CALGARY – Shaw Communications said today that thanks to the national backlash over the concept of usage-based billing, it is asking customers to participate in consultation sessions to share their thoughts on how the big ISP should handle Internet usage allowances and billing.
That’s despite the fact the whole UBB furor has little to do with Shaw as it has just a single third party ISPs riding on its network and hadn’t yet begun charging retail customers for exceeding the gigabit download thresholds the company had set (“High Speed” has a 60 GB file transfer limit, “Extreme” has a 100 GB limit, “Warp” 175 GB and “Nitro”, 350).
“We were just in the process of educating customers that there were going to be thresholds – and that they could exceed them – but if they did… they could either get the next package up or could buy it per gigabyte,” Shaw president Peter Bissonnette told Cartt.ca in an interview.
“But we launched this education campaign into the perfect storm.”
Bissonnette also criticized the federal government’s handling of the issue, which has only fanned the flames of confusion. “It, frankly, was a political move. I don’t think it a wise one,” he added.
In January, Shaw began informing customers in its Edmonton market that they would have to pay extra but when the CRTC’s UBB January 25th decision went viral and customers across the country confused the wholesale UBB issue with what they paid their ISPs at the retail level, the company reconsidered its plans.
(The CRTC announced today it will re-investigate the issue of wholesale UBB with “fresh eyes”. Retail UBB, which the likes of Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Telus and Videotron have been offering for years, is not affected by the additional proceeding.)
“We looked at all of this and said, ‘why don’t we just stop the train right now.’ There’s a firestorm of criticism out there… so let’s find out what our customers are telling us,” said Bissonnette.
He had also talked with a Manitoba customer who “was pissed off, but he was misinformed as well. There are probably many, many people like him… so let’s listen, let’s plug into social media to find out what people want.”
Shaw will conduct customer discussion sessions in all its serving regions (Manitoba-westward, plus some Ontario systems in Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Hamilton) in addition to creating opportunities to contribute feedback online. Customers will be invited to share their ideas with senior Shaw leaders who will participate in the sessions throughout February and March, the company said in a press release today.
Until this consultation with customers has taken place, Shaw will not implement Internet usage billing and to date, no Shaw Internet customer has received a bill for any usage based charges.
"Bandwidth is not unlimited and that is the crux of the issue. There are many potential solutions to this challenge and we’re asking for our customers’ help to build a solution that works for everyone," said Bissonnette.
"Our customers choose to use the Internet in different ways and it has become an essential part of our daily lives," he continued. "We want to build pricing and packaging options that deliver choice, quality and value to all our customers."
But the company wants customers to understand, too, that building and maintaining a modern network isn’t cheap or easy. “We have huge investments still to keep our network uncongested,” added Bissonnette.
“We have about 450 nodes right now where we have to go out and spend $30 million on this year and $30 million next year just to get caught up.
That said, company executives are keeping an open mind and say everything is on the table for discussion. “Maybe caps and thresholds are not the way to go, I don’t know,” said Bissonnette..
“What if we offered just an unlimited experience? We could, but then the speed is going to vary because sometimes it’s congested and sometimes it’s not. It may then take you four hours to download that movie instead of the 12 seconds it takes right now,” he explained..
“Maybe someone will say, I don’t really care if it takes me that long to do this, I’ll download it when I’m sleeping.
“We haven’t gone in with a predetermined view and we want to come up with a series of packages that meets 99% of the customers needs,” he continued.
“We’re pretty open minded right now.”
