Shaw Offers Less Filling 'Lite' Broadband

Communications Today, March 4, 2002

At 128 Kbps download and 64 Kbps upload speeds for $24.95, Canadian cable and satellite services company Shaw Communications [SJR] said it is offering a cable modem broadband service, Lite-Speed, that gives its customers the always- on convenience of high speed broadband at a lower price.

Shaw has about 2 million customers in Western Canada and about 70,000 in Texas and Florida for its high-speed Internet access, which is offers for $39.95 a month. But at about the cost of narrowband dial-up Internet, Lite-Speed serves a niche market, Shaw President Peter Bissonnette told Communications Today. Bissonnette said about 5,000 customers have signed up for Lite-Speed in the first two weeks it was offered.

"If cost was an issue, [high-speed access customers] were going to leave us," he said. "We didn't have an alternative package, so in the couple of weeks that we've been [offering Lite-Speed] we've seen our customers aren't churning out as much. They are churning down to this package as opposed to going off to some other ISP or to the telco." >TK Siemens [SI]: