Shaw VS Telus Optik

[GordonH]

I have one channel, Netflix and NO cable bills! Amazing!

The day Netflix carries live sports is the day I to will have no cable bill.

[Bsuds]

We had Optic installed a couple of days ago. I was impressed with the installation Tech and all went as planned.

My conclusions so far are the Video quality is excellent. Will take some getting used to the programming and guide but so far no major complaints. Some things I like and some not as much.

Internet speed has not been adversely impacted and in most cases is better but that remains to be seen when we start recording several shows at once.

My wife misses having her own controller...lol

Got our Bell bill yesterday as well and it is still messed up. I am waiting to see how long they keep billing me for the cancelled service.

[Lady tehMa]

We don't do "tv" per se. We'll stream maybe 3 shows a week, we haven't had cable or satellite for about a decade or so.

We too have gotten the mailer telling us about the new fiber lines in our area.

Strictly on an internet basis, how are people finding it?

[StraitTalk]

We don't do "tv" per se. We'll stream maybe 3 shows a week, we haven't had cable or satellite for about a decade or so.

We too have gotten the mailer telling us about the new fiber lines in our area.

Strictly on an internet basis, how are people finding it?

I'll preface this by stating I don't work in the communications industry but work with comms companies enough that I can state most of this with confidence. The fiber that companies are rolling out in Canada right now is for the most part under-utilized due to the sheer amount of infrastructure that has to be upgraded. A lot of "last mile" being installed these days is fiber which is awesome, but it doesn't matter as long as the lines feeding the last mile can't handle as much bandwidth. (Think of a garden hose feeding a fire-hose.)

For instance, Telus just installed fiber to my mothers home for free, but still only offer a 50mbps connection which is vastly below what fiber is capable of, somewhat defeating the point - but, if they continue to upgrade, then one day those fiber lines can be utilized for greater capacity and companies have to start somewhere. By installing last mile fiber first, they can attempt to maximize the efficiency of pre-existing HFC infrastructure and market fiber to their customers (which communications companies love to do) even if the speeds aren't that fast.

Cable infrastructure is a very detailed system of lines similar to a highway system or even your blood vessels, and without high-capacity backbones, the fiber to your home will for now serve as reliably quick medium of delivering the same service twister pair or coaxial can.

[Partmanpartfish]

Telus is still in the process of stringing-up the city and rolling fibre out (literally). Of course we won't see maximum speeds from day one. But it certainly will be interesting to look back at this thread in the months ahead and see just how right those fanboys predicting speeds comparable to Shaw's ancient coax will be.

My guess is there will be much crow to eat. Much egg on face. A few folks will avoid this thread.

Telus ain't making this investment to be second fastest.

[Loed]

No-one will be avoiding the thread, we just won't be wasting time with someone who doesn't understand how things actually work.

In a few months time, nothing will have changed. I will have a fiber fed house and will still only have Telus' 100 meg package available to me at maximum(like PG atm). Fiber is drastically more reliable than twisted pair, and coax which is the over-all benefit of this roll out.

Telus hardly cares about speed, they care about a maintainable/expandable infrastructure. Current DSL technology is not that, which is why they are making the move. Give it a year/2 we may start to see 200+ speeds again. That said, very few people make use of anything close to that speed, it's not necessary for 99.9% of households 25/50/100 plans meet/exceed most peoples expectations which is great because both providers will have those options once Telus finishes it's roll out, so everyone will have more selection again!

Telus, Shaw, Teksavvy. Each have their ups and downs and in the end, company loyalty isn't worth crap in a can. These companies don't care, at all, about you as a subscriber. Hence the reason they only have intro rates and no actual reward for being a long term customer.

[Partmanpartfish]

No-one will be avoiding the thread, we just won't be wasting time with someone who doesn't understand how things actually work.

I guess that would be those who think coax is going to be faster than light?

[Loed]

http://www.cablelabs.com/news/new-generation-of-docsis-technology/

http://www.cablelabs.com/specification/physical-layer-specification/

http://www.cablelabs.com/docsis-3-1-where-we-are-today/

Yup. Competing technologies.

[StraitTalk]

Telus is still in the process of stringing-up the city and rolling fibre out (literally). Of course we won't see maximum speeds from day one. But it certainly will be interesting to look back at this thread in the months ahead and see just how right those fanboys predicting speeds comparable to Shaw's ancient coax will be.

My guess is there will be much crow to eat. Much egg on face. A few folks will avoid this thread.

Telus ain't making this investment to be second fastest.

Twisted pair is capable of gigabit speeds over 30-50 *meter lengths. Twisted pair. (http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... one-lines/)

Let this be a reminder to those who think that any company rolling out fiber in the last mile as opposed to strengthening their plant first is doing anything but marketing. You can't do one and not the other, it doesn't work like that.

[HP]

Just posting to correct some misinformation:

The fiber that companies are rolling out in Canada right now is for the most part under-utilized due to the sheer amount of infrastructure that has to be upgraded

Not entirely. Both Shaw and Telus have fibre that interconnects communities and that fibre runs DWDM (dense wave division multiplexing) which can run a staggering amount of bandwidth. Not all fibre is utilized in the same way. The fibre that Telus is running is a single, bidirectional strand and, as I've stated before in other posts, is GPON.

The reality is that most customers don't sustain the bandwidth they have subscribed to and have no ability to do so. Streaming a hi def video with moderate compression takes 7 mbps. Three TV's running at the same time = 21 mbps. A strange thing happens when you increase bitrates - customers sustain that usage for a lot less time so a sustained 50mbps is unnecessary (for the most part). Now, don't get me wrong, there are power users who have the means and ability to sustain 50mbps but they are the rarity.

By installing last mile fiber first, they can attempt to maximize the efficiency of pre-existing HFC infrastructure

Telus has NO HFC. HFC = Hybrid Fiber/Coax.

Yup. Competing technologies.

Again, kind of. The competing technologies are really to the benefit of the service provider more than the end customer. Both future DOCSIS and DSL bonding/vectoring are designed to extend the usable lifespan of existing plant. The customer will get some derived benefit because the capacity is generally being increased at the edge but in the case of both technologies - they are fibre feeding a copper-based distribution node. The reality is that copper (COAX or DSL) has much shorter and narrower transmission qualities than fibre. Period. I think the real competition is going to be GPON v.s. EPON v.s. who knows what other kind of active fibre multiplexing technology becomes available.

Incidentally, cellular is fraught with the exact same problems as copper to the home: channel congestion, interference, limited bandwidth per channel, etc, etc, etc. The communications companies can't run away from physics when they create their networks.

But it certainly will be interesting to look back at this thread in the months ahead and see just how right those fanboys predicting speeds comparable to Shaw's ancient coax will be

Why would Telus offer 500mbps when Shaw is only offering, say, 250mbps? Consider what I wrote above. I don't think bandwidth will change that much. Seriously, the only people who want the big bandwidth are power users who, frankly, probably don't want to pay for it.

I guess that would be those who think coax is going to be faster than light?

Actually, electrons move faster across copper than light does through a refractive medium like glass.

Fiber is drastically more reliable than twisted pair, and coax which is the over-all benefit of this roll out.

Partly true. SImply put, 100 mbps is not going to happen on copper pairs that have been mulched up and rotting away in the earth for 30 years. If Telus wants to stay in the ISP and TV game then it needs to do something to rehabilitate its plant. There are always choices - it could have decided to go with more copper or, for about the same price, go with fibre for distribution. One is more compatible with the future direction and offers an easier path to higher bandwidth (which, even if there are mostly only power users on the higher bandwidths today... that will not always be the case)

Ultimately it goes like this - Telus is putting fibre in the ground so that internet bandwidth is not compromised every time a customer turns up a TV channel. They can't get away from the fact that customers are, eventually, going to need more bandwidth to deliver services and the choices look pretty grim if they're trying to deliver service on twisted pair (which, as was pointed out earlier, can get to gigabit speeds over 30-50 meters of pristine cable... 50 meters is probably about twice the distance from your service entrance to your lot line). Shaw has the advantage of DOCSIS right now. By turning down analogue TV over cable, they freed up a LOT of bandwidth on their coax systems that can be used to deliver compressed video and Internet.

Right now, I would treat TV as a service and you decide how you want to consume it. If you like Shaw then go with Shaw. If you like Telus then go with that. The services are competing with each other so if you're looking for a knockout winner and technology like fibre to the home don't matter to you, then both services are going to be similar and you're going to have a hard time.

Seriously, do you care if your service is delivered on fibre or carrier pigeon as long as the picture is clear and the Internet is reliable?

[Bsuds]

An interesting development.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/10/technol ... =obnetwork

[Loed]

Seriously, the only people who want the big bandwidth are power users who, frankly, probably don't want to pay for it.

Good post but...

I was with you until you stated this, this just shows how ignorant you are to the reality of service delivery and it's heavy users.
Power users don't mind paying for their service at all(I know myself and a lot of other "power users" that pay for multiple inet packages just to meet their demands), we just want options and want those options to reflect the actual cost to deliver.

That actual cost is much lower than what Shaw or Telus currently charge for their higher tier of speeds. The tiers are more there to ease demand on the infrastructure and artificially keep everything happy until 5+ years down the road when things have been properly upgraded to the best of their abilities in a Canadian environment. Dealing with Canada's sprawl is a nightmare for service delivery.

[HP]

I was with you until you stated this, this just shows how ignorant you are to the reality of service delivery and it's heavy users.

Then we disagree.

[Loed]

Disagree, no. You're just completely incorrect.

Heavy users do not mind paying more for, well, more.

[Bsuds]

I'm sure they all prefer paying more!