Star Choice vs. Express Vue

[Brown Bear]

Not a very happy with my Bell service. Seems I grow weary of dealing with a phone room in India.
Thoughts on the two? Thanks.

[flyinggreasemonkey]

Why do you need to call them so often?
I'd do as much web based as I can.

I really hope you aren't the type that calls tech support every time the tv makes a little blip.

[Brown Bear]

I'm having a little trouble with the cup holder on my computer tower....

[Cap'n P8]

I had one of those horror stories you always hear about with Bell. When I moved into my current house it took ten phone callse to do the address change...or so I thought. Down the road I tried to bundle my services (I had tv, phone, cell, and internet) I stopped getting my bill for about six months. Turns out they had taken my old phone number (which had been reassigned to someone else) and stuck it on theirs. Just a complete cluster%$^&. I'm sure the average length of time I spent on the phone each time was around 30-45 minutes. Finally I got sick of them and dumped them for StarChoice (and dumped them from all the other services too) which was very gratifying.

I think Bell actually has a bit better lineup of channels, but I am very happy with StarChoice so far. The few times I've had to call them about minor issues, I get a person right away (instead of "Emily" the auto-biatch) and they can understand and speak English very well!

[Inverted2]

Star Choice aka Shaw Direct customer service is pretty good. You talk to someone in YYC, at least last time I did! I share a platnum plan with a friend and its only $50 bucks a month each, and we have 2 recievers per home.

[BibleMonkey]

Not a very happy with my Bell service. Seems I grow weary of dealing with a phone room in India.
Thoughts on the two? Thanks.

Pffffft.
satellite teevee.
ha

Cancel them all and get yourself a good 100 watt lamp and a white wall.
You can come up way better stuff than holly-wood .

Of course after my chain saw accident, and caffeine twitch, my puppets are a little off...

[The Old Fogducker]

After maybe 10 years with Bell ... mainly because a friend was the installer ... I switched to Shaw when I bought a hi def TV for my RV. The thing that pushed me over the edge was when I wanted to add a second receiver to my Bell account and they wanted me to purchase a full price subscription .... no price break at all.

Shaw were a lot more accomodating, so when I get home, I'll be installing another Shaw hi-def, PVR equipped receiver there and it costs something like 5 bucks for each additional account.

Another thing that pissed me off about Bell ... a year or two ago, I awoke to a smell of electrical smoke, came downstairs one morning to the very distinctive reeking smell of burned printed circuit board, .... smoke hanging in the air at about the 5 foot level of the room, and a non-functional receiver. I popped the cover off the case and discovered a hole burned entirely through the board about an inch across, and charred board maybe an inch beyond the edges of the hole.

The only thing that smelled worse was a blown selenium rectifier.

I phoned Bell ... who seemed totally unconcerned that their equipment could have burned down my house in my sleep. They replaced the unit quickly, had me talk to one of their tech reps, and wanted it sent directly to their engineering dept to ascertain the cause of the failure. I had added a note asking the technician who worked on the unit to call me with the cause of the failure, and never got the courtesy of a reply on what I viewed as a super-serious failure of the electronics.

So that did it for me. I was off for Shaw and am happy with the service.

OFD

[Just another canuck]

I've had Star Choice, Bell and Shaw digital cable... Bell service can be a pain and there seem to be a lot of horror stories about it. But the same goes for Star Choice. I think the digital cable is a poor choice just because you don't get nearly as many HD channels as you can with either dish choice. Once you watch something and hear something in HD, who the hell wants to watch the old way, right?

I think both are fine... it's pretty pricey to get all those HD channels, so if you're not interested in that, than the cable might be the better option. However... if you ever move, those cable receivers/PVRs may not be compatible with the cable network where you move... this just happened to a friend of mine a few months ago. The dish you can take anywhere... hell, you can put one at the house, the camp (cottage for you southerners), even the ice hut out on the lake, which is what one of my friends has... and the price doesn't really go up much.

[Darkwing Duck]

I have been with Star Choice for about 10 yrs or so. Very prompt on the customer service. If you need something done it is just a phone call and a quick flip of the switch at thier end. And yes all the calls go to Calgary from what I understand and not New Dehli.

Have not converted to the HD/PVR stuff yet, still old school, so cannot confirm if good or bad. But will soon.

[grimey]

The secret with Bell is to pick the French service by "accident", then tell them you're English. The guys in Montreal are a lot better than the twits in India.

The decided to stop sending us our paper bills for one of our accounts, without telling us first (my fiancee hasn't combined them all... we get 4 different bills from Bell for TV, internet, home and cell phones). Of course, I don't notice, then I get a "FINAL NOTICE - 4 MONTHS PAST DUE" in the mail.

The crap I had to go through with the Roger from New Delhi when the switch on the dish fried was painful. An hour of stepping through his troubleshooting checklist, after I'd just told him what I'd done (basically completing the entire checklist)...

[Expat]

Star Choice aka Shaw Direct customer service is pretty good. You talk to someone in YYC, at least last time I did! I share a platnum plan with a friend and its only $50 bucks a month each, and we have 2 recievers per home.

How I like it here!
You go to the bazar, buy a dish for 25 dollars, and a receiver for 75!
You then bring it home, spend an hour lining it up, with a TV with on the roof. Then you watch for free all free channels! If you want, you can get a card for it at 10 dollars a month, for all pay channels! No phone calls, no contracts!!!
We have 3 satellites in view here, and most people have two or three dishes, with multiple LNBs, for sharing with others!

[flyinthebug]

Both similiar as far as the product they sell.

I was with Star Choice for over 10 yrs. The customer service is FAR superior to Bell.

Bell=contract
Star Choice= no contract

Prices are similiar... Its Star Choice`s customer service that keeps me coming back. Canadian company with Canadian operators. A MUCH more pleasant experience to deal with Star Choice when the day comes that you have a billing issue OR need Tech support.

One horror story with Bell... Called them last yr as the box in my bedroom was NFG. I called, explained the problem, and the gal said that it wasnt the box, couldnt be the box, was NOT the box. I assured her she was mistaken and to please send the tech with a new box (mine was under warranty). She absolutely denied it could be the box and sent the 75$ repairman with NO box. It was the box, he had to go back to the office to get one. BIG waste of time and energy.

One final observation.. Bell charges 75$ for ANY problem you may experience. Star Choice charges nothing for a house call and usually fix all problems under "warranty".. Star Choice, hands down!! My 2 cents.

[DanJ]

After maybe 10 years with Bell ... mainly because a friend was the installer ... I switched to Shaw when I bought a hi def TV for my RV. The thing that pushed me over the edge was when I wanted to add a second receiver to my Bell account and they wanted me to purchase a full price subscription .... no price break at all.

Not sure I understand what you mean by full price subscription. I added an old 2700 receiver to my account last year for my parents to use at their trailer. All I had to do was go online, click add receiver, type in the info, and wait for it to acquire the satellite. All done, no extra fees per month.

Now, as I read your post again, I'm thinking you might mean that when you go into Best Buy or wherever, and see the receiver sitting there for $49 (new customers only), or $199 for existing customers. Yes, they are pricks like that for not giving a break to the existing guy. I had one call center agent tell me that the reason was I was past my commitment period and I could leave Bell at anytime. I said "If I buy a new receiver, why am I going to leave Bell, when the receiver only works on Bell?"

[The Old Fogducker]

Nope ... what I meant was that I got on the phone with the Bell Express View CSR, and after giving all the info about my account, told them I wanted to add another rx at another location for my RV. He started to tell me about their "cottage owners package" ...... where I take the card from my existing home based machine and place it the slot for the other system at the cottage at no additional fee.

I said that wasn't what I wanted to do, that wanted another rx in a different place for my RV that would be travelling from place to place, added onto my account for some reasonable rate without it affecting my service at the house.

He said no can do ... that would be considered by Bell to be a separate account, and he had no alternative but to have me sign up for a second full price account under my name, charged to my VISA card.

I told him to get lost, and that I would be looking for a different way to do it. So, I went with Star Choice/Shaw.

So Dan, what I said in the first place was what I really did mean to say, based upon the info from the CSR.

If they have something different than I've described and didn't tell me about it, more power to them, but if thats the case, and the CSR wasn't aware of it, then they deserve to loose the account for being disorganized.

The Old (cheapskate) Fogducker

[albertdesalvo]

Something to watch out for with Shaw..... their receivers are ancient, the user interface is horrible, and their PVR is shockingly expensive and notoriously prone to failure. There are people in the Digital Home forums who have been through half a dozen of the PVRs. I have had two of their receivers die just sitting on a shelf. They are very good about replacing them; if you pay the $5/month "multi receiver fee", they will warranty all your receivers for life. Even if you don't pay the fee, they'll send you a new receiver for just the cost of shipping, which in my case was around $14.

Picture quality is better on Shaw and customer service is WAY better with Shaw. As has been said, you have a problem, they will come out and fix it for free. Can't beat that.

*edit* Come to think of it, I've had three receivers die, not two. But all were replaced for peanuts.

[Just another canuck]

the receiver sitting there for $49 (new customers only), or $199 for existing customers. Yes, they are pricks like that for not giving a break to the existing guy. I had one call center agent tell me that the reason was I was past my commitment period and I could leave Bell at anytime. I said "If I buy a new receiver, why am I going to leave Bell, when the receiver only works on Bell?"

Last year, my old man finally went out and bought a 60 inch plasma and an HD receiver, which he was charged full price for... he then found out that new customers would get it for free. He just called Bell and said he would leave them if they didn't do something about it. They told him the same thing, "But you just bought a receiver, why would you leave?"... He told them he didn't give a shit about the 200 dollar receiver and that he had been a customer for over 10 years. They didn't reimburse him for the receiver, but they gave him 3 free months service with the top package. Not a bad recovery IMO.

[DanJ]

Nope ... what I meant was that I got on the phone with the Bell Express View CSR, and after giving all the info about my account, told them I wanted to add another rx at another location for my RV. He started to tell me about their "cottage owners package" ...... where I take the card from my existing home based machine and place it the slot for the other system at the cottage at no additional fee.

I said that wasn't what I wanted to do, that wanted another rx in a different place for my RV that would be travelling from place to place, added onto my account for some reasonable rate without it affecting my service at the house.

He said no can do ... that would be considered by Bell to be a separate account, and he had no alternative but to have me sign up for a second full price account under my name, charged to my VISA card.

I told him to get lost, and that I would be looking for a different way to do it. So, I went with Star Choice/Shaw.

So Dan, what I said in the first place was what I really did mean to say, based upon the info from the CSR.

If they have something different than I've described and didn't tell me about it, more power to them, but if thats the case, and the CSR wasn't aware of it, then they deserve to loose the account for being disorganized.

The Old (cheapskate) Fogducker

Well, yeah, I guess the way you phrase it, they deserve to lose the account based on disorganization. But at the same time, you were guilty of giving them too much information. All you needed to tell them was add a receiver to your account. You don't need to specifically tell them where that other TV is. Like I said, I have 3 rx on mine - one upstairs, one downstairs and one at my dad's trailer 30 miles away.

[The Old Fogducker]

Just like Led Zepplin, perhaps when I had the CSR on the phone, I was prone to Ramble On ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUlmZ2PdxiE

OFD