Shaw Internet - Magical New Speeds and Lots-o-bandwidth, fickle geeks appeased

[Jimmy Stang]

^ So if I'm reading that correctly, a company like Teksavvy will be forced to cap their customers at 25 gigs? Wow. I'll read the whole thing later... but if so... wow.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by HOOT

How much do you pay and how much bandwidth do you get?

Curious question...

I won't answer with specifics, because as a non-profit the numbers are skewed with some discounts we get (and I really don't know what the real cost is after they are all applied).

However, one of the first things I did when I started was get a new ISP because they were literally on the equivalent of Telus residential ASDL (500k up, 3MB down). As I recall, the quotes I got were roughly $400 for 1-2 MB/s duplex, normally around 100GB monthly transfer. The overages charges made what Shaw is set to charge to residential customers look very reasonable.

I will see if I can dig out my spread sheet for it tomorrow and post some specific numbers, but it was pretty universal that it was twice as expensive at least for business customers.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

I'll have to ensure i watch less hockey online (Center ice on game center) now too.

This consumes considerably less bandwidth than you might think.

[ZedMan]

Assuming you are watching at the highest quality (3000kbps) ->
3000 kb/s / 8 = 375 kB/s
375 kB/s * 60 = 22500 kB/min
22500 kB/min * 60 mins = 1350000 kB/game
1350000 kB/game / 1048576 kB / GB = 1.29 GB/game (which is about the right size for an hour of compressed 720p video)

That's significant, but you'll be ok unless you watch over 75 games a month.

I'm actually having a hard time figuring out where all my supposed usage is coming from. Time to get off my butt and set up a diy firewall/router with some decent logging ala pfsense/ipcop/smoothwall or something.

[Azure]

I'm not sure I have a problem with caps being in place, and heavy users paying for going over.

But, if Comcast has a 250gig cap, there is no reason Shaw can't either. Which is why I think this is nothing more than trying to keep people from viewing Netflix or other online video.

[FlameOn]

Heavy use is one thing, but 25GB isn't going to do anything for most users nowadays. Plus... when as the techsavvy CEO says, it only costs a few cents to deliver that bandwidth to us and they want tens of dollars for it. Allowing this is really a kick in the crotch to Canadians from the CRTC.

[photon]

Bandwidth costs a few cents a GB IF you are getting it from one source for yourself. That's wildly different than delivering that GB to tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals, the network infrastructure is completely different and far more complex.

Plus saying it costs tens of dollars is made up. Overages without pre-purchasing is $2 or $1, depending on your account.

If you need the bandwidth, you can buy it in buckets, and if you do that the prices come down rapidly. I already posted the comparison with the amounts compared to Amazon, 20 cents a GB for Shaw, 15 cents a GB for Amazon.

And the comparison is completely unfair, Amazon only has to have a few upstream connections to deliver their bandwidth, Shaw has to deliver that bandwidth to tens of thousands of downstream clients, a far more complicated proposition.

There's more than enough valid reason to criticize Shaw and Internet in Canada in general and discuss regulation vs. free market without resorting to misleading emotional and even false arguments.

[Coys1882]

A friend of mine from soccer is an analyst with Shaw and I had him query my usage:

2010-06 52GB
2010-07 46GB
2010-08 56GB
2010-09 34GB
2010-10 46GB
2010-11 62GB
2010-12 77GB

My internet plan is Extreme and will be capped at 100gigs. I use Netflix, pillage newsgroups, play WoW, BC2, and Xbox live plus downloaded a bunch of games from Steam over Xmas - looks like I'm not even close to the cap.

[Azure]

Another question is, if Wind Mobile can come in and create more competition by completely building out their own network, and a bunch of other companies follow suit, and they offer unlimited data, how long will it take before a similar company comes in and starts competing with Shaw, Telus and Bell for internet? Sure it costs a lot of money, but what Wind Mobile is doing costs a lot of money too. Unless there is too much involved with putting in fiber all over the city of Calgary.....again.

[photon]

It's definitely not cheap. Some claim it's too prohibitive, some say not, I tend to lean towards to the "it's too much currently" camp, but it's really hard to say without real information.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...r-network.ars/

An interesting article that's somewhat related, for the area to create their own ISP they basically had to enforce mandatory subscription for all residents, and the developer still had to fund the install to recover the cost over 20 years.

[Azure]

Interestingly enough, the Alberta Supernet is being used by dozens of ISPs, including Shaw AND Telus to provide internet. I used Platinum Communications prior to moving, and they initially had a cap that they didn't enforce, but the last 2 years we were told that they had removed the cap and wouldn't be enforcing any limits, or throttling bandwidth at all. And their network is fully built out using the Supernet.

My bandwidth usage was often up to 200+gig/month, and we never had any problems.

And just reading the Axia website, the company that built the Supernet and looks after it, they don't seem to be included in the UBB billing. Although that may change.

[1_Flames_Fan]

I'm a little new on this ubb thing but is there really anything that can be done to stop it from coming into play? Its kind of ridiculous that in the US they can unlimited phone plans, unlimited mobile data, and unlimited internet while we continually get billed more.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by InCoGnEtO

what are you being capped at? I regularly get 1.5Mg/sec on a torrent.

OK, explain to me how I am at 485 Gb for the last month, when I torrent to my laptop at speeds mostly under 200/sec...

[ZedMan]

So at 200 kBps you're using 12000 kB/min which is 720000 kB/hour which is 17280000 kb/day or 16 GB/day for 30 days is 495 GB / month. It adds up when you are doing it all the time.

[photon]

Originally Posted by 1_Flames_Fan

I'm a little new on this ubb thing but is there really anything that can be done to stop it from coming into play? Its kind of ridiculous that in the US they can unlimited phone plans, unlimited mobile data, and unlimited internet while we continually get billed more.

So before this, if you hit the cap enough times, they would cut you off. Now you have the option of either paying an unplanned overage fee, or pre-purchasing data at a not insane amount. No one is FORCING you to go over and pay.

You do what any other consumer does when they don't like what they get, you take your business elsewhere.

WIND Mobile offers unlimited plans, go with them.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by photon

So before this, if you hit the cap enough times, they would cut you off. Now you have the option of either paying an unplanned overage fee, or pre-purchasing data at a not insane amount. No one is FORCING you to go over and pay.

You do what any other consumer does when they don't like what they get, you take your business elsewhere.

WIND Mobile offers unlimited plans, go with them.

But they want the reliablity of Shaw, for the price of Wind!

You can have fast, cheap or lots, but in reality you can't have all 3.

Wind offers what they do, in part, to get more customers. I have no doubt that thier current plans are loss leaders of sorts in the big scheme of things.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by ZedMan

So at 200 kBps you're using 12000 kB/min which is 720000 kB/hour which is 17280000 kb/day or 16 GB/day for 30 days is 495 GB / month. It adds up when you are doing it all the time.

Well, I best gets the porns downloaded before the new policy starts getting enforced.

[photon]

And maybe the US unlimited or high cap deals aren't all that great.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...rican-isps.ars

Shaw and Rogers are both FAR better than all the listed US ISPs at delivering higher speeds.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Rathji

You can have fast, cheap or lots, but in reality you can't have all 3.

Wind offers what they do, in part, to get more customers. I have no doubt that thier current plans are loss leaders of sorts in the big scheme of things.

Yup, plus their unlimited isn't really unlimited, the fine print says they'll throttle you at 5GB. And you can bet if enough people used enough resources, they'd throttle it worse and do whatever else they had to do to maintain the integrity of their network.

Unlimited never is. There's either hidden limits, or they'll just boot off the worst offenders, or they'll collapse when enough people actually try to use the unlimited. The best you can hope for is to leverage the overselling and low usage of other people to get more for a limited period of time.

[MJM]

So I guess what this boils down to is the cheap #######s that steal a pirated version of a movie and watch it through their television instead of going to a movie theatre like the other law-abiding citizens , are now going to have pay for the priviledge to steal copyrighted material. Doesn't seem like a such a bad thing to me.....

From what I'm reading and seeing, anyone who just surfs the interest, plays some online games, and doesn't torrent all day long will not have an issue with this cap. The only real negative is potentially netflix. I have friends who do nothing but download pirated games, movies, music, and other copyrighted material all day long. It has always kind of pissed me off..... so i'm not that worked up about this.