My Shaw Digital Phone review

[shawguy]

Hello

I just got Shaw Digital Phone installed last week and so far have very pleased with the service.

I called in Mid January to get my phone service booked for the beginning of February, as I was porting my current number over to Shaw. When I called in they asked me several questions, such as did I want to keep my number, How would I like my phone number listed in the phone book, or did I not want to be in the phone book? The Cable bill was in my name, and the phone was not, so I was able to keep my phone number listed the same way it always has been, but I got the address portion removed for this years phone book. Shaw was very helpful to make sure that everything was the way I wanted it. Apparently you also have the option of having your phone number listed in the phone book, on 411 or both…so I kept both. There is no charge to change the way you want it listed unlike MTS. Shaw went over all the calling features and benefits and prices on the phone, I would say from when I started talking to her to when I hung up was a good 20-25 minutes, be reminded if you are calling to get phone and want to keep your number, have a current phone bill in front of you.

Shaw Port Facilitation Department in Calgary calls me 6 days before my install date and tells me that they are having trouble getting MTS to accept Shaw's application to take my phone number as my information I gave Shaw does not match what MTS has on their records, and Shaw is telling me I will have to re-book my appointment due to they need at least 7 business days to be able to process the porting process. I tell Shaw that if they have to re-book my appointment I will not be getting their phone service till Mid-March, and they agree that if I call MTS and get the information to them ASAP they will rush my request and keep my same service call date. I call MTS.....the reason the rejected Shaw's application.......I gave Shaw Last Name - First Initial and MTS had it on system as First Initial - Last Name.....OMG!

So the install date comes and Shaw comes, it takes the guy no more than an hour or so from start to finish, and he was taking his time...

They unhooked all my lines from where they came into the house with MTS, he extended the lines about two feet where he put a new wire housing, and then mounted the modem to my basement roof, he kept all the wires nice and tidily and they are securely attached to the wall. As you all know they are required to plug the modem battery back-up to an electrical outlets, so Shaw has these 6-outlet electrical wall taps, but normally, you just plug those in and then you plug what you need it, but Shaw takes off your electrical outlet face plate, and this 6 outlet wall tap screws right into your electrical outlet, so now you will always have that 6-outlet wall plug, and it does not easily come out - I thought that was kind of neat how they did that. The phone modem MUST stay in your home when you move as it is part of the property of Shaw, and Shaw will install a new phone modem at your new residence, as they cannot re-use the old one….as I was told that, the Shaw Digital phone modem, once installed is fixated to that residence, and if you move that Shaw Digital phone modem to a new house and happened to call 911, it will show your old address still. If you remove your Shaw Phone modem, you could be charged a fee I was also informed.

During the installation, it was determined that the signal to my house was too strong coming from outside, so he had to install a resistor between the modem and the cable. Usually it’s the opposite, poor signal, but apparently I have excellent signal strength – Good to know.

After they were done installing the phone, he did a test call to show me that my phone still worked, he checked all the phone jacks in the house to make sure they were still working, and he gave me my Shaw Digital Phone user guide. Just after he walked out my door, I was trying out the phone, and I was hearing a clicking just after I picked up and my phone was saying “extension in use” like someone else was on the line, so ran outside and he was just taking off and I flagged him down, and he came back into the house. He tried my phone and it was doing the same thing, and he had no clue why it was doing that – and he was playing around with it, and was getting ready to start to diagnose it, when just as quickly as it started, it stopped. He said he had never heard or experienced anything like it – and it hasn’t happened since! Odd.

Your first month’s service payment is due when the installer is there payable my cash or cheque, which was no big deal, and this is just because Shaw bills one month in advance, and so you don’t have a double bill next month.

Of course after the Shaw installer left, I had to try out all the features of the Shaw phone, and below is my experiences;

Voicemail

I kept this service for a whole two days after I got the phone service. It wasn’t bad, but I prefer my answering machine I have at home at the moment. I was finding that the Shaw voicemail was not notifying me of new messages like it should, Shaw states that;

“When you have a new message waiting, you will hear an interrupted dial tone when you pick up the receiver, or your phone’s message-waiting light will be flashing (on phones with a message-waiting light feature). You can still make and receive calls when you hear the interrupted dial tone.”

I was not getting an interrupted dial tone nor where any of my 4 phones that have the message waiting light – lighting up. I called 611 and they asked me what type of phone I had and I gave him 1 of my phone brands – and of course his response was “oh we are having trouble with that brand of phone at the moment with the message waiting light” and then I stated…well why would that affect my not getting an interrupted dial tone, and he said, oh it does…and then I said…ok you can cancel my voicemail service!

In those two days I did have the voicemail though, I found it to be very similar to MTS’ invisible answering machine with the options and such, its good enough for people who don’t have an answering machine, just wasn’t for me. Shaw Voicemail can store up to 20 messages at up to 5 minutes each and can be stored for up to 7 days I was told. (that info was not on their website)

For anyone wondering, Shaw tells you that in order to access your voicemail externally (not on your phone line) to call the local access number, but if you simply call your own number and when the voicemail kicks in hit the * key twice…you can access your voicemail. NOTE: When it asks you for your voicemail number enter your 10 digit number, as I found that when I just entered the 7 digit number, it would never recognize my password….which I found odd, but when I did the 10 digit number, first try I was in.

Call Forward

Tried this feature, and it seems to work fine, One thing to note is, when you forward to another number, that party must pick up, but if the answering machine kicks in, that’s still fine, as long as something picks up.

Call Display

One thing to note is that now when I receive local calls, It has 204 in front of all my numbers, where with MTS it never had an area code unless it was long distance.

3-Way Calling

Works exactly as it said it should

Call Waiting

I quickly noticed that Call Waiting was something that could become very annoying. When a second person is calling you, you will hear a beep, now if it was soft beep, I would not mind it, but the beep IS LOUD! I like the fact that you can see who the second caller is before you answer it, it’s a nice touch.

A downside I have already noticed, is the fact that say for example someone calls you, and you decide that you do not want to be interrupted, you cannot disable call waiting once you are already on the telephone, you would have to end your call and re-call that person, by first dialing *70 first to disable call waiting for that one call. This is one major difference between call waiting on Shaw and MTS, as on MTS you can push link and dial *70 and it will disable call waiting and take you back to your original call.

NOTE: I am still contemplating on whether or not I want to keep this service, as Shaw can turn this or voicemail off and it takes with-in 24-48 hrs. I know when I got the voicemail shut off, I knew it was off because my phone rang once around 8:30 at night and I checked my voicemail at 9 and it was gone. To Note would be that if you ever want Call waiting or voicemail back at anytime, just call Shaw and it will be re-added free of charge. But for now I am keeping call waiting.

Call Return

When I had MTS I never used this feature as why would I pay 60 cents to find out who the last person who called me was when I have caller ID, but since its Free on Shaw I had to try it out.

When you dial *69, it normally tells you the last number who called you was, and it says “to activate automatic recall press 1 or please hang up”

Now I noticed that when you press 1 most of the time it will give me this “Your automatic recall request cannot be processed at this time. Please Try again or dial directly” I know it cannot return cell numbers, pay phones, or business lines, but I was trying to call back a local land line number. Not a big deal, I can call that person back by dialing directly.

If you press *69 after a 1-800 number has called you, I got this message “The number you are trying to reach cannot be handled by the automatic recall and call back features. Please Dial Directly.”

If you press *69 after a private number has called you, I got this message. “We’re sorry the number you are trying to reach is private and cannot be called using the automatic recall feature.”

I did notice that for the first couple of days when I dialed *69 when it told me the number and time, that the time was 1 hr off (Ontario Time) but that has since be adjusted to my proper time zone.

In the Shaw Digital Phone User guide it states under Call waiting, “waiting calls that are not answered will be routed to voicemail (or if you have no voicemail like me, it will just keep ringing for that party who is calling you). You can find the telephone number of the second caller by using the call return service.” – Now I noticed that when I dialed *69 for the first couple of days it was only telling me the last caller who actually physically made the telephones ring, it would not tell me the second caller if I was on the other line, but I just checked tonight and it works fine, so something you may want to check if your worried about it.

Directory Assistance

I called 411, I had never used 411 before this time, and I don’t know if I will use it again – it seems easier to go to Canada411.ca than to go through this process.

It states; Welcome to Shaw Directory Assistance…for what city please…so I said Winnipeg, then it asked me if this was for Residential, I said No, and then it asks me what I was looking for, so I stated, and then an actual human being comes on and confirms what I am looking for, and when they have found it, they play a recording which states the number and you have to write it down and hang up and call it, I wish they could offer a feature in which you can push 1 to actually call that number or something like that.

611 Support

Called 611 a couple of times, it takes you straight to Shaw Digital Phone Techincal Support, so do not call this number if you have a TV, Internet or Billing question.



NOTE: The only other Calling feature that I was told Shaw offers is Call Trace (*57), all other calling features you can think of, will not work on Shaw Phone….and that’s fine, the only one I might miss is *66 where say you call someone and its busy, it will monitor that line for up to 30 minutes and let you know when that line is free and it will connect you.


Long Distance / Sound Quality

I have made a few long distance calls in Canada, and 1 – international call to England. The sound quality was fine, I have no complaints of echo’s or glitching. For my international call, it showed up on my bill two days later, and that one call alone, I saved $5.75 as if I would have still been on MTS.

One thing I did notice, is that on MTS if you dial a number that is not long distance, for example 480-7429 (Shaw) it will tell you that, it is not a long distance call, but I found with Shaw that I can dial 1-204-480-7429 and it will still dial and connect which I found odd – I realize long distance is free with Shaw – but would that not cost them more money if people were dialing long distance when its clearly local? Also if every call is a local call, then you would think I could call Selkirk and not have to dial 1-204 first, but oh well. lol

The only issue with sound quality that I have noticed is when there is music involved, when I have music in the background, or the person I am talking to has music, the music is choppy, and this is very noticeable for example when you are on hold with Shaw. The best way to compare it would be to a cell phone, its almost like it cannot process all those different sounds. Voice quality is fine though when someone is speaking.

Summary

- Shaw still does not allow you to accept collect calls at this time.
- You will continue to receive a phone book delivered to your home, even if your local phone company is the one who normally supplies the books, and your name will still be in there if you specified so.
- You are able to bundle your Shaw services, and I was able to get my phone for $40 / month
- Shaw is governed by the same CRTC requirements as the traditional phone companies and must have 99% uptime. If you are having problems with your Shaw phone service, a service tech will be sent SAME DAY, unlike TV and Internet which is next day service.
- Shaw does not limit the amount of Phones you can have hooked up in your home.

Shaw currently has a promo on in all areas that have Shaw Digital Phone and I was able to get it, even though I signed up 1 week before this promo was launched, and you get your first 3 months at $29.95.

Shaw now allows you dial directly overseas with rates as low as 3 cents a minute and there is no need to pre-buy your minutes anymore. See Here

Shaw Also has a Friend Get a Friend Program where you can receive $25 off for each Digital Phone Customer you refer. See Here.

Overall I am pleased with my Shaw Phone Service at this time, and I would recommend it to others.

I hope this information was informative and in-depth, and perhaps helped you better understand Shaw phone service.


Shawguy

[gordon1111]

good to hear the only problem i had with voicemail was after i got my messages the light did not turn off i had to do it manually. and when my phone echoed i called 611 and they reset my phone terminal on friday no more echoing sorry for my bad spelling i dont no english very well. I speek french better

[rstratton]

When I signed up with Shaw, the salesperson told me to get an old Telus bill and to use that information (name, address etc) to create the account with Shaw. I was told that if there is any discrepency between the information that Shaw has and what Telus has for my account, the phone number transfer won't happen. She told me that they were having problems even if it was something like "John Doe", when it should have been "John A. Doe".

[gordon1111]

did you get your number tranfer.

[gordon1111]

their are new shaw digital phone features coming soon. smart ring will be soon, on voicemail to email will be coming soon is what someone said, call screen is coming soon, and where you can change the number of rings before voicemail answers a call is also coming soon. if you have anymore questions pm me. thankyou. Gordon

[shawguy]

Originally Posted by gordon1111

their are new shaw digital phone features coming soon. smart ring will be soon, on voicemail to email will be coming soon is what someone said, call screen is coming soon, and where you can change the number of rings before voicemail answers a call is also coming soon.

Just to Explain a little bit about each of these features as not everyone knows what they are;

Smart Ring (a.k.a Teen Ring)

Provides you a second phone number on your existing phone line. Every time the phone rings, you will know who the call is intended for just by the sound of the ring.

Voicemail to E-mail

Send Your Voicemail as an E-mail attachment

Call Screen

If you need proof this service is coming see the Shaw Digital Phone AUP at the very bottom in the last paragraph.

Call Screen diverts unwanted calls. When callers dial your number, an announcement informs them you're not available to take calls. Your phone will not ring, if someone calls you from a blocked number that you have set up.

Call screen is usually set up by dialing *60 and adding a set limit amount of numbers you can block, and you can modify your blocked list at any time.

Voicemail - Ring Control

Control the number of rings callers will hear before being sent to Voicemail

Usually set up by dialing *94 and then the number of rings you wish to have.

Shawguy

[gordon1111]

what shaw said about teen ring on their website
"As part of our commitment to constantly improving our products and services, we are planning to offer distinctive ring in the near future. Please contact technical support and we will make sure you are notified as soon as this feature becomes available." and i got this from http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/CustomerCar...pport/FAQs.htm

[Styvas]

Originally Posted by shawguy

NOTE: The only other Calling feature that I was told Shaw offers is Call Trace (*57),

I wouldn't recommend trying out Call Trace before confirming with Shaw that it's free. It is usually extremely pricey (like $10 per use, or something like that). Furthermore, unless you are being harassedby phone, and require that the phone company maintain records on a received call, Call Trace will offer you no benefit whatsoever. You won't have access to the tracing info anyway as it is held by the phone company and released to the police upon their request.

Steve

[Roreman]

Shawguy, assuming that you also have Shaw cable and internet (?), are there any discernable bandwidth effects from having all three services? Have you tried downloading something at full bandwidth while talking on the phone at the same time?

Thanks

[gordon1111]

Originally Posted by Roreman

Shawguy, assuming that you also have Shaw cable and internet (?), are there any discernable bandwidth effects from having all three services? Have you tried downloading something at full bandwidth while talking on the phone at the same time?

Thanks

"The service works over a dedicated network separate from your Internet and cable television connection and uses PacketCable™ technology. No Internet connection or computer is required."
got it from here http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsSer...stions.html#q3

[sugartune]

Thank you for the excellent post Shawguy. I had Shaw phone installed last summer and my thoughts are pretty much the same as yours. No complaints at all.

I was told the same thing about leaving the modem when moving. I wonder if this would cause problems for the next person to live here. If they wanted MTS I assume that MTS (or whatever local phone company they have) would have to send a tech out to change the phone back to the land line. I am curious if they would charge for that.

[shawguy]

Originally Posted by Styvas

I wouldn't recommend trying out Call Trace before confirming with Shaw that it's free. It is usually extremely pricey (like $10 per use, or something like that). Furthermore, unless you are being harassedby phone, and require that the phone company maintain records on a received call, Call Trace will offer you no benefit whatsoever. You won't have access to the tracing info anyway as it is held by the phone company and released to the police upon their request.

Steve

Called Shaw and Call Trace is free just like MTS at the moment. and Yes I have never had to use call trace, nor do I hope it will have to come to that.

Shawguy

[shawguy]

Originally Posted by Roreman

Shawguy, assuming that you also have Shaw cable and internet (?), are there any discernable bandwidth effects from having all three services? Have you tried downloading something at full bandwidth while talking on the phone at the same time?

Thanks

Like Gordon said, its on a separate network and I myself have noticed no difference in speed or quality of my TV or internet services at this time

Shawguy

[shawguy]

Originally Posted by sugartune

f they wanted MTS I assume that MTS (or whatever local phone company they have) would have to send a tech out to change the phone back to the land line. I am curious if they would charge for that.

MTS told me that because Shaw basically unhooks all their lines that if I wanted to go back to MTS I would be subject to a $72 fee to send someone out and get my phone connected. But Say I had MTS and I moved to a new house and they had Shaw before I am sure you might have some grounds to get MTS to come do it for free, especially if you didn't know before moving in that they had Shaw phone, otherwise I would just take my service to Shaw at that point in time. lol Its a matter of Do they really want my business?

Shawguy

[jiggy]

In Edmonton, Shaw is currently rehooking Telus lines for free so people aren't having to pay ridiculous fees to have someone come out and spend 30 seconds hooking up 2 small wires. And as for bandwidth concerns, remember, cable works just like your radio. Different frequencies bring you different radio stations. On a tv, different frequencies bring you different channels. The bandwidth required on a cable line, which uses the same radio frequency (RF), to bring you services like internet and digital phone is so small that they actually squeeze the signal for these services 'between' television stations. And because internet and digital phone use completely different frequencies and networking equipment, they are essentially completely independant and unrelated to each other. They don't affect each other in any way. The potential for more digital services to run on the same cable wire at the same time is in theory, unlimited.

I personally have installed hundreds of digital phones.

~jiggy