New installation

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 20, 2005 Posts: 19

Thanks again to all who have provided their experience and advice.
Shaw cable was in yesterday and hooked up their modem for cble internet service and I managed to get started with Vonage service.

I stumbled on the Vonage website when it directed me to buy a new aadapter and there was no escape from that page. Then the website offered three options - residential, commercial and retail - because this is a residential installation, I mistakenly clicked on and lost time. I should have known, that Vonage meant - retail - because I had purchased the adapter in a retail store. I gusee that is the difference between US and Canadian English usage.

The Vonage connection is working fine , I would give it a 7 or 8 out of 10 . Vonage, if you are monitoring this site, please reduce your Canadian prices to those of the US and your competitors such as Primus.

The Shaw installed said that Shaw will also be offering internet phone service in Vancouver in the next month or two. Maybe the added competition will prompt Vonage to adjust prices.

Posts: 188 · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 12:14 pm Post subject: Re: New Installation

Speakeasy wrote:

The Shaw installed said that Shaw will also be offering internet phone service in Vancouver in the next month or two. Maybe the added competition will prompt Vonage to adjust prices.

Not likely. Shaw is charging $55 dollars a month for their service! $65 if your not a Shaw customer! Crazy pricing! Why would anyone switch to Shaw digital phone?

You might be interested to know that Shaw is now offering a "QoS enhancement" for its internet subscribers "to improve the quality of Internet telephony services offered by providers such as Vonage and Primus". This "enhancement" costs $10 per month. I don't need the enhancement and I don't think that anyone else will either.

Posts: 53 · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 1:00 pm Post subject:

I like the way they soak people for something they should be providing, service. What am I paying for, dial up connection at $37.95/mo? Now you can make your Shaw experience better for an extra $20/mo!

I'm already paying $10 for Xtreme, supposed to be faster connection but isn't, slightly faster than DSL durning off-peak times. Now they want anothe $10 to provide QOS above 13%. What a joke!

Posts: 336 · Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 12:25 am Post subject:

My internet connection seems fast. I'm with Videotron High Speed. They offer extreme high speed, but it is not necessary for me. They claim that their speed for high speed is 5.1 mbps. DSL advertises only 3.0 mbps in most cases. Extreme high speed with Videotron is 6.1 mbps, and with DSL extreme is around 4.0 mbps.

It appears as though cable boasts higher speeds. I lived in a house with my friend. He was on DSL, and I was on Cable. We did some benchmarking so far as file downloads goes and web site display speed goes. Each and every time, my cable connection went faster than his. I hear others stating that DSL is faster than cable. It is confusing.

Posts: 30 · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:30 pm Post subject:

DarKev wrote:

I hear others stating that DSL is faster than cable.

When both technologies are working at the same perfect condition where you could compare, cable is by far faster than DSL.

Cable is slow when you have alot of users using the same pipe. e.g. large buildings where everybody shares the same cable box.

DSL is slow when the end user is far from the central station and the modem is forced to synchronize at lower speeds.

Can't compare a DSL user close to his switch where the modem syncs at the best speed 3Mbps in most cases with a cable user sharing the connection with a couple dozens around the block.

Posts: 336 · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject:

I am with Videotron for high speed cable. They claim their speed is 5.1 mbps. Their extreme high speed is over 6.0 mbps. I lived in the same house with a friend who was on DSL and the speed between his internet session and mine were completely different. Consistently I could download files, check out websites, and upload files. Each and every time he came in last by several minutes. It was a good test! I don't know how close our house was from the Bell exchange office, but I didn't think it would be that far away.

I guess cable systems vary too. Perhaps Videotron is one of the only cable systems offering 5.1 mbps to its high speed customers.