Shaw Plan Personalizer: How To

[jon]

I've been asked to go through the details of getting, or at least figuring out, Shaw Plan Personalizer, with the hopes of either lowering your Shaw bill or getting what you want for a price you can afford. So, here goes.

1. Go to http://shaw.ca
2. In the top right corner of the window, you should see "YOU ARE IN {location} | ASK AMY". If the Location is not where the Shaw service is/will bill, click on the location and a banner will appear, allowing you to change the location. Make sure it is correct or the next step will not work properly
3. Go to http://shaw.ca/Television/Channel-Listings/
4. Again, check Location ("YOU ARE IN") and be sure it is still correct
5. Find the light blue banner that says "Shaw Plan Personalizer". Align your mouse directly over the small letters PDF beside Download Your SPP Channel Lineup, and click on PDF.
6. It might take a moment or two, but that should open a new browser tab or window in Adobe Reader with SHAW PLAN PERSONALIZER and your location in green in the top left corner. If that doesn't come up, you may have Adobe Reader problems. I'm no expert, but I believe that you must have both Adobe Reader on your computer and the Adobe Acrobat plug-in installed and enabled on your browser. I've only tested this with Adobe Reader X which is a relatively new version. If it doesn't work for you, you may wish to upgrade to the latest version of both Adobe Reader and the Acrobat plug-in
7. Keep this PDF open as you'll need it to determine what TV options to select
8. Open a new browser tab or window (as you'll need the PDF in a minute) and go to https://store.shaw.ca/pages/main.jsp?top_active=bundle
9. Scroll down to the orange lettering that says "Choose Internet Plan"
10. Note the grey bar just below the lettering
11. Find the light grey down arrow on the right that looks like the letter V and click on that down arrow
12. A drop-down list will appear.
13. Click on the Internet plan you have or want to have. If you need help choosing, open a new browser window or tab and go to http://shaw.ca/Internet/Compare-Plans/ That Compare page doesn't show prices which is actually good since Personalizer offers different prices than normal
14. Similarly, go down to the blue lettering that says "Choose Personal Home Phone Plan"
15. Choose one from the drop-down list, including None if you don't want Home Phone at all from Shaw. You can compare the Home Phone Plans here http://shaw.ca/Home-Phone/Compare-Plans/ but ignore the prices as they will be different
16. Scroll down to the bottom of the window and click Add to Cart right below where it shows your price up to this point. Don't worry, you aren't buying anything.
17. Now the Personalize buttons will have turned Green, which means they are active
18. Below and to the right of Personal TV, click on that Personalize button first
19. The first step is to choose from the Theme Packs, if any, that you want. Don't trust the list shown. Instead, look at the PDF in the other tab or window that you opened earlier as that is the information for your local area. The black headings in the PDF indicate what you will get for the Base offering Personal TV and each of the Theme Packs.
20. Click the box beside each Theme Pack you want and hit the Add to Cart button. If you don't want any Theme Packs, don't hit Add to Cart.
21. Near the top of the window, note that Theme Packs is a tab shown in Green.
22. Click the NEXT STEP green button in the top right corner to go through each of the other three tabs in turn -- Premium, Multicultural Packages and Pick and Pay -- and repeat the process of selecting and hitting Add to Cart for each Tab where you selected something
23. Once you have gone through all the tabs, NEXT STEP will take you to Add Equipment
24. This time there are five tabs, each of which allows you to buy or rent a box. Keep hitting NEXT STEP until you see what, if anything, you want to select and add to cart. The standard definition digital box is the last tab.
25. Hitting NEXT STEP the last time (in the Digital Box tab) will take you to Cart Details.
26. Now you can see the exact price, including GST, HST, or PST.
27. Print this page and take it with your most recent Shaw bill to your local Shaw office and get them to change it for you.

[jon]

Huge GOTCHA to be aware of before even contemplating the Personalizer: you lose all the analogue feeds of your TV channels with Personal TV. I'm not sure about FM.

"Yeah, so what?" was my first reaction. Then I remembered that I record ("time shift") directly off the analogue feed because:

1. Handy if you record two programs on different channels
2. Historically, I've had older digital boxes that would lose video if an interruption in feed from Shaw occurred between the time I turned on the digital box and the time I wanted to record
3. you have to remember to leave the digital box on and tuned to the correct channel

OK, so you are not going to believe me if you get the service and discover the analogue feeds still there. What I haven't told you: a Shaw guy comes out to your local pedestal in a few days and puts a filter on that blocks all analogue feeds!

I got this information first from a rep. at the desk in a Shaw office. Then got more details from Shaw Internet technical support by telephone.

Finally, there is the question of buying or renting equipment, like digital boxes and modems/gateways. A fairly techie kid in Customer Service at one of the Shaw offices here in Edmonton said it was not an issue to buy stuff as they are always supported. Then today, I use Shaw Support Chat to try and upgrade from Extreme to Warp Internet, and they tell me that my existing Shaw Wireless Gateway won't work! Luckily, I am renting it and I can do a straight swap for the Wireless Gateway required for Warp; it is even the same monthly price.

What would happen if I'd bought the old Shaw Wireless Gateway? I don't know. A friend bought his first digital TV box, presumably from Shaw, when they first came out. A few years ago, he was contacted and given a relatively small period of time to get his tail down to his local Shaw office, to trade in his old box for a new one, before they stopped supporting the old one. No money changed hands; they just gave him the new digital box, and he now owned it. I'm not sure if the same thing would apply for a Wireless Gateway. Maybe, but I have now had two purchased digital TV boxes that have failed over the years and had to replace them both myself. Luckily, I got an old one from a relative who no longer needed it, in the most recent situation.

My advice is to Rent, despite the increase in cost over time. It protects you against equipment failure and obsolescence, and a lot of situations where you just want something else. For example, my relatively recent Internet switch from a purchased Shaw modem and a purchased D-Link router to Shaw's Wireless Gateway. When I bought those two items, I assumed they'd be good for a very long time, until they no longer supported newer, faster speeds. Instead, I wanted Shaw to be able to "see" all the way to through the router, for Support reasons, with an added bonus of Wi-Fi.

[Mike Cleaver]

27 steps.
Reminds me of attempting to send out email news alerts at CKNW about 5 years ago.

[jon]

What would happen if I'd bought the old Shaw Wireless Gateway?

I just got confirmation from Shaw that anyone can do a free swap of one Shaw Wireless Gateway for another, to upgrade to Warp or higher Internet speeds, even if the Gateway was purchased.

[TRENT310]

Shaw always will do a equipment swap if you get a service that requires new technology.

I've been using cable internet since it was available in Edmonton, and used one of the original CDLP Motorola Wave modems for the longest time. When I upgraded to Business Xtreme-I, which was 10 down 1 up at the time, I needed to switch to a DOCSIS 2.0 modem because CDLP would not deliver those speeds, and Shaw has been trying to phase them out anyway (along with the Terayon modems). Today, if you wanted Warp or Nitro that required DOCSIS 3.0 equipment, they would have to swap your equipment even if you purchased it initially.

Shaw will swap out your equipment without too much fuss. I called and said I didn't like the SB5101 modem because it had a bulky external power supply. They said sure, go to any Shaw location and swap it out. I went to the one on 50th st, they scanned in the old HFC MAC and then the address of the new one, simple as checking out a book at a library. So now I have a blue SB5102 with internal power supply.

I retained the Ethernet cable from that first CDLP modem, and Videotron didn't charge me $900 for not returning it as stated on the tag.

[jon]

I originally saved $38/month using the Shaw Personalizer. I noticed some changes today that allowed me to save even more, primarily that a second phone line is now $9.95 for any home phone plan. It used to be a lot more expensive for the plans that did not include free long distance.

So, I'm now saving $58/month from the nearly $200/month I was paying before Personalizer came along. I now have digital SD cable TV, Movies add-on to get TCM, two phone lines (NO, not distinctive ring sharing one phone line), voice mail on one line (the other is FAX), $0.04/minute long distance on both lines, 25Mbps/2.5Mbps/100GB Internet, and a rental Wireless hub, all for $136.24/month including all taxes.

[jon]

I could have saved another $3.95 per month, and improved my Internet package, thanks to the new Broadband 50. But, instead, I opted for Broadband 100 for an extra $6.05 per month. I did give up my 3 year price guarantee along the way, though.

Broadband 100 gives me 100Mbps download, 5Mbps upload and 500GB/month total usage. Although this doubles my current download speed, it is the doubling of Upload speed that really helps, as I use BackBlaze for automatic on-line backups to their California data centre. Shaw also promises another doubling of Upload speed, without changing plans (or price), in the Fall.

Details of all the Shaw Internet plans, including the new ones, are here:
http://www.shaw.ca/Internet/newpackages/
There is even an Unlimited monthly usage package, though it would cost me $60/month more than I'm paying now. Not that I need it.