honestly can't be bothered to watch the speeds using something like speedtest.net.

For me it came down to the total cost. Like all of you, I had been a Shaw customer for a long time (~23 year in fact). Triple play deal ended with no interest in offering me anything. Switching to Telus will save me personally save me a lot of money. This may not be the case for everyone. My Shaw bill was going to go from $127 / mo to $185. Telus beat the $127 / mo for year 1 and about a 10% increase in year two.

Telus has better tv/phone but they aren't in Shaws league for internet:idea:

u might not care about speedtest but others do;)

[SPACEMANRICK]

Any other current deals with Shaw right now for existing customers in B.C. that are up for their 1 year renewal after the 12 month $50 triple play reduction promotion (internet, tv, and phone) from last year?

[asmoboba]

My Shaw promo has expired, biding my time paying too much ($170) hoping they'll throw out some new retention deal, but not looking good right now. A friend of mine (I'm on Vancouver Island) within the past week called Shaw to see if they could do anything for her, and they said not a thing, so she's switching to Telus. They didn't bat an eye when she quit.

[DiploDocus]

My Shaw promo has expired, biding my time paying too much ($170) hoping they'll throw out some new retention deal, but not looking good right now. A friend of mine (I'm on Vancouver Island) within the past week called Shaw to see if they could do anything for her, and they said not a thing, so she's switching to Telus. They didn't bat an eye when she quit.

same

[asmoboba]

same

It would be interesting to find out what their strategy is at this point. They go from fighting for every customer through crazy discounting, to good riddance, don't let the door hit you on the way out. They have to be losing people right now, but maybe the cost of keeping people with retention promos is greater than the cost of losing customers but keeping more people on full price packages...

[embguy]

Lots of Shaw subscribers are switching to the new whole home system for $600 for the main box and 1 portal. Additional portal is $180. Each TV needs a portal unit. Those people have 2 -3 PVRs in the home. The demand is high for the whole home system. Shaw started to clear out the PVR couple of months ago. Shaw is discontinue the PVRs. That may be the reason why they do not have PVR deal any more. I don't think that they will lower the whole home system anytime soon because the demand is high.

After switching to the whole home system, they have to unload the PVRs. You can find some good bargain on PVR at Kijiji.

[cmanubc]

We've been with shaw for cable/internet for over 4 years, never called for a promotion. We're in the GVRD.
Just recently got a HD capable TV so decided to look into getting HD. From what I have found from Shaw/Telus, I think prices are about the same, except I get free PVR rental signing a contract with Telus. I don't like contracts, so I tried Shaw's retention. The first time through, I told them straight up that I just want HD hardware for free, and the rep said they can't do it. Granted I was going for the new Gateway solution, they said they are already selling Gateways below cost, so no way can we get it for free.

After that and discussing with my wife, since we stream a lot on netflix these days, we might be able to live without cable. So I went ahead and cancelled my cable, got some resistance from the rep, but no solid offer so I cancelled and arranged for a technician to come and disconnect things. The high speed internet unbundled would cost us $49+tax. I didn't look much into the only internet option, so didn't know what was out there. After cancelling, I looked up Telus and realize they are cheaper, so I called this morning to cancel everything all together with Shaw.

The retention rep I talked to was very nice and asked if I were to get a HD box for free from a friend, would I consider keeping my cable, so I said "Maybe if it's a HDPVR".
So he offered me 3 years of free rental on the Motorola 500G HDPVR, with that I can receive the HD basics at no extra charge. I kept my existing package of channels which I like, I get National Geographic and I can order NBA TV on its own during the NBA season, I really like that flexibility. On top of that, I can buy HD only theme packs for $10/month; there are 3 of them sports/entertainment/something, if I order all 3, it's not $30 but $16 for all 3. With the new SPP, each theme pack is $10, but to get all the HD sports channels, I would need to by both sports1/sports2 which would cost me $20, with a bunch of SD channels that I don't need. The entertainment one is even worse, split into 3 them packs!!

To conclude, I'll still be paying my old price of 84.95+tax (I have the old chinese package on top of digital basic) for cable/internet, but with free HDPVR rental for 3yrs, basic HD channels and the option to purchase more HD-only theme packs if I choose to. I know it's probably not an awesome deal, but for what I need, it gets the job done. And this is probably as close to an All-HD channel as you will ever get, for now!! In my opinion, unless the current packaging of SPP plays into your favor, going to SPP would only cost you more!!

Forgot to mention, this is not a done deal yet, I told them I'll think about it and they will call me back on Saturday. So let me know if this is a good deal, or if there are other things I can try to bargain for!!
Thanks!!

[Superhucard]

We've been with shaw for cable/internet for over 4 years, never called for a promotion. We're in the GVRD.
Just recently got a HD capable TV so decided to look into getting HD. From what I have found from Shaw/Telus, I think prices are about the same, except I get free PVR rental signing a contract with Telus. I don't like contracts, so I tried Shaw's retention. The first time through, I told them straight up that I just want HD hardware for free, and the rep said they can't do it. Granted I was going for the new Gateway solution, they said they are already selling Gateways below cost, so no way can we get it for free.

After that and discussing with my wife, since we stream a lot on netflix these days, we might be able to live without cable. So I went ahead and cancelled my cable, got some resistance from the rep, but no solid offer so I cancelled and arranged for a technician to come and disconnect things. The high speed internet unbundled would cost us $49+tax. I didn't look much into the only internet option, so didn't know what was out there. After cancelling, I looked up Telus and realize they are cheaper, so I called this morning to cancel everything all together with Shaw.

The retention rep I talked to was very nice and asked if I were to get a HD box for free from a friend, would I consider keeping my cable, so I said "Maybe if it's a HDPVR".
So he offered me 3 years of free rental on the Motorola 500G HDPVR, with that I can receive the HD basics at no extra charge. I kept my existing package of channels which I like, I get National Geographic and I can order NBA TV on its own during the NBA season, I really like that flexibility. On top of that, I can buy HD only theme packs for $10/month; there are 3 of them sports/entertainment/something, if I order all 3, it's not $30 but $16 for all 3. With the new SPP, each theme pack is $10, but to get all the HD sports channels, I would need to by both sports1/sports2 which would cost me $20, with a bunch of SD channels that I don't need. The entertainment one is even worse, split into 3 them packs!!

To conclude, I'll still be paying my old price of 84.95+tax (I have the old chinese package on top of digital basic) for cable/internet, but with free HDPVR rental for 3yrs, basic HD channels and the option to purchase more HD-only theme packs if I choose to. I know it's probably not an awesome deal, but for what I need, it gets the job done. And this is probably as close to an All-HD channel as you will ever get, for now!! In my opinion, unless the current packaging of SPP plays into your favor, going to SPP would only cost you more!!

Forgot to mention, this is not a done deal yet, I told them I'll think about it and they will call me back on Saturday. So let me know if this is a good deal, or if there are other things I can try to bargain for!!
Thanks!!

Did you talk to the chinese language rep or English rep?

[Superhucard]

I am not sure what the deal is with Shaw these days.
Their stocks are going down, they've cut 500 employees, but they don't want to keep their customers.
I have been using Shaw TV and internet ever since they took over from Rogers in 2000.
I used to pay full price for both until last year when I hassled them to give me some discount when
I signed up for phone service as well.
They gave me 1 year of promotion, and I was paying $60 + HST. When the promotion is over, my bill goes to $110 + HST
-Basic TV
-15mbps internet
-Basic phone

I called them back asking to continue this for one more year, but even the guy at cancellation department said they couldn't give another promotion, and I would have to pay the regular price "like everyone else does"

Ok.

So I call Telus, and apparently the 15/15/15 promotion x 6 months ended as of first week of June, but they would still offer it to me if I transfer from Shaw. The price would go up to $90 after the 6 months.

I finally end my loyalty with Shaw and will be using Telus. Hopefully after the 6 month promotion, Shaw will offer something competitive to win customers back.

This is exactly what happened to me too, except I had been with Rogers before Shaw took over.

[Superhucard]

It would be interesting to find out what their strategy is at this point. They go from fighting for every customer through crazy discounting, to good riddance, don't let the door hit you on the way out. They have to be losing people right now, but maybe the cost of keeping people with retention promos is greater than the cost of losing customers but keeping more people on full price packages...

To Shaw, almost everything is just fixed cost.

Any individual NEW customer is pure profit when their customer base has reached a critical mass.

[Jet007]

Speaking of the new gateway system that shaw looks to be going to, anyone know if its available here in the GVRD yet?

[Pauly Boy]

they would just need to see her registration again to have it renewed.


all i needed to do was quote them my student number and send in timetable

I have never had to produce proof of registration - I had it with me the very first time (was worried too, since I only had 1/2 my classes actually registered, the rest were waitlisted), but was never asked for it, nor the times after that.

[cmanubc]

Did you talk to the chinese language rep or English rep?

It was an English rep, does it make a difference?

[cmanubc]

Speaking of the new gateway system that shaw looks to be going to, anyone know if its available here in the GVRD yet?

When I spoke to their rep last week, they said it's launching on July 28th, which is Thursday!!

[Superhucard]

It was an English rep, does it make a difference?

Yes, chinese language reps never bother to offer deals, too much paperwork and hassle.

[desertdeal]

Any other way to lower my bills? My bundle promo just expired and was hit with 145$/mo, SPP is worse even if they say that I can save with it.:twisted:

[buckawheat]

I feel like I might be an exception here, but I am very much happy with my shaw service and experience - other than their support lines taking 1.5 hours to call you back, but at least they offer that service.

My 7 year old 160 Gig PVR broke (hard drive corruption I think) - the booked a service call and because I have all my services through them (phone, internet and TV), I was provided a replacement box by the tech (pace 160g - equivalent to the original one I had) no questions asked.

They also informed me through this that I could potentially save money by switching to the personalizer - I looked into it and now I will get much faster internet, same phone and a bunch channels less (we picked which ones - not many that we actually watched) and were able to save about $25/month. Most companies would be happy with you paying the higher cost without offering up that they have new options.

Overall, a satisfied customer.

[Carbo]

Just dropped Shaw for Telus yesterday myself (3 yr customer).

My old promo ended and with the personalizer now, all they could offer me was:

$89/mo

-Basic HDTV package (down from having all the HD channels)
-Free HD Box rental (lost my free HDPVR rental)
-High-Speed Internet (lost Extreme internet)
-Home-Phone Basic


So for roughly the same price per month with Telus I ended up with HDPVR and pretty much every channel under the sun.

[wanton007]

Just dropped Shaw for Telus yesterday myself (3 yr customer).

My old promo ended and with the personalizer now, all they could offer me was:

$89/mo

-Basic HDTV package (down from having all the HD channels)
-Free HD Box rental (lost my free HDPVR rental)
-High-Speed Internet (lost Extreme internet)
-Home-Phone Basic


So for roughly the same price per month with Telus I ended up with HDPVR and pretty much every channel under the sun.

Did you sign a contract with Telus and is the $90 price good for 6 months or however long you signed up for?

[barsuk666]

For new customers Shaw pricing is good. The moment that I called Bell saying that I am out they immediately matched everything:
Basic TV with free upgrade to HD including free rent of HD PVR (own after 3 years) for $28/month (Basic package + HGTV + Food Channel). Prior to that I was paying $48 supplying my own paid for standard definition receiver.
Next thing on my list is to call Bell about phone or switch to Teksavvy phone line. The problem with Bell is keeping in mind to call again a year later, but since I do not have any contract will see there and then