TELUS HSPA Network is buggy

[machei]

Hey all,

Thought I'd pass this along. My HTC Hero with Telus HSPA in Ontario has been losing data connectivity the last couple days, sometimes for hours. I dropped by a Telus store last night and the clerk informed me that there is, indeed a problem and they were working to fix it. No other specifics, beyond that they apparently have lots of people on it, and that they expect it to be resolved withing 24 hours. That was last night. As of today, the network seems to be working again.

Anyone have problems this week?

Anyway, in case you were wondering what was up, that's what I learned.

 

[The_Gnome_]

My service on my Hero has seemed fine (I'm in Sarnia), but my brother has an iPhone at UWO in London, and he's had serious trouble all week long - no texts received, call issues, etc. He was told it's a central ON issue that is also affecting some other customers.

If I find any more I'll share!

 

[TelusMilestone]

Yes they are working on the issue.

 

[machei]

I'm in Kitchener-Waterloo. I hear tell from people on Bell's network that it is also having trouble (unsurprizing, as they share the network). Apparently there's still a problem. A friend who has a blackberry on Bell has said that emails that used to hit the berry before his outlook inbox are now taking minutes to hours to forward, and when they do, they come in huge chunks of data.

Something's amiss, and the bigwigs aren't talking.

 

[Brendanmurphy]

There network is still not a year old. They need to work out the kinks give them time. There network is still bigger and faster then Rogers

 

[TelusMilestone]

There network is still not a year old. They need to work out the kinks give them time. There network is still bigger and faster then Rogers

Telus is the best in my opinion. I don't just say that because I work for them lol I have been with Telus for 15 years as a customer and yes their customer service isn't always the best BUT regardless of that they have the most coverage in Canada period exclamation mark!

Ya I heard it had something to do with replacing a server, I could be wrong as it might of been hear say but whatever it is shouldn't be much longer.

 

[sookster54]

Texting has been fairly inconsistent the past month, sometimes taking hours to receive/deliver or never getting any at all. What's bad is when HSPA has problems, there's no GSM to fall back on.

Been a Telus customer since '99 when BCTel got bumped off but in the past year or so I've been pretty unhappy with their customer care and reps, they give you practically no benefit for being a 3 year contract customer.

 

[Brendanmurphy]

Texting has been fairly inconsistent the past month, sometimes taking hours to receive/deliver or never getting any at all. What's bad is when HSPA has problems, there's no GSM to fall back on.

Been a Telus customer since '99 when BCTel got bumped off but in the past year or so I've been pretty unhappy with their customer care and reps, they give you practically no benefit for being a 3 year contract customer.

Texting has been been an issue with a third party sms app on iphones that was hacked. It basiclly flooded the network and cut service off for a bunch of people. It was on there twitter a few days ago. But other then that there service has been wonderful. I am never with atleast 3 bars HSPA. Spots i thought were dead zones when i had rogers i get full bars with Telus.

 

[seer_claw]

Last weekend in South Calgary I had absolutely no service, voice or data. It started on Saturday and it didn't recover until Monday. Pissed me off a lot as I was waiting for a call from a date which I didn't get. When i finally got a hold of Telus they would not offer me any credit, just a comment that they don't guarantee service at all times.

 

[TelusMilestone]

Last weekend in South Calgary I had absolutely no service, voice or data. It started on Saturday and it didn't recover until Monday. Pissed me off a lot as I was waiting for a call from a date which I didn't get. When i finally got a hold of Telus they would not offer me any credit, just a comment that they don't guarantee service at all times.

Ya that would piss me off too but they are right. NO carrier will say that they guarantee 100% connection.... ever. **** happens and that's what it comes down too... And well credit? So a max of three days credit if your plan is 100$ a month is $3.33 cents. I can see if it was every other day and it was going down for two weeks with out service.. sure... but three days? Your expectations are too high, technology is not perfect.

 

[sookster54]

Telus has been pretty bad the past few months, with their upgrade early August their website was half broken, I was unable to pay online since I'm paperless and I was going to go down to the Telus store and pay there, and I wanted to change my plan on my alt phone and was unable to, and most sections in the "my account" section were "connection was reset by peer" and "service unavailable" all over. Howardforums was loaded with threads about these problems.

As for texting, it was happening on the CDMA network as well, wtih my Pearl Flip I was texting my father which is also on CDMA and he never received any but his messages came through to me like 3 hours later.

So you know... *points to sig*

 

[sookster54]

Last weekend in South Calgary I had absolutely no service, voice or data. It started on Saturday and it didn't recover until Monday. Pissed me off a lot as I was waiting for a call from a date which I didn't get. When i finally got a hold of Telus they would not offer me any credit, just a comment that they don't guarantee service at all times.

It's unacceptable, large corporations with thousands upon millions of customers can't afford downtime. Back in the early 90's in the lower mainland of Vancouver during the Super Bowl event, a bunch of cable employees decided to strike against their cable company and intentionally cut off signals during the Super Bowl game, many customers were pissed.

 

[seer_claw]

It's unacceptable, large corporations with thousands upon millions of customers can't afford downtime. Back in the early 90's in the lower mainland of Vancouver during the Super Bowl event, a bunch of cable employees decided to strike against their cable company and intentionally cut off signals during the Super Bowl game, many customers were pissed.

I know a couple of people that won't support Telus because of their lack of willingness to support or help out customers. It pisses me off but being in school I had to sign up for a 3 year term to be able to afford a phone before, I've got about 1.5 years left before I start looking around. Granted, there really aren't that many options. Its almost choose your poison, Telus, Bell or Rogers. Wind would be great but I travel a lot so my charges would add up quickly.

 

[sookster54]

Wind is slooooowly expanding and I hear so many good things about them, but you have to live in Vancouver, Calgary or Toronto for their best service, the "away" zones are all over even just going 50 km outside of Calgary and you'll get charged.

I'm pretty close to paying my ETF next week with Telus and going to Bell, my sister has good experience with Bell and their coverage is a little stronger in many areas than Telus. In an office building my Telus phone struggled while my sister's Bell still had 4-5 bars, then again it completely depends on where you are in Canada, Telus DOES have the widest range of covrage.

 

[Brendanmurphy]

Wind is slooooowly expanding and I hear so many good things about them, but you have to live in Vancouver, Calgary or Toronto for their best service, the "away" zones are all over even just going 50 km outside of Calgary and you'll get charged.

I'm pretty close to paying my ETF next week with Telus and going to Bell, my sister has good experience with Bell and their coverage is a little stronger in many areas than Telus. In an office building my Telus phone struggled while my sister's Bell still had 4-5 bars, then again it completely depends on where you are in Canada, Telus DOES have the widest range of covrage.

Lmao you are misinformed. Telus and Bell share there HSPA network. So anywhere reception for Telus is not available Bell will not either. Now the phone may be the difference. Different phones have stronger radios.

 

[TelusMilestone]

LOL too funny!!!

 

[sookster54]

Lmao you are misinformed. Telus and Bell share there HSPA network. So anywhere reception for Telus is not available Bell will not either. Now the phone may be the difference. Different phones have stronger radios.

Yes they do share HSPA, but the signal coverage ARE different, I'm not misinformed because my sister and I had the same phone on different carriers (Curve 8530, but CDMA) and got different results.

 

[Brendanmurphy]

Yes they do share HSPA, but the signal coverage ARE different, I'm not misinformed because my sister and I had the same phone on different carriers (Curve 8530, but CDMA) and got different results.

Ok the cdma network who cares its a dying technology. Anyone still on the CDMA network should switch to hspa asap

 

[TelusMilestone]

Ok the cdma network who cares its a dying technology. Anyone still on the CDMA network should switch to hspa asap

I give it three to five years and it will be done... same with Mike

 

[seer_claw]

Ok the cdma network who cares its a dying technology. Anyone still on the CDMA network should switch to hspa asap

And run into all the problems with the new network...like no connection for 3 days.

I never had a problem on the CDMA network but Telus loves to compensate people that don't have any coverage for 3 days. /sarcasm

 

[The_Gnome_]

And run into all the problems with the new network...like no connection for 3 days.

I never had a problem on the CDMA network but Telus loves to compensate people that don't have any coverage for 3 days. /sarcasm

Everyone's results may be different.

On the CDMA network, coverage was spotty at best in my house, but since switching to HSPA I get full coverage, and I've never had an outage.

 

[Brendanmurphy]

I give it three to five years and it will be done... same with Mike

Not even. LTE is just around the corner but i think Canadian carriers are going to use 44 mbps HSPA+ as 4g technology. Give it 1 - 2 years and CDMA will be dead no more new activations.

And run into all the problems with the new network...like no connection for 3 days.

I never had a problem on the CDMA network but Telus loves to compensate people that don't have any coverage for 3 days. /sarcasm

A week after i switched to telus there was a 1 day outage. I called them up because i thought it was my phone they gave me 50 % of my bill without me asking. I have had a great experience Except for when my phone broke and found out they no longer replace with a refurb but send it to get fixed

 

[machei]

Just called Telus for an update on things. Seems my problem is highly localized to the Kitchener Waterloo area. According to Customer Service, it's because they have experienced an inordinately high influx of activations and usage due to the two Universities and all the new students coming in. Apparently, this happens every year but usually only for a day or so. This year it's been much heavier, and they have been overrun. The rep. repeatedly referred to the area as a "dead zone", and that this issue was well known thanks to a LOT of calls in to service about it.

End result: wait and see. They are apparently well aware of it and working on it. He mentioned something about constructing a couple new towers, but I think that's a long term fix. Short term is likely to be just waiting and hope exams will stop the thumb twiddling. That wasn't what I wanted to hear, as the explanation does nothing to solve the issue, nor is there any real time frame for fixing it beyond "soon". While I realize it's not Telus's fault that a few thousand people came online in the same area all at once, you'd think they'd have thought of that before taking everyone in the area offline without telling them.

Meh. At least it isn't the phone.

 

[sookster54]

Yes I think CDMA should go away, but Telus are still getting new CDMA devices, like that Blackberry 9670.