The Shaw WiFi Trial has started (only a few hot spots)

Lazybones · December 06, 2011, 03:32:53 PM

http://shaw.ca/wifi/

This is supposed to grow into city wide coverage.

Mr. Analog · December 06, 2011, 03:35:58 PM

Interesting that the City of Edmonton was ahead of Shaw on this one:
http://www.edmonton.ca/for_residents/programs/wireless-edmonton.aspx

Thorin · December 06, 2011, 05:01:44 PM

Hmm, but you need to be signed up with Shaw for internet and it counts against your bandwidth limit (cap) for the month.

Caps are stupid.

The Wireless Edmonton one isn't encrypted - with Shaw you can at least choose the ShawSecure wifi for when you're doing work. Also, the Wireless Edmonton wifi blocks all kinds of content.

Tom · December 06, 2011, 05:13:56 PM

Quote from: Thorin on December 06, 2011, 05:01:44 PM
Hmm, but you need to be signed up with Shaw for internet and it counts against your bandwidth limit (cap) for the month.

Caps are stupid.

The Wireless Edmonton one isn't encrypted - with Shaw you can at least choose the ShawSecure wifi for when you're doing work. Also, the Wireless Edmonton wifi blocks all kinds of content.

During the trial the shaw one doesn't count against your cap. But I doubt it'll make much of a dent. max 15mbps over wifi, and the extreme plan has 250GB/mo. I have BB50 and I'm not doing 250GB/mo (I was for a couple months, but I have no idea why

).

Mr. Analog · December 06, 2011, 05:16:27 PM

Your PC was the C&C for STUXNET lol

Tom · December 06, 2011, 05:20:58 PM

Quote from: Mr. Analog on December 06, 2011, 05:16:27 PM
Your PC was the C&C for STUXNET lol

Heh, I wouldn't entirely rule it out

Or it could have just been an error on Shaw's part. But months I went that high are /just/ under the cap. Which seems a little suspect. This month so far I've used 150G, and my "billing month" is just about up. Another few days or so.

Thorin · December 06, 2011, 06:39:41 PM

Keep in mind that my household has six users on a PC, two laptops, two iPhones, an iPod Touch, and an Xbox. And also keep in mind that when the main TV is not available for watching, the kids go and watch their TV shows through Youtube and the like.

I'm kinda glad Telus hasn't figured out how to count OptikTV and OptikInternet bandwidth separately - they want to cap me but they can't.

Tom · December 06, 2011, 07:02:53 PM

Quote from: Thorin on December 06, 2011, 06:39:41 PM
Keep in mind that my household has six users on a PC, two laptops, two iPhones, an iPod Touch, and an Xbox. And also keep in mind that when the main TV is not available for watching, the kids go and watch their TV shows through Youtube and the like.

I'm kinda glad Telus hasn't figured out how to count OptikTV and OptikInternet bandwidth separately - they want to cap me but they can't.

I'm not sure you'd use more than 400G though. I've downloaded quite a bit the past month, and I'm still under 200G.

Lazybones · February 08, 2012, 07:58:04 PM

Interesting looking at the map now they seem to be deploying in some retail businesses. Also shaw is rolling out new larger business plans...

Thorin · December 25, 2012, 08:42:46 AM

So there are lots of hotspots for Shaw Exo Wifi (the wifi that extends your home internet access and charges against your home internet account). This is great, and my family uses it every now and then. The problem is that there are only ten devices allowed to be "remembered" (meaning they'll auto-connect), and as of this Christmas morning we have twelve regular-use devices...

So now I have to pick which devices will be able to connect without entering a password and which users will have to remember our Shaw Wifi password. Kinda dumb, since it's not exactly hardware-intense to have another device on a list in a database table or anything.

Tom · December 25, 2012, 09:01:26 AM

You actually take out and use 12 devices?

does everyone there have two or three devices they always have on them?

Thorin · December 25, 2012, 09:11:31 AM

Four smartphones, two ipods, two laptops, a tablet, and now an ereader, these are/will all routinely go out places like rinks and get used while siblings'/friends' games are in progress. There are a couple of old smartphones that at the moment are still around and get used for games and/or music whenever wifi is available (hey, an iphone without a service contract is just a heavy ipod touch, after all).

It's not an "always" thing, it's a "frequently" thing. Sometimes the phone comes along but the laptop or ipod or tablet stays home, but it's not uncommon to have two devices on a kid - one for texting and one with all the good songs.

Good lord, do you remember ten years ago when having a laptop was still considered a big deal, and now everyone's moving to tiny pocket computers and it's infiltrated their lives? I wouldn't mind except people use their ipods and phones to make a virtual bubble around themselves even in (especially in) the midst of giant family gatherings.

Tom · December 25, 2012, 09:19:14 AM

Quote from: Thorin on December 25, 2012, 09:11:31 AM
Four smartphones, two ipods, two laptops, a tablet, and now an ereader, these are/will all routinely go out places like rinks and get used while siblings'/friends' games are in progress. There are a couple of old smartphones that at the moment are still around and get used for games and/or music whenever wifi is available (hey, an iphone without a service contract is just a heavy ipod touch, after all).

It's not an "always" thing, it's a "frequently" thing. Sometimes the phone comes along but the laptop or ipod or tablet stays home, but it's not uncommon to have two devices on a kid - one for texting and one with all the good songs.

Good lord, do you remember ten years ago when having a laptop was still considered a big deal, and now everyone's moving to tiny pocket computers and it's infiltrated their lives? I wouldn't mind except people use their ipods and phones to make a virtual bubble around themselves even in (especially in) the midst of giant family gatherings.

Yeah, I try not to pull my phone out and fuel my cravings for the internets. Most of the time its to show off pictures of my cat

Lazybones · December 26, 2012, 02:04:51 AM

Well you do have an above average size family. Otherwise the limit easily covers two devices per family member easily.

I wouldn't bother registering the laptops since clicking through the free hotspot notice is minor if you are going to power up a full laptop. The other devices however can make use of the free access in the background or are used impulsively .

If you have a decent data plan of 2 or more gigs on each phone then they are sort of unnessary accept for speed.

The e-reader, tablets and iPods however benefit the most as would many portable gaming devices.

Thorin · December 26, 2012, 02:30:14 AM

A couple of the smartphones are through Koodo. Koodo's plans start at $15 and include voice mail, caller id, and unlimited texting. The $20 plan includes free evenings (starts at 7pm) and weekends. Koodo then adds on a "data saver" option, where it's $0 if you use no data, $5 if you use up to 25MB, $10 if you use up to 100MB, $15 if you use up to 250MB, $20 if you use up to 500MB. Since the kids pay their own bills, they prefer to use no data, so wifi is much preferred whenever and wherever possible.

Shaw's on-the-go wifi doesn't have a "free hotspot notice". If your device isn't registered, you have to select the wireless network and then provide your shaw email address and password. Since it's not a password we use often (don't use shaw email), it's not one we remember. Thus I prefer to register the laptop.

This problem would disappear if Shaw would remove the arbitrary limit of devices.