The purpose of this thread is for Digital Home members to review and relay their experience with Shaw Digital Phone

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What product or service you purchased.
Approximate timeframe you ordered the product
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Your overall level of satisfaction
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I really like this phone service. I have had it since July of 2005. The service includes everything. To get the service it took me 5 days as I got a new phone number. And it works great. I had one outage since then it was in July of 2006. I called home got my voicemail, went home no dialtone. Called Shaw from my cell phone at 2:00 am and they were there at 3:30 am it was fixed by 3:50. So they have good support. Thanks

Only one outtage after 3 years of service. Good customer support. The only thing I would like changed is the option of long distance, if you don't use it. That would lower the price a little. I'm willing to pay for good service though...

I am extremely happy with my Shaw digital phone service, and you can see my full review in the following thread found HERE (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=78980)

Thanks
Shawguy

We've always been pleased with Shaw's service for internet and cable, so the decision to switch to their digital phone service was an easy one to make. Excellent options and good price. Service, as mentioned before, was and continues to be excellent.

However...

PRODUCT: Digital Phone

SINCE: March 2008

OVERALL SATISFACTION: Performance of the product itself, not very. Service, however, has been prompt and thorough. Features remain a good value for the money.

CONCERNS: Concerns are technical in nature and have nothing to do with the quality of Shaw's service/support. We've been experiencing an ongoing problem with a weak signal (a technician will be coming in a week to the check out the problem). In six months, voicemail needed resetting three times and phone service has failed three times (once in the middle of a phone conversation). Messages have been missed. Line quality has been disrupted by static. At times, the caller's voice cuts in and out during conversation. We've had to ask callers to repeat themselves. Some complaints from friends and family who try to phone us. Early on, the voicemail system itself didn't operate smoothly when we tried to access it.

In power outages (which we've already experienced), the modem battery for the phone only holds a three hour charge (or longer, depending on how often you use the phone during power outages). Apparently, you can buy another battery to up the charge to 12 hours but none seem to be available for purchase (the installing technician checked). We didn't find out about this tech aspect until the actual installation. Shaw told us that even without dial tone, dialing 911 on a digital line will send a signal to the operator along with the caller's address... emergency service will apparently be sent without a confirmation return call. While we've no reason to disbelieve them, we don't know enough about the technology to understand how this works.

Like access to drinking water, electrical power and heating, phone service is one of those things we've always taken for granted. Until now. We're going to give digital phone service one more chance. Maybe the technician can solve the problem. If not, we'll probably switch back to our previous phone provider.

We have changed to Shaw business phone service mid 2008. Their service has been very good but not totally. Our business also functions with 800 incoming phone numbers. Although promised the service is still not available and Shaw's front line people have no answers. While monthly service costs have been substantially reduced we still have our dreaded reliance with Telus to maintain only our 800 services.
In December 08, our city suffered a day long electric power outage. We totally lost our phone service about 15 minutes later, for the entire day. After such a difficult experiencewe have had to research a power backup system which would not be necessary with Telus.
Obviously Shaw has more to do to be a true competitor with the big phone leaches

We just received a notice that they are adding Shaw to Shaw calling anywhere in Canada at no extra cost, not a bad deal. We are on Digital Phone Lite.

Had digital phone since pre launch until very recently.
Quality of voice calls seems indistinguishable from POTS.
Reliability is high, but not perfect. Have had a few unexplained outages, even though checking cable TV and Internet, knew the 'plant' was up, so problem specific to digital phone.

The upside of having digital phone is that the circuit is monitored, so a plant outage will create an alarm for them and get working on it right away.
A plant problem is when the entire cable wiring infrastructure goes out.
This affects TV and internet as well, so it's like having an automated service call.
If you are not on the net or watching TV, then it might get fixed without you even knowing about it.

Canceled after trials until they came back with the battery backup option that is now standard.
This is just inherent in the technology. Not normally a concern, but as noted by others, and extended outage could be problematic.

Used the $55 N.A. unlimited long distance.
This saved us quite a lot and is excellent value.

Now they have various plan options to suit most users.

If unbundled, cost $10 more, which then makes it un-competitive.

Only left as POTS was tied to a free year of TV from another provider.

Would return if/when we went back to Shaw for other services.

The whole multi-year experiment has been essentially transparent for us.

I switched to shaw from telus three years ago and have digital phone. I wish I had never switched. I am without phone service AGAIN as I write. This is the fourth time in three years. Pick up the phone and there is no dial tone. If you call my number a recorded voice says there are network dificulties. Each time I have waited 4-7 days to even have anyone show up. Everytime it has had nothing to do with anything inside my home, but with their service box down the street. They can't even send someone out to have a look at it, but insist I must be at home to have someone look inside the house. Their service is unacceptable. I live in one of Alberta's largest cities and am shocked this is the kind of service they supply.

Fourth times in three years? You're lucky! I've only had my Shaw services for about 6 months now, and their phone went out at least that many times! Mostly for short durations, but still. (One time I jumped into my car to zup over to where the tech was, and asked him why. They were working in the area, but we weren't notified because he said they don't call if it's less than 30 minutes IIRC).

However, comparing it to our ILEC, MTS, it's terrible. I know that regular POTS service is more reliable than this type of digital phone service, but I don't think it should be this bad. I just made my appointment to switch back to MTS. They aren't perfect, and I still can't get their Ultimate TV service even though it is in my neighborhood, I'm just that dissatisfied with Shaw. I'm probably going to lose money, too, because Shaw bills in advance, but at least MTS is giving me $40 credit IIRC, for switching everything back.

It sucks that there's only two Phone/TV/Internet companies here.

As I stated elsewhere, my experiece with Shaws phone service has been very poor. Two outages in a year. With Telus /AGT previously for 20 vears. Not one outage. Not one. Customer service on downward spiral.
All outage issues due to Shaw service drop/ technician issues.
I cannot believe the amount of people that accept this poor product with a shrug. I feel I will be going back to the old twisted pair PDQ.

What product or service you purchased.
We have four Shaw Digital Phone lines.

Approximate timeframe you ordered the product
September 2009

Your overall level of satisfaction
8 out of 10. Technical support could be improved. I always get the feeling the phone reps really don't know the technology very well at all. However, if you have patience and can explain things slowly and clearly, they're adequate. And, they actually speak English well, unlike most of Telus' reps.

If you had a positive experience, please explain what made it such a positive experience.

Cost - $130 per month from Shaw vs $200 per month from Telus, before taxes and long distance, and we get free Caller ID. Caller ID doesn't display 7% of names, but for free, I'll live with that.

Reliability - zero downtime so far. We have had services from Shaw for at least 10 years and have had better reliability from them than Telus. (I realize my experience here is atypical.)

Better audio quality - we get measurably better audio quality out of Shaw than we did from Telus.

Security - anyone with a couple of alligator clips could have tapped my Telus line; my Shaw DPT is located inside my suite.

Once again our Shaw digital phone is out. My wife is due any day now and obviously needs the phone to contact me or 911 if need be. Our alarm beeps when there is no phone, so of course it always goes out in the middle of the night. It was fine when I woke up, then goes out again after I get to to work.

This is the 3rd time this year, at least. It also went out last year a few times. What good is the back up battery when there is no signal?

As much as I dislike Telus I guess I'll be going back.

I'm sorry to hear of the problem. Out of curiosity, do you have any other Shaw services such as TV or Internet? Do they go out too?

Congratulations to you and your wife!

m.

Yes we have Shaw internet and cable. The TV was out as well. So I got a hold of Shaw, and the tech called my wife on her cell. They seemed concerned with the amount of calls we had about the problem. They arranged for a tech to come today between 8-12. Well it's 11:50 and no tech has shown up. I guess I'll be calling once again in 10 minutes:rolleyes:

Shaw phone at noon to tell my wife the tech is busy at the last appointment, so it was rescheduled for 2-4, which of course he comes near 4pm.

Any ways, he found the connector wasn't done very well from the tech who installed it. Also he worked on the line outside under some grate and fixed a connection in there too. So hopefully now we won't have any more problems.

We switched over to residential Shaw Digital phone and internet (from Telus) just over a year ago now, and are extremely happy that we did. Not only have we experienced great customer service, but we have had (knock on wood) no outages or problems since installation.

The only negative thing I can say is that once we switched those two services over to Shaw, we began receiving (literally) weekly calls from Shaw customer service asking if we wanted to switch to Shaw Cable TV or informing us of a special promotial pricing if we wished to switch our cable services over as well, etc.

These calls were in addition to the biweekly letters that were arriving in the mail (promoting Shaw Cable). It took a few months of specific requests to the telephone representatives that were callingto put a note in our file confirming we were not interested in Shaw Cable and to stop contacting us in that regard. We have not received a call in this regard in quite some time, but still receive (on average) monthly mailouts from Shaw.

All in all, our experience has been a good one!