I just got a letter from Shaw telling me that I’m exceeding my bandwidth usage limit, and that I should reduce it. Or else what? So, they suggested that I upgrade to their business internet plans.
I checked with their competitor, MTS. As much as I hate to say it, MTS’ business plans are far superior to Shaw’s, price wise. Half the price, same statistics, no bandwidth cap. I sent off an e-mail back to Shaw to see what they think of that. Their response will determine my next course of action.
I’m actually pretty excited. MTS’ package will provide me with two static IPs, which will be equivalent to running two ISPs anyway! Rock on!
以上。。。であります！
Been there done that.
When I was in Winnipeg, they gave me a call because I had exceeded my bandwidth too. Of course, being me, I argued with the guy on the phone knowing I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I got ticked off and told him to cancel my account which he didn’t seem to mind doing.
Then I went to MTS, was totally impressed with the cost, with the fast service (expressed me the modem), and was totally impressed with everything until I went to pull up my first webpage.
Two things. Even though MTS owns Allstream and is one of the prominent backbones in Canada, their response times to most hops lags quite a bit behind that of the Shaw backbone (which also runs across Canada). Furthermore, I learned that DSL (unlike cable) has an added layer to go through because you are encapsulating Ethernet (or ATM in the case of PPPoA) frames in PPP packets. This added layer is pretty noticeable when it comes to how “snappy” your connection is.
I ended up returning the modem after four days and went down to Shaw to sign back up .. eating crow. Never left them again.
When I started learning more about ISPs I learned that ISPs WANT to get rid of the bandwidth hogs. Don’t think for an instant that they want to retain your services. The power users make up a total of less than 5% of their subscriber base. The other 95% are the casual users that rarely use the internet. The more they can weed out the power users, the more bandwidth they have free – which means the faster they appear with the least amount of cost involved.
From what I have learned, SHAW’s official cap is 15GB/mo. They won’t call you unless you exceed 30GB. When SHAW had called me I was sitting at 67GB. As the guy on the phone said – 67GB is unbelievably HUGE… who needs 67GB?? If you download 1GB a day, that is only 30GB. The average movie these days on the internet are 300-500 MB, meaning you’d be downloading two movies a day, every day in order to reach 30GB.
As much as I hated to admit it then, the face of reason is that they are being more than generous and I should tone down my usage.
Shaw has a graph that allows you to track your online usage day by day on their website. I used this graph for the next year and a half that I was a SHAW subscriber and made damned sure that I didn’t go over 29GB. I never got a phone call.
As for changing – I don’t know how SHAW is in Thompson – but I’d be willing to bet that you don’t appreciate how good you got it.
Oh yeah, may I remind you that I pay the equivilent of $82.50 CDN per month for my DSL connection here in Greece? That is a 384/128 connection – but I am lucky to get 128/64 out of it.
I download full TV shows from Japan, which is why I exceed over 200 GB per month. That is why Shaw called me. However, of all the years I’ve been on MTS, I’ve never had a complaint. In fact, I actually downloaded way more when I was living on my own, and MTS never complained back then. Although MTS sometimes has hiccups, it’s fast enough for me to download 3 torrents and play World of WarCraft on two computers at the same time!