Shaw charging overages, Telus is not - on CTV news.

[Shadowmeph]

Originally Posted by Fudd Rucker

This UBB is a kick in the teeth. I have a family of 5, all of us are in school in some shape or form. To cut costs down we cancelled our shit cable tv - paying 100 a month to be constantly bombarded with commercials and reruns sickened me, and now netflix isnt even an option.

I dont think its right that we pay 70 a month for our current line, then to be told we have a shit cap and paying 2$ a gb over is robbery. My wife and I both get a lot of our lectures and material from our school via internet(mine in particular are lumped together in 8gb sets weekly), and those can be quite big in size. Thats not mentioning what our kids use for school and media as well.

Thats bad . I am very close to switching , the only inconvenient thing is I have 4 email address's I use with shaw and I will have to switch them around.

[Perineum]

Which is why I refuse to use ISP based email addresses...

[gingerbee]

Originally Posted by Perineum

Which is why I refuse to use ISP based email addresses...

me and you both never use isp provided email gmail or hotmail is just fine. but ubb billing is total crap doing nothing but slowing growth of tech in canada. went to teksavvy know i will have to switch back and go back to paying 150 a month total crap. but i will do it sorry teksavvy cause i am so happy with there 5mg service. calling today to see what we can do

[limitedaccess]

I'm wondering does Shaw still have issues with over sold nodes resulting in low speeds during peak hours? I remember this was a common problem earlier on in Vancouver when the network was still Rogers, which is one of the reasons I've always stuck with Telus.

[4DoorGTZ]

Wow, I bet there was no coverage of this issue on GLobal :) err should I say on SHAWglobal, and if so I bet they hardly touched the surface.

[LaughingCrow]

In the US a Senator was trying to strip the FCC of any ability to regulate the Internet (anti-net neutrality), favoring the cable and telephone companies.

But a couple of Senators are trying to make any form of metering or constriction, illegal:

Senators bash "telecom oligarchs," propose strict net neutrality bill

Are you paying attention CRTC? Or still in bed with Shaw and Bell?

[SKYMTL]

As I have said before, I am completely for UBB but within limits.

Someone here mentioned that with Netflix's supposed 2GB / HD movie, a family would likely burn through their cap within a month. I beg to differ. Even if a movie was rented every second day, they'd hit 30GB per month. Most sensible internet packages I have seen offer 60-80 GB for a relatively reasonable price (under $60) and many also offer optional overage protection (on Bell it is $5/month for 40GB) and EVERY one offers easy, accessible monitoring tools.

I would say I lead a fairly "connected" lifestyle. Actually, make that a VERY connected lifestyle. I use Steam on a regular basis, have access to Hulu and Netflix US (being a member of the press has benefits) which I use quite a bit, my girlfriend uses Skype video streaming with her family every second night, we use a WiFi connected iPad to do a massive number of things, watching Youtube scrapbooking videos is an addiction for the GF, FTP services from manufacturers eat up a fair amount of bandwidth as well, etc, etc.

Looking at my usage last month (the highest within the last six months), we broke the 75GB barrier with 76.44 GB used. How a "normal" or even well connected family would need more than the 100GB packages (on Bell 75GB + 40GB overage protection) is absolutely beyond me. If an individual needs more than 120GB, they should be more than willing to pay the money for one of the ISP's small business services which regularly come with massive (if any) caps and firehose-like speeds.

The way I see this is pretty simple: big companies want to make money off the consumers' backs. That's true. However, a large number of people out there have some sort of entitlement complex that dictates they should be paying less for more. Many of those same people deftly dodge questions about what they are USING massive amounts of bandwidth for as well. ;)

[Perineum]

I think a movie every second day for the average household is not going to be realistic. I'd say 2 movies per day for some households and at least one on average.

[_dangtx_]

ubb is crap. well, for bell etc is more money in the pocket but fir the little guy its crap

been limiting myself to around 200 gigs a month lately, come march i dont know

look for another service, gonna be a rape, get the lube out ppl!

[Thund3rball]

I can't say I have any love for the CRTC constantly making rules to help big business as opposed to Canadian citizens, but I do agree with SKY on his usage argument. What on God's earth does someone do using 200GB/month? I don't even come close to my 60GB cap, but I don't really torrent, maybe the odd flick or cd but that's less than 1/month over a year. I Steam almost every day, same with PSN and my wife sometimes works from home and needs to upload/download huge spreadsheets and PDFs. Plus all the other regular internet use stuff. Where does 200GB come from other than downloading stuff for free that you probably shouldn't be in the first place?