Canadian cable operator Shaw has dropped a bit of a pricing bomb on consumers and competitors in Vancouver. The operator is offering some unheard of deals, including 15Mbps service with a 100GB cap for $9.95 ($9.13 US), 200 channels of TV service (with 25 high-definition channels) for $9.95, or digital phone service with free installation, also for $9.95 a month. The catch? You have to live in an area served by Novus Entertainment, a Canadian fiber to the home operator that's currently wiring Vancouver apartment buildings.

Novus offers symmetrical 10Mbps service for $37.50 a month (110GB cap), 30/10 Mbps service for $89.95 (200GB cap), or 50/10Mbps service for $179.95 (360GB cap). Given Novus's small size of just 9,000 subscribers, Shaw can essentially give service away in Novus markets and just eat the losses.

Unfortunately, if you're a Shaw customer in any other area, such amazing deals aren't available to you. In fact, in some instances, you're paying nearly $150 per month more.

Novus isn't particularly impressed with this maneuver, and has launched a massive PR campaign to fight back. The company is using both Twitter, Facebook, and a new website to take jabs at Shaw's pricing attack. They've even offered a YouTube video featuring a Novus employee begging for mercy. The company also issued a press release urging Shaw customers to call and demand the same deal in their neighborhoods.

Shaw is abusing its dominant position in the market by offering services ... at a sizable loss as a means to destroy a local competitor. -Novus

"Shaw is abusing its dominant position in the market by offering services - which it normally makes nearly 50 per cent margins on - at a sizable loss as a means to destroy a local competitor," said Donna Robertson, Co-President and Chief Legal Officer of Novus Entertainment Inc. "The millions of existing Shaw customers paying full price should be outraged because they're unwittingly subsidizing the costs that customers with a competitive alternate pay (sic), which is unethical and unfair," she says.

While predatory pricing is often frowned on here in the States, carriers still utilize selective cuts to crush competitors (see here and here), though Shaw's effort takes the idea to an entirely new level. According to Novus, the company is pursuing a formal complaint with the Competition Bureau, though Canada's been busy mirroring U.S. broadband policy, where government acts as a well-heeled plaything for incumbent ISP lobbyists. In other words, Novus is likely facing a steep uphill climb if they're waiting for government help.

Of course Novus isn't quite the frightened doe in the woods their campaign infers, given they're owned by Canadian real estate tycoon Terry Hui. Hui also runs Concord Pacific, a major condominium and planned community developer in Vancouver that, not too surprisingly, signs broadband deals (fortunately non-exclusive) with Novus. Still, Novus's public relations effort is an original and interesting way to fight Shaw's market dominance, assuming it doesn't simply announce to Novus customers that they can get cheaper service somewhere else.