Phone, Internets, Apartment in Vancouver

Zonkytonkman

So i'm picking up on thursday and hopping a plane from newfoundland to vancouver, and i figure i'll be there for a good few years.

I'm wondering if any locals can give me some advice on what companies are cool to deal with out there.

I've got a cell phone with telus here locally, but the contract is up, and i've never really been all that happy with the service here, line quality is bad, messages and texts sometimes don't arrive for hours after they've been sent, etc. Are telus a good company to deal with in vancouver, or is there someone that's much better?

Internets. I use them to browse, play 360, and torrent stuff. Can someone recommend a good ISP?

and finally apartments, i've gotta find a place for myself to live when i get there, and fast. Are there any papers/internet sites that would be ideal for finding a place to live that i may not have already found from the internets?

Gracious.

I'll be looking to live in a single bedroom apt when i get there, somewhere within a reasonable commute to downtown.

Thanks guys.

Ruckus

My roommate from college is still in Vancouver I think, and I know he was looking to rent out the second bedroom in his place. When I get home I'll talk to him and maybe PM you his contact info.

khain

Craig's List is a decent place to find adds others have posted about just about anything including apartments.

Corvus

Well, ISP wise, I'm not sure there is much of anything besides either Shaw (Shaw is the cable company in Western Canada) or Telus (Telus is pretty reliable here, since they're what the old monopoly, BC Tel was absorbed into). Some other locals might be able to provide more details on smaller ISPs.

Um, when you talk about a reasonable commute from downtown, are you going to be driving, or are you looking at transit? If the latter, you probably want to be relatively close to a Skytrain station. You should also mention a budget. As I imagine you've noticed from looking on the net, rents in Vancouver area, like property values, are much higher than the east coast.

Also, as a fourth generation Vancouverite, if you move here and bitch about the rain, I think I'm obligated to kill you.

Rydark

I don't know about apartments, but as far as ISP and cell/phone services go, Telus is good in B.C area.

You could also look at Rogers for cellphone, and Shaw cable for cable internet. I use Telus for all 3 services, and never had a problem.

Zonkytonkman

Ruckus wrote:

My roommate from college is still in Vancouver I think, and I know he was looking to rent out the second bedroom in his place. When I get home I'll talk to him and maybe PM you his contact info.

thanks a lot man, but i'm looking for a single bedroom with no roomates. My gf is coming up to live with me in a month, and we've decided to go it sans roomates.

Meiz

Keep your Telus phone until you're in Vancouver and see how it works there. If you don't like it, sign up with Rogers/Fido and see how it is. Ask what their policy on cancellations are.

You can forget Bell if Telus sucks as well because they're on the same network which is CDMA.

You'd probably do better with a GSM phone anyways. That's Rogers/Fido.

Zonkytonkman

Corvus wrote:

Well, ISP wise, I'm not sure there is much of anything besides either Shaw (Shaw is the cable company in Western Canada) or Telus (Telus is pretty reliable here, since they're what the old monopoly, BC Tel was absorbed into). Some other locals might be able to provide more details on smaller ISPs.

Um, when you talk about a reasonable commute from downtown, are you going to be driving, or are you looking at transit? If the latter, you probably want to be relatively close to a Skytrain station. You should also mention a budget. As I imagine you've noticed from looking on the net, rents in Vancouver area, like property values, are much higher than the east coast.

Also, as a fourth generation Vancouverite, if you move here and bitch about the rain, I think I'm obligated to kill you.

haha, the property pricing is quite a culture shock, the place i was living in a while ago was 3 floors, 6 bedrooms, washer/dryer and in the heart of downtown for 675 monthly.

I'm not really sure what my rent budget is. I suppose i could go to 1600 monthly? Well, i guess i could go a lot higher, but i don't want too much of my wage eaten up in rent.

I'm not looking to own a vehicle, transit will be my thihng. I'll be working mostly out of work camps in the woods, with small forrays into the office in downtown van, so yeah, reasonable amount of transit to get to downtown, no real need for parking.

haha man, what with the way your province is shitting itself over the tiny little bit of snow that you've gotten this year, you've got no leg to stand on when it comes to being tough about the weather. :P

Zonkytonkman

Meiz wrote:

Keep your Telus phone until you're in Vancouver and see how it works there. If you don't like it, sign up with Rogers/Fido and see how it is. Ask what their policy on cancellations are.

You can forget Bell if Telus sucks as well because they're on the same network which is CDMA.

You'd probably do better with a GSM phone anyways. That's Rogers/Fido.

the problem is that right now my phone is busted. Screen is cracked, so i can't take use of call history, stored numbers, etc. Basically i can dial and recieve. This is hard for me to take, cause i ususally use my cell as a portable phone book.

My account with telus has been over for months, but they've been billing me on a month by month basis for ages now, so i can cancel at anytime.

What i think that i'll do, now that i know what telus is cool is i'll sign up for a two year dealy and get a new phone with the signing bonus.

Serpent

You could get a pretty nice 1br apartment right downtown for 1600 monthly.

Zonkytonkman

o rly?

that would be perfect

what would i be looking at for a2 bedroom? if it's not too much i wouldn't mind being able to have a small office. She'll be going to grad school, and giving her a place to stody would be invaluable.

I've heard that kitsalano is a nice area with mostly students that is within a reasonable commute to the downtown area, have i heard right?

i'm 25, she's 24 if that's of any importance.

Serpent

i'm in a 2br in kitsilano for $1250 or so.

prices range quite a bit.... kitsilano and downtown are very comparable rent wise. $1250 for a 'nicer place' is about as cheap as it gets for a 2 br.

kits has super easy transit to downtown and super easy transit to UBC. probably the ideal location for you. People who live here are generally quite young too.

bsjezz

Yeah you'll get something nice no worries at that price. We were paying $880 a month for a great place on the skytrain line in Burnaby with two whopping balconies and a huge living area. If I were you I'd check out any buildings you can in the West End of downtown Vancouver, because it's damn close to everything, is a very nice area, and at that budget you won't have a problem finding something there.

As for finding a place - it's even worth checking out the apartment blocks that look like they are a good match and asking personally about availability if they have an admin office in the bottom. We found our place just by asking directly at a block and they had three different apartments for lease to choose from.

I used Shaw internet without a problem. We also used Telus for our phone lines but my girlfriend was working at a Telus dealer so we were a bit biased on that one. I can suggest that you don't go for Fido, however, working in the industry my missus heard nothing but bad news about their service.

Also good luck, and I'm jealous. It's a wonderful city and I can hardly contain my excitement at even visiting again.

Far

I use Shaw myself, and it's fine.

I'd get a rogers or fido phone. I use fido and it works fine here.

Newfoundland to Vancouver is a good move. Hope you like it here.

Zonkytonkman

thanks man, i landed my dream job up there and while i'm gonna miss all my buddies here(i've lived here all my life) i really need th echange of pace. Hell, the music scene alone is gonna be worth it.

1250 for anice 2 bedroom in kits? That's likely what i'll be looking at then. Do the skytrains run 24 hours? I'd like to be able to make it home for half cheap after a bender downtown.

also, what's crime like? My current city is such that you can go almost anywhere by yourself at anytime, and just about the worst you'll ever get from a bar fight is a bottle smashed over your head. Am i goingto get stabbed/mugged/abducted by ninjas?

telus definetly allows torrenting, huh? Here in NL, rogers has blocked all torrenting, and i miss it horribly.

bsjezz

There's no Skytrain that goes to Kits but they only run 'til about 1 anyway. Buses would probably be your mode of transport - luckily they're pretty frequent, and Kits is just a bridge away from downtown really anyway. Not sure how late the buses run though.

Crime isn't too bad as long as you don't spend too long wandering the downtown eastside (a very quick drive through the corner of E.Hastings and Main will demonstrate why). Other than that the only real problems I heard of were some stabbings out in Surrey, but I don't imagine you'd find yourself out there too often. Most of the city is safe, though, and I don't think you've got much to worry about.

vonPoonBurGer

Zonkytonkman wrote:

So i'm picking up on thursday and hopping a plane from newfoundland to vancouver

I was born in St. John's, and just moved out of Vancouver after five years there. I spent several year in between those two in Ontario, but I still go back to visit family back home at least once a year.

bsjezz wrote:

Most of the city is safe, though, and I don't think you've got much to worry about.

The OP probably has little to worry about his personal safety, but unfortunately his possessions aren't so lucky. The Vancouver area has some of the highest rates of property crime anywhere in North America. It's heavily concentrated in the downtown east side, and in parts of Surrey (mostly Whalley), but the criminals can and do take the Skytrain (or the Crimetrain, as I've often heard it referred to) and ply their trade in other neighbourhoods. As a former Newfoundlander, my advice to the OP would be to be very security conscious, moreso than you would be at home. Always lock your doors, even when you're home, carry tenant's insurance if you're renting, and if you own a car make sure it has an alarm and that you never leave anything of value inside it.

Zonkytonkman wrote:

Do the skytrains run 24 hours?

Hah. God no. Why would they, when most bars do last call at 1am and close at 2am? They've just started experimenting in last year or two with later closing hours, but a lot of the places I frequented hadn't adopted the later hours when I'd left, and to judge by the complaints from residents, I'm not sure it will ever be widespread there. Maybe it's changed since I left six months ago, but you may want to be aware that some of my BC born and bred friends refer to Vancouver by such monikers as "No Fun City" and "The Town That Fun Forgot". Compared to some other places I've lived, I can't say I completely disagree with them.

Zonkytonkman wrote:

telus definetly allows torrenting, huh?

One word of advice about Telus, be very careful about hidden contracts. When I moved in with my girlfriend, a year before leaving Vancouver, I got Telus high speed. They told me that "the price would be guaranteed for three years". Apparently this is bullshit marketing language for "you have a three year contract with us that you will never get to read, let alone sign, and we will charge you a $200 cancellation fee if you leave before the contract expires, p.s. haha fuck you dipshit customer". I found the service was fine on a technical level, but my experiences with customer support have made me swear off any and all Telus products. Bonus tip: if you do get snared by their contract, just refuse to pay the cancellation fee if it comes up, and file a Better Business Bureau complaint citing deceptive marketing practices. Worked for me!

Zonkytonkman

thanks poon, that is hella helpfull

kaliyama

I've been spending the last few days in a hotel off of robson street and this town ROCKS, so you have chosen wisely.

Larry the Pig

Zonkytonkman wrote:

I've got a cell phone with telus here locally, but the contract is up, and i've never really been all that happy with the service here, line quality is bad, messages and texts sometimes don't arrive for hours after they've been sent, etc. Are telus a good company to deal with in vancouver, or is there someone that's much better?

Telus is hit and miss. When I was living downtown they were pretty good for internet/phone, but since I moved to New West in September, they've been crap. We're getting the Shaw hooked up this weekend for the home phone (already switched internet over). Like what has already been said, if you decide to go with Telus, beware of hidden fees. They like to embed them all over the place. They attempted to charge me $100 to flip a switch when I had my net access transferred to my new address.

Zonkytonkman wrote:

and finally apartments, i've gotta find a place for myself to live when i get there, and fast. Are there any papers/internet sites that would be ideal for finding a place to live that i may not have already found from the internets?

I ended up gettng my place through Craigslist (2 bed + den, 2 bath in a brand new building for $1350), but I came across a couple other decent sites that I still have bookmarked:
My Home Vancouver
Renter's Guide

Zonkytonkman wrote:

I'll be looking to live in a single bedroom apt when i get there, somewhere within a reasonable commute to downtown.

Which school is your GF going to be be going to? If it's UBC, Kits would be the best choice as it's close. However if she'll be going to SFU, Kits would be a much longer commute. If that's the case, you'll probably want to look for a place in Burnaby. It's still only about 20 minutes to downtown but it'll cut her commute by half at least. If you find a place, you may want to check the commute length at Translink's site. They're the local transit company and the site has some decent trip planning in order to figure that sort of thing out.

Trillian

Good choice of destination! I've lived in Vancouver my whole live and quite love it here. In terms of living downtown, it's HELLS of expensive in terms of rent. If you live downtown and don't need a car, it might be worth it, but you'd probably be better off living on the skytrain route elsewhere, especially if you'll be taking public transit regularly. The skytrain is pretty much the best thing that's ever happend to this city. You'll probably want to be careful where you move to as well, since east Vancouver can be a little dodgy at times, but there are pockets of niceness in the middle of most dingy neighbourhoods. People are shocked to know that there's a nice suburb area by Joyce skytrain station, which is in the middle of one of the biggest crime-ridden ass-tastic areas of Vancouver (Kingsway st.) so you might want to tour the area before settling down.

Good luck and probably see you around!

Corvus

Zonkytonkman wrote:

Corvus wrote:

Well, ISP wise, I'm not sure there is much of anything besides either Shaw (Shaw is the cable company in Western Canada) or Telus (Telus is pretty reliable here, since they're what the old monopoly, BC Tel was absorbed into). Some other locals might be able to provide more details on smaller ISPs.

Um, when you talk about a reasonable commute from downtown, are you going to be driving, or are you looking at transit? If the latter, you probably want to be relatively close to a Skytrain station. You should also mention a budget. As I imagine you've noticed from looking on the net, rents in Vancouver area, like property values, are much higher than the east coast.

Also, as a fourth generation Vancouverite, if you move here and bitch about the rain, I think I'm obligated to kill you.

haha, the property pricing is quite a culture shock, the place i was living in a while ago was 3 floors, 6 bedrooms, washer/dryer and in the heart of downtown for 675 monthly.

I'm not really sure what my rent budget is. I suppose i could go to 1600 monthly? Well, i guess i could go a lot higher, but i don't want too much of my wage eaten up in rent.

I'm not looking to own a vehicle, transit will be my thihng. I'll be working mostly out of work camps in the woods, with small forrays into the office in downtown van, so yeah, reasonable amount of transit to get to downtown, no real need for parking.

haha man, what with the way your province is shitting itself over the tiny little bit of snow that you've gotten this year, you've got no leg to stand on when it comes to being tough about the weather. :P

Oh hey, I'm not saying we're tough here in Vancouver. Those two winters I had in Halifax kicked my ass. I didn't bitch about it to the locals though. Well, other than Hurricane Juan, but everyone was bitching about that.

I'll echo some of the advice about crime here. We have a pretty high propety crime rate in Vancouver, which goes hand in hand with the high rate of IV drug addicts. You'll probably have to pay more attention to making sure your doors and windows are locked than you're used to. Other than the areas already mentioned (Downtown Eastside, Whalley), I can't think of anywhere that you really need to avoid. No one I know has ever been mugged in Vancouver, but I'm sure its possible if you go wandering down back alleys in the east end.

Larry makes a really good point about University locations. SFU is out in Burnaby on top of Burnaby Mountain (more of a large hill), so if you're girl is going there, you might want to pick a location a bit closer to there, especially if you're going to be out of town a lot.

Zonkytonkman

thanks guys. Everyone's droppign some great advice.

I'm also somewhat terrified by how many of you guys live out that way.

Alright, so i'm somewhat settled on where to live(or i at least have some good idea) and who to give my monies to in exchange for megahurts, now how about night life?

I only really know one dude in vancouver, so i need to know some cool places to hang. I've got no problems going to music shows and stuff by myself. I.E., friday coming, i'll be looking for live blues/rock/nu rock. Can anyone suggest a place for any of those things, or just some really cool pubs or something?

bsjezz

The Cellar is a cool enough nightclub with a nice atmosphere - pretty laid back, but good fun. It's on Granville Street.

If you're ever strapped for things to do of an evening I'd recommend checking out an open mic night somewhere (probably on Commercial Drive) - there's a really active scene going on (or at least there was when I was in town) and you can catch some amazing music and poetry on the cheap. And the cafes on the drive are nice enough to spend some time there anyway.

Azio

Telus is slow (1.5, 2.5, or 4.0 megabits), but they don't enforce their monthly traffic limit and they don't throttle torrents. Shaw, while faster, does both of these things, so they are fucking terrible. Telus support is also very good once you get a hold of them, whereas Shaw is like "lolz whats NAT?"

If you like Chinese food, I strongly suggest you acquaint yourself with the various locations of Hon's Wun-Tun House. It's very cheap, very fast, and sooooo good.

Zonkytonkman

guys, you all rock. Hopping on a plane shortly, be there tonight. Thanks again for all the help.

Descendant X

Azio wrote:

Telus is slow (1.5, 2.5, or 4.0 megabits), but they don't enforce their monthly traffic limit and they don't throttle torrents. Shaw, while faster, does both of these things, so they are fucking terrible. Telus support is also very good once you get a hold of them, whereas Shaw is like "lolz whats NAT?"

If you like Chinese food, I strongly suggest you acquaint yourself with the various locations of Hon's Wun-Tun House. It's very cheap, very fast, and sooooo good.

Wait a minute... Shaw throttles torrents? I generally get between 30-60kbps on a large torrent, and sometimes can go up to 150kbps. Are you saying that my downloads are slow?

ege02

Descendant X wrote:

Azio wrote:

Telus is slow (1.5, 2.5, or 4.0 megabits), but they don't enforce their monthly traffic limit and they don't throttle torrents. Shaw, while faster, does both of these things, so they are fucking terrible. Telus support is also very good once you get a hold of them, whereas Shaw is like "lolz whats NAT?"

If you like Chinese food, I strongly suggest you acquaint yourself with the various locations of Hon's Wun-Tun House. It's very cheap, very fast, and sooooo good.

Wait a minute... Shaw throttles torrents? I generally get between 30-60kbps on a large torrent, and sometimes can go up to 150kbps. Are you saying that my downloads are slow?

That's pretty slow yeah.

Ruckus

On shaw in winnipeg my torrents typically never exceed 100kbytes per second.

Straight downloads of FTP transfers, however, are typlically 500Kbyte - 1.2Mbyte per second, depending on the source.

vonPoonBurGer

Descendant X wrote:

Wait a minute... Shaw throttles torrents?

Definitely. They're on the list of bad ISPs maintained on the Azureus wiki.

Descendant X

vonPoonBurGer wrote:

Descendant X wrote:

Wait a minute... Shaw throttles torrents?

Definitely. They're on the list of bad ISPs maintained on the Azureus wiki.

Son of a bitch. I'd switch to Telus, but my wife won't let me after a bad experience she had with them back in the day...