Question for the Shareholders:

[shaw_user1]

Goodbye Shaw.

After 17 years of haggling with you over price increases I can almost set my watch to, I'm finally done.

Ten years ago when I axed my television service, I thought you might get the hint. The digital over-the-air TV signals here in Edmonton (CTV, CBC, CBC French, Global, City TV, Yes TV and Omni channels) are pretty much your basic cable package for free... but with a higher quality picture. Sure, it took me some time to figure out how to get an antenna to pick up all the channels near the center of the city. But getting that hooked into my router so that I can watch TV without being tethered to the wall was so worth it!

That left me with phone and internet.

2 weeks ago, I switched to a Wireless Home Phone service. These little ZTE Boxes the cell companies have right now are actually pretty good (knock on wood that this "cellular" technology proves to be reliable). So far, the only compromise I see with it is that my fax machine won't work on it. Oh well. I hardly used that thing anymore.

That brings us up to today.

Today is internet day!

My 6.75 GB/hour (Internet 15) plan suits me well. But your insistence that I pay you for more service than I actually need amounts to extortion. I don't believe that most people use anywhere near the bandwidth of your most common 135 GB/hour (Internet 300) plan, and now you're pushing 270 GB/hour (Internet 600) plans. I've argued that your sales practices are predatory and anti-competitive for years now. I tried my best to challenge that. I followed the proper channels and made formal complaints. The shell company (CCTS) that you and the other telcos have set up with the CRTC to evade any sort of government oversight or regulation was an insurmountable road block. It was a good move on your part, and my hat is off to you. Well played. The experience with them was so frustrating that I'm not going to bother filing a complaint for your failure to deliver on services as advertised with your Passpoint 2.0 security over Shaw Go Wifi. I'll just accept your answer on the forums that the problem is somehow with Apple's failure to follow the protocol (worldwide), and simply not with Shaw.

So as of today, I will be switching over to a Shaw internet "reseller". I won't mention names here (so as not to violate any of your forum rules), but you know which one - as I'll still be on your network. As of today, I will pay this third party middleman $32 a month to continue using my 6.75 GB/hour (Internet 15) plan instead of paying you $85 a month. That works out to $636 (of my actual take home money) that I'll be keeping in my pocket in another year. In 10 years that's $6360 I will be putting against my mortgage (instead of subsidizing your call centres).

As I finally pull the plug on this failed relationship, my last two questions are:

Why did you refuse to work out a deal with me (for service that is in line with my actual usage) like we have so many times before in the past?

How do you continue to justify your eroding subscription base to your shareholders?

Please advise.

[RobTS]

You know, I don't know think they care, they just want our money.

[mdk]

> The digital over-the-air TV signals here in Edmonton (CTV, CBC, CBC French, Global, City TV, Yes TV and Omni channels) are pretty much your basic cable package for free...

You are more fortunate than many Canadians, to be living in an area with a wide choice of "over-the-air" broadcasts. Shaw's Basic Limited TV is $25/month, but offers more channels than what you listed, and adds "stream on-the-go with the BlueCurve TV app". 

> but with a higher quality picture. 

To Shaw's "basic" TV plan, if you add $5/month, you can rent a HD set-top box, and get the same image-quality from Shaw that your nearby TV stations are broadcasting. 

Taxes are extra, of course.