Shaw called me up yesterday and asked if I was wanting a digital cable box for the low-low price of $0 (for the next 6 months) to “make my picture and sound better” because they were “trying to get their customers onto digital picture and sound” or something like that. I talked to the guy for a bit, and it seemed like not that bad a deal, free for 6 months, then $2.50 or so after that (should we decide to keep it of course and not accidentally forget). Not bad I told him, but how about a PVR. No no, this is just the digital tuner. OK, but it is HD right? No no, not HD.
Eh?
Ok, not much use to me. Basically outside of a few more channels (and lets be honest, I have 60 channels of crap now) it gave me nothing but another box and remote to deal with and a new interface to change channels with. So not that great a deal, even for free. But I told him, if you can get me the same deal with an HD tuner box, let me know and I’m all over that (hey, free is free, and I’d rather watch 60 channels of crap in HD than not in HD you know). Also I doubt they could do anything for me but it doesn’t hurt to ask, especially if there’s nothing to lose. Anyway, they said they’d call me back today.
So in typical big company fashion, communication was off and when I did get the call today I was cheerfully asked “so, you called asking about HD PVRs?” After I explained what was going on, and what I was offered and what I wanting, they offered me the following deal:
- HD Tuner with PVR rent free for 2 years
- Extra HD movie channels for 1 year
- Shaw home phone service with voicemail etc and 1 year free Canada / US calling
- Home phone number stays the same with no costs for porting it from Telus to Shaw
All for $20 a month less than what I pay now. That’s not counting the fact I’d be able to stop my Telus service of $30-40 a month.
Now of course the devil is in the details. If I forget to cancel the various extras added on after 1 year they I get dinged at least a month of them before I cancel, and there are three different programs and two different anniversaries to remember if I want to back down to a lower rate after. But even if I left things as is after the 1 year promotional “loyal customer” promotion ends, I’m still going to not have a Telus bill that means my costs are at minimum $10 a month cheaper. And in theory if I nuke all the services back to minimum and either buy out the PVR ($400 ouch) or send it back I’m back to where I was or lower, even after all the promos are ended.
I asked a bunch of people on twitter and facebook about Shaw home phone and other than one guy who said that he got crappy and spotty service with it, the response was overwhelmingly “it’s fine, no problems”. Might even fix the crackly line we get on the home phone too. Only minor downside is that in a power outage the phone doesn’t work (one person mentioned they have a 24 hour battery on theirs), but quite frankly I have that right now as our phone base station is powered.
Even if after a year I switch everything back and go back to exactly how it is now, a year of saving $50 a month means $600 in my pocket, which at the end of the day, makes sense. Unless someone out there in Blog Land has some really good reasons to not go with a deal like this, I’ll probably take it. Apparently I get a recruiting fee if I pass it on to someone else too, so anyone who might be in the process of moving for example and are planning to get some brand new Internet or Cable TV service at their new home, make sure you make sure to tell them that I sent you 🙂