Expect a letter in the mailbox ( if you use telus) from Telus stating they will no longer be able to provide or support Long Distance service to P.R. This service will automatically be removed from your account on July 20/10…contact your local Long Distance provider for your long distance needs…
I have called Telus twice the morning to ask someone why Telus is pulling out of P.R., and got nowhere. Asked to speak to a supervisor, as it was a simple question, and was asked to hold please… okay…
…ugh…5mins…argh…10mins… …WTF 15 mins. I hung up…
I might try later, too pissed to have to wait ,and not even an word at the other end…
So then I call Citywest , they know nothing, they had no idea… lol… they have had alot of calls and people showing up with the letters, but not a clue.
Allrighty then… my next question was what plan will I need, and found out that Citywest is going to save me $ 25.00 a month with the Talk more anytime bundle.
sweet…this morning has started off not bad…
hahahaha if only they would pull their internet pipe lease from Citywest…then we might get some actual bandwidth…
not enough people her to keep lines going i guess
Well I had no idea Telus even provided that, all the time I have lived here in town I have thought Citywest was Lord and King…now it looks like they might end up being that. It pays to have my head in the sand sometimes.
What other services does Telus provide in Rupert? Have any of those been given notices of removal of service? Is it only long distance at this point?
I myself have a Telus phone and was wondering if maybe that service might be affected, too…no notice on that yet.
When I had a Telus landline elsewhere I had a Primus long distance plan … it was cheaper for the locations I usually called. But Primus doesn’t offer their long distance plans here … they apparently don’t have an agreement with Citywest.
If Telus is withdrawing their long distance plan from Rupert it may well be that unlike most everywhere else there is no longer competition for long distance here … kind of like winding the clock back to the early 90s, before long distance was deregulated.
I notice though that Primus has cell phones and cell long distance plans that operate through Roger’s network.
Does Citywest get their long distance service through Telus equipment? For some reason i thought they were leasing the lines…and i am left hoping they now own their own lines…scary thought…no long distance at all.
Not really a scary thought, in this internet world, there’s LOADS of free internet services that you can talk to anyone in the world, free. And everyone has a computer, for the most part anyways. I use skype.
far from everyone has a computer…i know many people who don’t and would be lost on how to use one for anything let alone calls not to mention skype does not work some of the places i call. i know lots of people who don’t have cell phones either.
What does this mean for residents in Port Edward? From what i have heard they only deal with Telus, since Citywest doesn’t provide them with telephone services. Does this mean there is a chance they might not have phones at all or do you think that they are only pulling out of Prince Rupert.
yeah ??
I couldn’t tell you what this means for Port Ed… you will have to call Telus. Did you get a letter in the mail?? maybe the long distance service is still okay for you guys out there, but I would call them soon… 
skype works anywhere that you have internet. Unless you’re speaking of a place that isn’t connected.
I don’t think there is any reason to fear that long distance will end here or in Port Ed.
I think the background is that until the mid-90s whoever owned the landline system … Citywest here, Telus in most of BC and NW Tel in the north … had a monopoly over long distance calls from their landline customers … rates were high.
Long distance was deregulated so that companies other than the local landline provider could offer long distance by purchasing and re-selling time on national and international phone networks. With competition, customers could switch from one long distance provider to another … generally long distance rates went down … on the other hand the basic rate for a landline went up since the provider lost its monopoly.
What I gather from the letter is that Telus was offering long distance from here (on Citywest landlines) but are leaving … perhaps competitive long distance didn’t catch on here. Primus (formerly AT&T) offers long distance where Telus is the landline provider … others might as well … but doesn’t offer long distance in Rupert because Citywest is the land line provider … Port Ed might be different.
So it looks like Citywest will go back to having a monopoly of long distance from landline phones … although I don’t imagine they are about to lower the basic landline rate and hopefully they will not raise long distance rates.
This is probably just one more reason to look at alternatives … eg there is no long distance charge for 250 calls on my 7/11 Speakout phone … and VoIP services like Skype … I’ve noticed a few tourists talking into their laptops.
So if you had a CityWest POTS line, Telus was one of your choices for LD? I’d imagine that market would be a pretty marginal at best.
There’s no reason they’d pull LD plans for their own POTS lines. That’s just Prince Rumour again.
Bubbasteve…skype DOES NOT work everywhere you have internet. I speak every Sunday to my friend in Japan by telephone as SKYPE Does not work for her there. I would imagine there are many other pockets of the world it does not work as well. When she was in China teaching she did not have Skype either. The world is a big place.
I have the “talk for 5 anytime” with Citywest and am very happy with that service, I hardly ever spend more than $10. monthly and I am calling Ontario especially at least twice weekly. As for Skype, my Dad lives in southwestern Ontario and in his little neck of the woods he is still stuck with dial-up as they don’t offer anything else out in the boonies so Skype apparently would not be viable for him either. I agree with roja also as many people still prefer to exist without the internet and manage quite well ! I used to have a cellphone but no longer as I really had no desire and no need to own one! Just a passing, expensive fancy! I don’t want to be bothered everywhere I go 