As far as Shaw and I are concerned, we’re done. I returned my phone modem, received my final invoice and will have a cheque coming to me for the extra amount I paid.
However, before all of my access was taken away I had a chance to log into the new MyShaw portal and take a look at the fancy bandwidth usage meter. I love data, especially historical data of anything I do, from Google Reader to the music I listen to. If there is a graph about my usage on anything I love it. It was a given that the new Shaw bandwidth meter would appeal to me but I found the results interesting.
The bandwidth meter on DD-WRT was useful but the one on Shaw is just so pretty. I also found that there were some days the DD-WRT wouldn’t track data, and after a few resets I lost historical data so the Shaw bandwidth meter was my first time seeing my Internet usage for the last few months.
Prior to Shaw reducing the download limits on their High Speed package I would have been fine on most months, but when it was dropped to 60GB my usage was consistently above that. In January I increased my package to High Speed Extreme (100GB usage limit), signed up for Netflix and Usenet and my overall consumption actually decreased. If I stayed with Shaw I would have been fine with a buffer of 40GB but I stand by my choice to switch.
What stands out to me is how heavy my bandwidth usage was in the summer months. We were busy painting, doing house work and being outside, I wouldn’t have thought we were online that much but those months were higher than ones in the tv season. It’s no surprise that my upload was on par with download. When it came to torrents I preferred a 1:1 ratio, but I never considered how much that would be on a month to month basis.
Maybe it’s because I’m only a few weeks into my Telus usage and they haven’t processed my first month yet, or that they never intend to meter customers usage, but the Telus bandwidth meter is showing zeroes. For my personal benefit I will keep an eye on my Telus usage and see how it compares to Shaw’s and see what long term affects Netflix, Usenet and having a PVR have on my consumption.
I occasionally look at my telus meter since I’m using torrents a lot more than I used to and have an 80GB bandwidth. They are consistently weeks, sometimes up to a month behind in the calculation. I was over by a lot one month, and was worried they would charge me extra (before I knew they never enforce it) but nothing happened.
That’s interesting your Telus bandwidth meter shows anything. I just checked now and it’s still showing 0’s.
I think for Telus to charge someone you would have to really push the limits on a consistent basis, but how much you have to do to anger the sleeping giant isn’t something I want to test.