Shaw presents new Internet packages

On January 7th, 2011 I wrote this article which detailed Shaw’s plans to begin enforcing data caps on their internet plans in what was said was an effort to combat congestion on the network. over 11 subsequent posts (this will be number 13), I’ve detailed a lot more in those posts here if you would like to read further about them.  In a nutshell, Shaw was going to put very low caps into place, coupled that with lowering those caps right before the announcement, and did fall into a bit of bad luck in regards to other internet issues in the CRTC that did not even affect them.  But, this is not about the last 5 months, this post is about today, and I’m pleased to say that the news is good.  Very good.

So, what’s the deal?

I’m going to just get this out of the way and say that, in my opinion, Shaw has just become the industry leader in Canada when it comes to internet pricing. This is a statement that I can make without hesitation, but am shocked to say.  Going into the second round of customer consultations tonight, didn’t know what to expect, but did have some ideas.  My personal belief was that Shaw was going to offer internet packages that separated speed from data limits, letting users pick both their speed, and the amount of data per month.  This would not have been a terrible solution, but would have still resulted in capped internet, and possibly high costs for high amounts of data.  What came out of the meeting surprised me, and in almost the best way possible.

Quite The Statement. Now Get To The Details.

Shaw High Speed Lite, High Speed, and High Speed Extreme will remain, with the exception of the data limits, which are being increased by a factor of 2 or 2.5.  This will mean that for Shaw High Speed Extreme, users will get 25Mbps download speeds and 250GB limits for the same price they are paying now.  I think that this plan should be the minimum now for most users, as it provides a good balance of speed, data, and price, and will be good for most users today.  When compared to the new plans I will detail, I personally do not believe that High Speed does not offer a good price/performance value anymore.

The new plans.  Ah, the new plans.  I will say up front that most of them do have data caps, and the pricing is a bit higher, but the value in them is something that has never been seen in Canada to this point.  For the vast majority of customers who run what Shaw now calls “legacy TV” for $59 + the cost of your TV package, you get a data plan of 50Mbps download speed (6.25 Megabytes/second), 3Mbps upload speed (375 KiloBytes/second), and a data cap of 400GB.  400GB is now the starting point for the new plans.  In the short term, the plans will run all the way up to 100Mbps download speed with unlimited data for $120 + the cost of TV.  This compares to the current cost of Warp speed internet which has 50Mbps download speed and a 175GB data cap for $97 when bundled with TV.  Shaw plans to add 250Mbps download speeds with unlimited data for that same $120/month to all markets within the next 16 months, shifting the 100Mbps plan down to a cheaper price point.

To be frank, these new plans are fantastic.  High speed Extreme remains, but with higher data caps, at current prices.  that alone will be enough for most users today.  However, the value of the Broadband 50 plan (50Mbps, 400GB) at $59 is simply out of this world. The closest plan today is Warp Speed, which is the same speed, lower cap, and $30 more expensive.  Compared to today’s High speed extreme, Broadband 50 has 3.2x the data and 2x the speed for $10 more. The value there is hard to ignore.  The new plans go into place June 7, 2011, you will be able to order them then.  You can find a link to the full list of plans at the bottom of this article.

But There Are Still Caps…

Yes, on most plans there are still caps, which means the ability of users to go over the caps.  In the short term, nothing is going to change from the way it is today.  Shaw continues to have an “acceptable use policy” which, translated into English, means that users can go over the cap, but only users who abuse it the most will be contacted and warned.  That is a bit vague, and that was brought up during our meeting, but essentially if you’ve never had a problem to this point you won’t have a problem now.

And even with the caps in place, they are high, very high.  Consider that Shaw claims only 10% of users go over the current caps today, and those caps have been raised at least 2x.  These limits are significantly higher than anything offered by any other ISP in Canada at similar price points.  In Alberta Telus offers 25Mbps with a 250GB limit for $52/month. Shaw will offer double the speed and 1.6x the data for $9 more. In Eastern Canada, Bell offers a similar 25Mbps plan with only 75GB of data for $56/month. Shaw offers double the speed and  5.3x the data for $3 more.  And do not forget that the top tier plan does feature unlimited internet, so if 750GB or 1TB of internet is truly not enough for you, an unlimited option is available.  These limits will be what they should be, a way only to punish users who truly abuse the system the most.

There will be a new system in the future, however this is one piece that has yet to be fully fleshed out. It is tentatively called the bump up plan, which will be some kind of provision that if a person reaches their data limit, they will be bumped up to the next plan instead of having a per GB charge.  I will again stress that Shaw did say there is much work to do with this, and that a plan will be put into place in the coming months of exactly how this will work (warning customers ahead of time, pro-rating costs, etc), and that this plan will not be put into place until 2012. There will be more details on this in the months to come.

Do You Have Anything Bad To Say?

Sure, these plans aren’t perfect. There are a few oddities, and things that could use some tweaking.  For example, the High Speed Lite plan is 1Mbps with a 30GB data cap, at a cost of $27/month when bundled with TV. A new plan called Unlimited Lite will also be offered that has a 1Mbps speed but with unlimited data.  The cost of this plan will be $59/month when bundled with TV.  That cost is the exact same as the Broadband 50 plan, which offers 50x the speed and 400GB data. Now, the 1Mbps may be unlimited, the average user of such a slow speed plan will be hard pressed to use anywhere near 100GB of data simply because the speed is not fast enough to get that kind of data in a month.  The pricing on Lite unlimited is very awkward, and I would argue that the plan itself is unnecessary.

My only other real complaint is the fact that the new broadband plans all require TV bundled in with them.  There is no option to buy those packaged stand alone.  You will still be able to buy High Speed Lite, High Speed, and High Speed Extreme stand alone, but not the new Broadband plans.  Now, that being said, a customer can get the Broadband 50 plan, and the lowest cost TV package offered will bring the cost to $84.90/month.  This package is less expensive than buying Warp Speed stand alone for $107/month. The user gets more data, the same speed, and TV for $22/month less, and if you really do not want TV, you do not have to plug in the cable box.

that being said, it would be nice if those plans would be offered stand alone. Some users truly do not want a TV package, and under this new plan they will be forced to pay for TV to get a new plan. This is clearly a business decision by Shaw to ensure as many people as possible subscribe to their TV services, and I understand the reasoning behind it.  It is just not a decision I personally agree with.

How Is Shaw Actually Going To Make This Work?

I almost feel like I’ve buried the lead here, because how Shaw is going to accomplish this is a pretty significant step for them.  Over the coming months, Shaw is going to transition most of their analog cable offerings to digital only.  The significance of this shift cannot be understated.  Right now, Shaw has 4 levels of analog cable.  Basic, and tiers 1, 2, and 3.  This transition will leave Basic cable on Analog, but the three tiers will be moving to digital only.  This will mean that a user in a major market will only be able to get approximately 40 channels without a cable box.  Anything more will require a digital cable box.  Shaw says doing this will triple the amount of bandwidth available on their current network infrastructure, which will allow them to offer the speeds shown in the new Broadband plans.

Again, the scale of this transition is quite large, and was the biggest surprise for me.  This type of transition was inevitable, and was going to need to be done eventually, but this plan has accelerated any plans.  Shaw currently has over 300,000 subscribers that have at least Tier 1 level of service and are analog only.  Every single one of those customers will need to be contacted and Shaw is going to work with them on this change.  Final plans are not in place yet, options are being explored including giving each user a free digital box, lowering the cost of the box for the users, and making basic cable cheaper and having them drop down to that. Shaw will be doing this transition beginning in August and will be done region by region, city by city, and neighborhood by neighborhood. it is expected that it will take up to a year to complete.  Once the transition is complete in the area you live, the Broadband 250 plans, which offer the 250Mbit download speeds.

Sounds Like a Big Change For Shaw.

It is, and moves them firmly into the 21st century.  Eventually the Basic Analog will have to be eliminated, but this is a significant step for them.  A move like this really begins to transition Shaw away from a Cable company with internet, to a content distribution company.  TV will still remain a very big part of their business, but this type of move really puts the internet where it should be, equal or higher than TV on their priority list.  Cable TV as we know it will eventually go away. It won’t be next year, or 10 years from now, but it will eventually make way for an entirely internet driven system of content delivery, and this is the biggest step Shaw has made in this direction to date.

I said it at the beginning, and I will say it again. The plans that Shaw unveiled today moves them firmly into the lead in internet pricing in this country.  Shaw will now offer plans that the competition quite frankly cannot compare to.  The bar has been raised, and it has been set very high.  This type of innovation is something that frankly is not seen in this industry.  Shaw has taken a leap forward while others are standing still. Even Telus, who has improved the most in the past 2-3 years, is left behind by this offering. For all of the bad press and attention Shaw has received in the last 5-6 months, Shaw deserves to be applauded, for they got this one right. It’s that simple.

[Read] – New Shaw Internet Packages

Shaw to preview new internet packages

Yesterday, May 20th, I received an email from Shaw inviting me to attend a new customer consultation session in Edmonton this week.  In the invitation Shaw has told indicated that this consultation session is "another discussion as we look at our proposed Internet packaging."  A quick polling of some friends who attended the first round of sessions, as well as a quick search on several internet forums indicate that there are other sessions planned, however I have no further details on how many or where they will be.  The emails all seem to have gone out yesterday afternoon, so information is still coming in.

As you can imagine, this has come straight out of the blue.  The first customer consultation sessions took place in March, and a lot happened in them, which you can read here.  After the session the representatives from Shaw did say that they planned to keep the customer base involved as time went on, however I did not expect this development at all.  I get the sense that big things are happening, but I just don't know what. I'm sure I will find out more this week.

In the post I linked to earlier I speculated on what I think the eventual plans will be, but in reality I don't know what is actually going to be proposed at these sessions.  Because I don't know what to expect, I'm neither optimistic, or nervous.  I'm just interested; very interested.

As per usual, I will be posting my thoughts after the consultation session this week. Look for it later in the week. You can also follow me on twitter for information as I can provide it.

For my complete coverage over the last few months regarding Shaw, and Usage Based Internet Billing in general, click here.

Shaw puzzles by increasing speed on extreme

On April 20th, Shaw increased the bandwidth speed on their high speed extreme from 15Mbps to 25Mbps.  They have done this after a lengthy customer consultation spanning the month of February over the concept of Usage Based Billing. I’ve been thinking about this off and on since I heard about the increase, and even though I’m all for an upgrade in service to users; I quite frankly have no idea what to think, or what to say.  This does not make sense at all.  I don’t’ know where to begin, so hopefully I’ll get this off without too much ramble.

During the customer consultation session I attended, and reading from the notes of other consultations, Shaw’s message seemed clear.  Shaw wanted to put usage based billing into place because the company claimed that during peak hours there was too much congestion on the network, and the hope was that usage based billing would serve to lower the usage of heavy users, as well as help offset the costs of doing node splits, which increase the capacity and reduce the congestion on the network.

I, along with many other people, have explained almost to nauseam that this Usage Based Billing does not solve Shaw’s real problem.  You can find more info here, but to put it simply, amount of data and rate of speed are two completely different things.  And charging for the amount of data does not fix the problems related to rate of speed.  Shaw’s capacity is related to the rate of speed they can provide to its users, not how much data goes through.  The cost of 1 gigabyte of data is roughly the same, no matter how fast a user gets it.  The real cost, and where the capacity issues are, is in how quickly Shaw can provide the user with that gigabyte of data.

This is why I quite frankly don’t understand this move by Shaw.  If there is that much congestion on the network, why would they do something that would only increase the congestion?  During the consultation session we were told that most new customers choose the Shaw high speed extreme package, and that that package makes up a good portion of users at this time.  If there is this much congestion, why would Shaw take a move that would only make it worse?

Now, I do have a couple of theories on this. I will only share the one that I feel is most likely, for reasons that I will share at the end of this article.

What I think is most likely is that Shaw is trying to match Telus’ offerings in the Internet space, at least on paper. Telus Optik High Speed Turbo Internet, which is currently the company’s fastest offering, tops out at the same 25 Mbps. This puts each offering from the company at roughly the same price, within $1-2/month. Perhaps Shaw simply saw that Telus offered a similar product at a better price, and needed to move to match it.

If this is the case, this is likely a worst case scenario for Shaw.  If they are truly facing the congestion issues they say they are, increasing the congestion to match the competition is likely something they did not want to do.  Shaw is already struggling to meet advertised speeds during peak hours in dense urban areas, and increasing the cap will only make that worse.  My fear is that this will drive Shaw to re-introduce a Usage Based Billing model to recover the costs of more node splits to try to handle the increased congestion.  Perhaps Shaw is increasing the speed for that purpose exactly.  If congestion becomes more evident, it becomes easier for Shaw to take measures it says will help decrease that congestion.

As I began writing this article, I mused that it was difficult to write when I really had little information.  A Shaw representative reached out to me, and provided the following statement:  “We are always looking for ways to improve the Shaw Internet experience for our customers.  The Shaw extreme upgrades are the first step, and we look forward to sharing more details late May/Early June.”  The representative did also say that more information will be coming next week.  Based on that, I think I am going to reserve any more speculation or judgment to what I have already said, and wait for more news to come.

I still truly have no idea what’s coming from Shaw.  I have guesses that I’m going to keep quiet, because I don’t want to wildly speculate. I can only assume that this is the first step after the consultation sessions, it just seems to myself, and many other observers I have talked to, to be exactly the opposite of what they were trying to accomplish.  It will be very interesting to see what happens next.

 

Sony PSN outage–more details, very little good news

In the continuing saga of the PlayStation Network (PSN) outage that is now entering its 8th day, Sony has provided more details on exactly what happened, and the news only gets worse.  Beyond the information they provided yesterday, an email went out to PSN users today which provided much of the information that I have already posted.  What has come out today gives me an idea of exactly how this attack occurred.

First of all, the news that’s good. All credit card information was encrypted, and Sony does believe that no credit card data has been compromised.  While you should still monitor your cards closely for the next while, this is good news, and does make me breath a little easier.
Now, the bad news.  Based on wording in a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page for this issue, it appears that this was an actual physical attack on Sony’s data center.  This means that an individual or group of people obtained physical access to the PSN data center and directly connected to a server and was able to download the personal data.  According to Sony, the personal information was held in a database that was unencrypted, and that data was obtained by the intruders.

As a result of this attack, Sony is moving the PSN to a new data center in a “new, more secure location.” I believe that is why the restoration of service is taking so long. Moving a data center which accommodates over 70 million users is no small task, and will of course take some time.  There is a sheer scale here that both helps and hinders.  I’m sure that Sony is very efficient at adding capacity to the PSN by adding new servers to a cluster in a datacenter.  But building a cluster from scratch, and then adding more capacity, is not an easy task. I’m also willing to bet that all personal information will be encrypted from this point forward as well, and it is likely that software engineers not only have to write the software to make that happen, they also have to write software that will let the PSN access that encrypted data, something they likely hadn’t planned for when designing the PSN.  I actually feel bad for every employee of Sony who works on the software and hardware for the PSN. I have little doubt that this has probably been the worst week of their lives.  The work they are doing to restore the service is enormous, and they will likely never get credit for what will be an amazing feat.

The last bit of news is one that is good for everyone.  When the PSN comes back online, there will be be a software update (I assume for both the PS3 and the PSP), that will require users to change the PSN account passwords, since those have been compromised. I will theorize that the update will also include any new encryption pieces that are likely being build into the PSN right now.

I’ve thought about this for a bit, and I’m kind of torn on what to say.  When someone gets physical access to a server, it is significantly easier to hack into that server and gather information. This does make me feel better about the robustness of the PSN itself, since the attack came from within.  However, the fact that someone was able to get into what should be a secure area is unacceptable, but physical attacks can happen.  This is akin to a bank robbery or a theft from a museum.  We are appalled at how such a thing can be allowed to happen, and why there wasn’t more security, but the simple fact is that they do happen from time to time.

Because of the type of attack, I honestly don’t know where to start with how my personal information was obtained.  It is easy to say that all of that personal information should have been encrypted on the servers, and that it should have been impossible to access, but in reality, I don’t know of too many companies that actually encrypt all data on their servers.  To put it simply, encrypting everything is a significant amount of work, and does make recovering from issues more difficult.  Data should be safe in a physically secure environment, and sometimes we depend on that to keep that data safe.  I will grant that not many networks have data on the scale of Sony, but I also wonder if someone broke into a Google data center; how much personal information could be obtained there?  That’s a question I hope we never find an answer to, but it is a valid question.

At the end of the day, the result of the attack is the same. Personal information of tens of millions of people, including myself, has been compromised.  Everyone who is on the PSN is more vulnerable to identity theft, phishing attacks, and password attacks than they were two weeks ago. This is fact, and nothing I have said today changes that. I’m not trying to downplay the severity of this breach, because it is bad, among the worst I have ever heard of in the industry  That being said, I find it a bit easier to, and this may not be a good word for this, sympathize with Sony on the method of attack; one which is arguably the most difficult to predict and defend against. I’m willing to bet that 90% of workplaces would be in a similar, albeit smaller scale, situation if the same thing happened to them.  Would mine? I hope to never find out.

[Read] – Sony PlayStation Blog

[Read]  - Joystiq