Shaw → Re: [AB] Warning about BB100 "Unlimited" data usage HA

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the reply. Just PM'd you my account number. I called in tech support to addon the unlimited option on July 3, I believe the unlimited account became effective on July 8. I'm surprised the account is suspended 10 days later.

My internet was down from yesterday morning with the DL and UL buttons flashing. (didn't know what that means until today, it means data usage exceeded).

Called two times last night but got some excuse from the tech guy saying there is equipment problem in my area. Which turns out it's really a problem with my account.

Called in again around 8am this morning, same excuse then the guy says some other tech will call me back ASAP.

Went to work and waited till around 11:30am, nothing, so called in again and this time got routed to bandwidth protection.

Finished arguing with bandwidth protection lady at around 12:30 today. Even though she recognized that my account is Unlimited, she says I'm interfering with other people's services regardless of unlimited or not. so unless I change my usage behavior I'll get cut off in the future. She also quoted the "Term of Service" as I mentioned earlier.

She says she have turned my account back on, I'll have to check tonight when I get off work.

Again, I DO recognize my usage is very high, and the last thing I want is to interfere with others' usages.
However my usage patterns are unlikely to change much, which is why I need an unlimited ISP that knows how to handle situation like this.
I don't really care if my speed get throttled down to a crawl during peek hours, as long as I can resume during off-peak hours without being cut off.
However the lady I spoke with says it's not an option. She did suggest I open another line and another modem lol. As if THAT will not congest the traffic!

Perhaps Shaw's network is not capable of handling this, and looks like I don't have much options other than to turn to Teksavvy, as right now data is more important to me than instantaneous speed. I do hope that your internal policies can be clarified, so that others do not encounter the same problem as I do.

Thanks again,

Cheers,

@luangm

To eloborate whst sean is saying, the bandwidth team took a snapshot of your high usage before your account was upgraded, saw that you were not on the unlimited option and entered your modem for suspension.

When they do the snapshot, there is a list to go through, so this is most likely why the suspension happened days later. As sean mentioned, unlimited is unlimited, and doonz can vouche for that. Appologizes for the inconvenience, i am sure if you give it a full month now at the unlimited package, You won't get shut off.

That ultimately is up to you if you want to stay on the current package, mistakes happen and in this case it seems to be an overlap between changing your plan, and the previous months usage.

But luangm stated, and the bandwidth team agreed with him, that he was on the unlimited package and he was suspended for high usage anyways, and still told luangm that he needs to reduce his usage on an unlimited package.

My belief is that not all the bandwidth teams are aware that they are not 'allowed' to suspend the *unlimited* accounts for high usage, when the terms of use state unlimited transfer.

My hope is with this 'error' that Sean is able to both confirm if unlimited means unlimited, and if it does, to communicate this to all the bandwidth teams.

As far as I know, the suspension of accounts, is done manually for bandwith reasons, not an automated script.

I thought the entire point of the Shaw "bump-up" program is supposed to avoid stuff like this.

‡When you subscribe to one of our Broadband Internet packages, you will be opting into the Bump-Up Program. If you exceed your package’s included data, you will automatically be bumped up to the next level of Broadband Internet package for the remainder of your billing cycle. Once your new billing cycle begins, you will return to your original Internet package and your data will be reset to zero. The first time your included data is exceeded, you will receive one month’s grace and won’t be bumped up to the next tier. The Bump-Up Program will take effect February 2012.

That's all well and good, provided there is a higher tier. OP had Unlimited 100, which is the highest tier, assuming the 250 tiers aren't available in his area.

I'm arguing the point that Anonytech brought up, which was "To eloborate whst sean is saying, the bandwidth team took a snapshot of your high usage before your account was upgraded" -- I'm saying that this shouldn't have happened -- assuming their system is being implemented correctly, that is.

Agreed and I will stand with my comrades in anger over this arrogant pompus department who calls honest people making honest mistakes and liars. They did this to me 10 years ago and I still remember it regarding a Apache Web Intro page that was auto enabled and setup when I installed a linux distro and accused me of running a website off my personal service because of a stupid apache intro web index page. Terminated my service for 7 days back then, I honestly thought this department went the way of the dodo birds with the changes at shaw.

I am not sure if the bump up program is in effect now. I know initially it was supposed to be in place sometime in 2012. Maybe sean can comment on that.

This specific problem seems to be a miscommunication with the aup bandwidth depatment and luangm, specifically with policy's in place for unlimited accounts. I am sure sean will get have an internal discussion about what happened. Usually suspensions don't happen immidiately. Attempts are made to contact the customer first to discuss aup related issues, and if muliple attempts fail, that is when a suspension happens. The OP didn't mention if the aup department made attempts to contact him. Would be good to know for clarification purposes.