Red Deer, AB - How is there not better coverage in this city?!

[MrJane]

I moved to Red Deer, AB a year and a half ago.... from Hinton, AB, a town a quarter the size of Red Deer. Hinton had fiber, Red Deer does not, at all. I managed to get Internet 150, which is fine.

Now, I'm moving again. The live agent I spoke to says the best they can offer me is Internet 50... which is ridiculous. This is 2020, not 2002. Telus's infrastructure in this city is embarrassing.

I checked with Shaw. They have fiber available at my upcoming location and any other services I could possibly want. Why is Shaw so on the ball while Telus is standing around like a dumb turtle? Looks like I'll be switching companies in a few weeks. Probably take my family's cellphone plans with with me too once they expire.

[WestCoasterBC · Accepted solution]

Telus is rolling out fibre in many cities. Generally it’s done in a first and second wave. Hitting what was previously missed on the initial buildout. (It all depends on the area/location) These things do take time, but does happen.

During the pandemic things have slowed down for obvious reasons. That being said Shaw “fibre” is not FTTH (fibre to the home) it’s a marketing gimmick to confuse the consumer. You only need to look at their upload speed (stuck in the early 2000s) It will become apparent it’s COAX end of mile.

[MrJane]

Shaw advertises 150 Mbps upload in their fibre 750 bundle. That's MORE than enough and hardly "2000s." 

I had FTTH in Hinton from Telus, and they advertised it as fibre as well, so keep your Telus fanboy pandering to yourself.

[Nighthawk]

Shaw's 750 bundle actually only advertises 100mbps. Not 150. Sames goes for their gigabit plan. That's less than 1/7th and 1/10th the download speed being offered on those respective plans.

Telus' service is true fibre service because it does use a fibre right into the house itself and it allows symmetrical upload and download speeds up to gigabit. Shaw does mislead consumers in their advertising that they have actual fibre to the home. Shaw is only FTTN or fibre to the node. They still run copper (coax) from their neighborhood nodes to each residence and still install a standard DOCSIS 3.x cable modem in the residence. That's assuming they've actually upgraded all their nodes in every city and town. Shaw still does have their famous network congestion issues as well and advertises that they'll drop the speeds of everyone on that node in that situation.

I also use Shaw at work - both Shaw Business Phone and a pair of Business 1.5gig Internet connections. There have been so many problems over the last year and a half with Shaw dropping connections (whole office drops all at once), Shaw phones randomly cutting out, random service outages, and Shaw not being able to consistently deliver close to the advertised speeds. Telus fibre is coming soon to the commercial-industrial area the office is in and I'm so looking forward to it. Our previous office location had Telus and was far, far more reliable and without the connection or phone issues.

[MrJane]

You're right about the upload. I wrote the number down wrong, my apologies.

And yes, I know what FTTN, but thank you anyway for the explanation.

However, the matter still stands that I can only get Internet 50 at my future location, so all this is moot. Shaw is offering triple the speed, up and down. So how that gets to my house and whether its "true fibre" or not is meaningless.

When I asked the Telus live agent when I could expect better service in that area, they had no answer. So, do I wait some indeterminable time (a year? Two years?) to "hopefully" get better service? Or do I get the better service that's there now? Not much of a question there.

I would rather stick with Telus, but their lack of options is a severe detriment.

[loosemeat]

The Telus fibre network needed to be built from the ground up, and connected to every single point of service in their service area. That's not a small task. Some areas will get done before others, that's just how it goes. There are still neighbourhoods in major cities that are not connected. I believe your characterization that "Telus [is] sitting around like a dumb turtle" isn't accurate. They have now connected > 80% of their traditional footprint to their new network. That doesn't happen when you "sit around like a dumb turtle".