The three things that make this hard to swallow, for me at least, are:
- As mentioned, the caps are not just being enforced now, but they have also been lowered. This ensures that some users that based their level of service on their use will now be exceeding their new, lower cap. And pay more. Or get a new package. And, of course, pay more.
- There is no easy way to track your own bandwidth usage. I suppose I could do something at the router level (hopefully), or just trust Shaw's estimate about what I'm using. I don't imagine how I could ever exceed 100 GB a month, which is what I now get with Extreme, but I have nothing to base this on. At least with my mobile data plan, Fido gives me an exact figure of what I'm using and I can adjust my habits accordingly. Each user's actual usage should be available to them automatically without having to request it.
- There is no viable competitor to move to. Telus will undoubtedly be enforcing their caps soon, and their customer service is abysmal to start with. Independent providers, like Nucleus for example, are similar in price and (I believe) just lease the bandwidth from Telus and Shaw. So if the big ISP wants to throttle, cap, etc., you'll be affected as well.
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