Canadian Cable operator Shaw recently dropped a pricing bomb on Vancouver, offering 15Mbps broadband, 200 channels of TV, or voice service for about
$9 US for each service. It's an unheard of deal, and Shaw is clearly taking a loss in the city in order to crush
Novus Entertainment, a local FTTH operator. As we
noted in July, Novus responded with a fairly smart ad campaign (
Twitter,
Facebook, and
blogs) aimed at informing Shaw customers outside of Vancouver of the deal they were missing, and urging them to call in to complain. Shaw's responded with
a defamation suit against Novus:
Calgary-based Shaw, which has more than two million customers, mostly in Western Canada, has fired back by filing a defamation lawsuit against Novus in B.C. Supreme Court. Shaw president Peter Bissonnette said Novus is spreading misinformation. The offer isn't just targeted at Novus customers but residents of West Vancouver in general, which is a "highly competitive" market.
Of course there's not an ISP in business who'll admit they do business in anything but the most competitive of markets. But were this really about Shaw being generally competitive, they'd offer the $9 promotion in their other "highly competitive" markets as well.
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