Please read the updates below at the end of this article, thanks.

Telus is a supplier of mobile, internet, telephony and cable TV services here in Canada. After some issues with Shaw, we decided to move our internet and TV services to Telus.

Why Did We Cancel Shaw

I will cover this in a later post reviewing overall customer service experiences during 2020. We have been with Shaw for many years but noticed their service hasn’t been so good lately so we decided to go with Telus.

Everybody complains about the cable company they are with so it’s tough to get a full and honest review of them as different people have different experiences. Initially, we had a great experience with Shaw but in the past 3 years, it was becoming an overhead to retain their services.

Telus laid fibre optic cables in our area which everyone told me was very much a more stable infrastructure.

Why Didn’t We Move to Telus Earlier?

We could have moved to Telus about a year ago in the initial wave of locals moving to them.

The reason we didn’t was due to their hard sales approach, the company outsourced this sales function to another company who I felt was pressing us too much without the information I needed to know to warrant the move. So, we just left it until now.

The Move

I wanted to wait and see what their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales included, and we did find a very tempting bargain that, in the initial 2 years of the contract, would in fact be cheaper than Shaw. Obviously, the charge will go up in 2 years’ time but we can review what our requirements are in the meantime.

The offer was only good online but their website wasn’t cooperating in order to make the transaction happen. So, we started to get frustrated and for a short while almost didn’t take it any future. We phoned them up and said they would honour the deal online. When adding a service they go through another credit check. Because we are already a mobility customer we got a discount on top of the Black Friday deal.

The Installation

This went very well and the engineer that came to our home was quick and thorough in providing us with the training necessary.

We got two-wire connections, one for the TV and the other for my computer. For my computer, this provided me with a 990 Mbps download and upload speed. All I need do is turn my wifi on when I print and airdrop. I found the connection with Shaw was unpredictable, 300 Mbps would go down to 60 or 90 which was tough when trying to hold meetings online over Skype or Zoom. Since I’m not using the wifi bandwidth other devices would have a better connection. The Wifi speed is around 600 Mbps Upload and Download.

Rather than a desk modem, the Telus device sits in a closet where the wire comes into the home. This is so much more convenient than taking up room on my desk, so much better.

Post Installation

The only problem I experienced was not being able to send jobs to my printer through wifi, I have no idea why that happened but I managed to resolve it in a couple of days.

The internet is very stable, no mass fluctuations like Shaw. Still around 990+ Mbps on wire and 600+ Mbps via Wifi upload/download.

The TV quality is so much clearer and more stable than Shaw. Over Shaw we had quite a few visual and audio difficulties that were so annoying, haven’t seen this yet over Telus. We also have access to more channels including overseas news. No problems with Netflix as we had through Shaw.

What We Are Enjoying About Telus

Some quick bullet points detailing what I like about the service:

• Stability
• Speed of internet, both Upload and Download are virtually the same
• Access to more TV channels that I want to see especially news
• The system seems a little bit more advanced than anything we have been on before

Summary

I am happy with the switch over so far, no doubt there will be issues and I hope they address them more professionally than Shaw did.

Update April 2022

I’m updating this post with some events since I wrote it.

The Home part of Telus continues to be stable, that is the internet and cable television. We haven’t experienced much downtime over their fibre option. There were some issues with BBC World News stalling now and again, but it was minimal.

The Mobility, mobile phone, service of Telus wasn’t so good. The signal in this area is chronically bad. This has been particularly dangerous to emergency services that are reliant on these services. Telus is not the only provider that has these issues in this area.  We live in an area that is pretty central with many people living in it. Telus was supposed to put in a tower but for some reason, they have not taken this forward.  Whenever I reported issues of bad signal Telus Mobility pretty much ignored me, and I did report it a number of times. I eventually managed to speak with someone at Telus, which was pretty stressful to do after being pushed from one person to the next, the result of this came to nought but they did come up with a couple of suggestions.

So, as a result of poor mobile signal, I had to get a Telus home phone service. Of course, I am sure Telus were very happy I’m giving them more money but I do feel quite upset over the issue.

Update December 2022

Another short update since I wrote the initial blog entry.

For the home phone, mentioned above, I was actually expecting a copper wire-connected telephone service so that if the internet went down we would still have a phone to use. However, they connected a VOIP service. The person they sent to install it must have been new and didn’t really know what he was doing, poor thing, he had to keep calling back to his office.

On one channel we kept losing a signal, so I reached out to Telus and got connected to a customer service agent who I was getting nowhere with, wanting to send me down a path to change all my channels. After 45 minutes in live chat, I finally got to someone who made sense but was not sure if the issue was really addressed. Posting on the Telus Forum I notice others have been experiencing this issue, same on Rogers and Shaw, so maybe it was the feed from the US.

On a year-end positive note, it was easy to renew our fixed-term contract with Telus. If this hadn’t happened it would have increased our bill by $100, if that happened I would have downsized our service considerably.

Update 16 January 2023

The worst-case scenario came about today.  On 16th December 2022 Telus promised to, kindly, put us back on the 2-year plan we were on before. However, receiving their bill today, this wasn’t the case. So did they lie to us or is this another Telus administrative blunder? The Home Phone service went up by 253.846% and we were supposed to be on the same fixed price until March 2024.  The Internet went up by just over 100% and looks as though they didn’t apply the bundle they promised.

So, what now. I really don’t feel like calling them again and to be honest I have been looking at what Shaw has to offer. I took auto-payments off as I really don’t want any funds to go through to Telus until this is resolved if it ever is.

Update 18 January 2023

The issue with the contract has, thankfully, been resolved.

On the 17th I got onto social media, and they created a ticket to the relevant department. On the 18th, a lovely rep got back to us and apologised, and was able to fix the issue pretty easily. So, it all worked out very well.

Update 10th October 2024

Of late I am having some issues with Telus:

1. The TV channel MSNBC keeps going down with a “not available at this time” message. Other companies have had this issue too so I don’t think its a Telus problem.
2. In the Telus app our mobile data showed 0Gb left at the beginning of the month. A Telus rep said it was a “glitch” so I asked them to look into it and provide a fix.
3. Also in the Telus app next months bill amount appears as “outstanding” and states it was due a couple of weeks ago, it included a big exclamation mark expressing urgency of paying it. The PDF for next months bill had not yet appeared yet. When I contacted them again they said it was a glitch. I said it happens frequently and asked them for a fix.
4. Telus visited out gated community to meet and resolve customers issues. This turned into an absolute disaster. This was all supposed to have been done in the community center but they went round, unauthorized, to people homes on a sales pitch. They left all their trash some of which I had to clean up after them. I doubt they will be allowed to visit again.

For both items 2 and 3 they promised someone would call me about it. They never did. They kept pressing me to “resolve” the call but I kept telling them it hadn’t been fixed and it could be closed when it is sorted.  They still kept on and on about resolving the call. It sounds they are more concerned about their “issue” analytics than actually addressing the problem. Eventually I got so fed up of them I just closed it without it being fixed. I get the feeling they just don’t care about their customers.

Update 28th December 2024

When Telus visited our gated community earlier in the year they promised they would call me about contract renewal at the same price and someone would call me in November.  That promised wasn’t kept and I received no call.

I have tried to reach out to them without any success. It’s as though they don’t want my continued business. This was the same two years ago when it took many days to actually reach someone who knew what they were talking about.

Part of me wants to give up and maybe I will have no choice but to move back to Shaw.

Update 3 January 2025

I had left a message on the Telus Forum about trying to connect with someone at Telus regarding contract renewal. A Telus rep picked it up and logged a support ticket. On New Years Day someone from Telus called, very friendly chap, resolved the issue with ease. I was very impressed with the person that called me.
Because I live in a gated community its someone difficult to get through to someone in Telus is familiar with the agreement here, so its a way-finding issue more than anything.
What I wasn’t expecting was someone to call me on a holiday, I felt really bad that they had to work on New Years Day. I was really pleased with the solution as I didn’t want to go back to Shaw, now with Rogers.

Update 29 July 2025

I started being bombarded with calls from telephone number 833-390-3721 trying to sell me some additional Telus packages. When I pick up the phone there is dead air sometimes up to 20 seconds. The call I took today there was 40 seconds of dead air, waiting for a rep to get to the connection, but then the call just dropped. The “dead air” calls are very creepy, like some heavy breather is calling you.

Whenever they call I ask them to verify they really are Telus, they don’t so I hang up. On the Telus Forum a company employee says the number is legit, however, just doing a basic search online there are many reports that it is a scam and bad actors are spoofing the number. The person on the other end of the line has asked some people for their social insurance numbers, that sounds really dodgy.

Telus asked if I wanted to come off the marketing list but if the number is being spoofed that certainly won’t stop the calls. I have now blocked the number and I would suggest everyone else do the same.

Do not give any out any sensitive information unless the company is prepared to verify who they are. This goes for all companies, not just Telus, be careful what information you provide to people.

Update 9 August 2025

Marketing

I was still being bombarded by either legit or fake Telus marketing calls, often 3 times a day. For every fake call I report to the CRTC and place the number on the Yellow Pages website. CRTC probably won’t do anything about scam callers but I feel I need to report them anyhow. When I ask them to verify themselves they put the phone down before anything else is said. I did reach out to Telus over social media but they failed to respond, they said they are having “technical issues”.

Telus Call Control is one option to stop scammers but its not a tool that will fit my needs.

Increase in Cost

Telus raised the price of 1 of our phones, not both weirdly, I asked why but they didn’t justify it. Had an online conversation with a Telus rep which seemed either copy/paste or AI, which felt quite dehumanising, and decided to change plans.

Not sure what is going on with Telus but they are becoming increasingly annoying.

Update 10 December 2025

Home Phone Downtime

On Saturday our Home Phone services went down, plus of course the accompanying 911 service. All other services were ok. It took Telus two days to find the issue and make repairs.

On the Telus outage web page there is a list of current outages, you can subscribe to receive alerts regarding updates. I subscribed to this issue and received the initial text confirming the subscription. However, I didn’t get a fix notification until 2 days after it had been repaired. It would be useful if this worked in a timely manner, I gave feedback to Telus though.