Now imagine that you owned a cable company that made exorbitant sums of money over charging people for things like Pay Per View Movies. $6.00 a movie overcharging. And it worked for years, decades even, and you were able to pay your children (and executives, in the rare instances they weren't your children) tens of millions of dollars a year.
But then along came a company - Netflix - with a different business model. One that involved paying a nominal monthly fee ($8.00) that allowed you to stream or download as many movies as you wanted each month for the same price that you charged for a single Pay Per View Movie. What would you do? Would you challenge your children to come up with a competitive business model? Would you perhaps adjust their salaries to reflect the new "tough" times? Or would you lobby the CRTC to allow you to impose a bandwidth cap and charge users for downloads and internet usage? (thereby recouping some of your losses)...
We know what Shaw's doing. Visit stopthemeter.ca and sign the petition to make the internet - and cable company - a slightly more competitive place. Before it's too late. And really, does Jim Shaw need any more of your money to fund his drunken "tell it like it is" luncheons?
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And you could see it coming. On the off chance you have a working internet connection with Shaw, news has it that they'll be imposing a bandwidth cap and extra fees for those who exceed it. Remember, the trend in the information age (and computers by extension) is to bring you MORE for LESS, but there isn't so much profit in that. And before you think that this will only affect a few people, see it for what it is - a foot in the door to start charging even higher rates for less service. The internet relies on increasing bandwidth for it's evolution - more bandwidth does NOT cost Shaw more money, but it will be soon costing YOU more money.
Link: Heavy Internet users face extra charge (via CNEWS)
Or, if you'd like to protest (and it'll be a lot easier to PREVENT them capping bandwidth than to have any CRTC decision on the matter revoked) visit stopthemeter.ca.
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How much would you pay your kids if you had the monopoly on cable based television and internet in Western Canada? Well, the figures are out...
"JR Shaw was 10th at $9.1 million, Jim Shaw $11.6 million, Brad Shaw $17.3 million".
If you haven't already lost your appetite, you can read more here. That's a lot of money for doing a pretty bad job, but when you're the only show in town you can do as you please...
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On Saturday I called Shaw yet again about the mysterious bills that keep coming my way.
10 minutes on hold, after the initial 3 minutes inputting and confirming my phone number.
The helpful agent confirms that I owe several months billing, I have her review the notes, she sees the errors, puts me on hold and then transfers me to the disconnect team.
Now the "disconnect team" is the biggest scam going. The reason you're transferred to a disconnect team, and put on hold, is because a certain percentage of disgruntled users (disgruntled users? Shaw?) will grow impatient and hang up, thereby not disconnecting their account and remaining on billing. I'm disgruntled as well, but I know the system and so wait. Another 10 minutes and I've reached technical support.
I inform technical support I wish to disconnect my account, and they tell me I've reached the wrong department, If I'll just hold for a few minutes they'll transfer me....
Systematic and Premeditated Incompetence. I've still to write that essay, but I know the model I'm going to base it on...
Another 10 minutes and I reach the disconnect team. It's a full time job this, disconnecting one's internet with Shaw. And she immediately sees the errors, disconnects my account and backdates the disconnect order to the 26th of February, when it was initially requested, so I don't owe them...
And here there's a pause as she studies it all...
I don't owe them a thing.
It's funny that, because as I paid my account up a full month in advance as required I should have a credit, full months credit to be precise, but she won't say and something in the pause tells me she realizes it, and if I wanted to stay lost in the system I could then request my credit be mailed out to me but really, really, I'm just done...
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