History
Shaw was founded as Capital Cable Television Co. Ltd. in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1966. The company changed its name to Shaw Cablesystems Ltd. and went public on the TSX in 1983. The company grew during the 1980s and 1990s through acquisitions of firms including Classicomm in the Toronto area, Access Communications in Nova Scotia, Fundy Cable in New Brunswick, Trillium Cable in Ontario, Telecable in Saskatchewan, Greater Winnipeg Cablevision (serving areas east of the Red River), and Videon Cablesystems of Winnipeg (serving areas west of the Red River), which had itself previously acquired Vidéotron's assets in Alberta. However, two swaps, in 1994 and 2001, with Rogers Cable have resulted in its assets being restricted to Western Canada and a few areas of Northern Ontario.
Prior to 2003, Shaw owned cable systems in the United States previously owned by Moffat Communications, serving six communities in Florida (Eastern Pasco County, Clermont, Palm Coast, Ormond Beach, West Palm Beach and Doral), and the Houston, Texas suburbs of Kingwood, Lake Conroe and Lake Livingston. In February 2003, the Florida systems would be sold to Time Warner Cable (with the West Palm Beach and Doral systems later sold to Comcast, and the other systems spun off to Bright House Networks), while the Texas systems were sold to Cequel III, as part of its then-Cebridge Connections subsidiary (now Suddenlink Communications).
In July 2009, Shaw announced that they will be acquiring Mountain Cablevision in Hamilton, Ontario, ending a ten-year-old non-competition agreement with rival Rogers Cable. Approval of the purchase on October 22, 2009 by the regulatory body, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), has been granted, and it was stated to be in the public's interest. The acquisition was Shaw's first cable property east of Sault Ste. Marie since the 2001 swaps with Rogers and Cogeco.
In April 2011, Shaw announced that it would not be launching a wireless (i.e. cellular) network until 2012. In 2008, Shaw had purchased wireless spectrum for areas covering Western Canada and Northern Ontario.
In May 2011, Shaw announced its intent to spend $100 million, to convert its analog tiered cable service to digital over a 16 month period starting August 2011. Its 20% of subscribers still on analog tiered cable service would receive a free digital cable box rental. This conversion does not apply to basic cable channels, thus subscribers to basic cable will continue to be able to obtain their signal in analog. Switching to digital has the effect of freeing up bandwidth, which Shaw plans on re-allocating for internet bandwidth. 100 and 250 Mbit/s internet speeds will be phased in throughout this timeframe.
In Spring 2012, Shaw announced that in order to free up bandwidth, it is discontinuing the carriage of FM radio stations on its cable service (ie as a cable channel in audio). This discontinuation does not affect the availability to access FM stations via the internet, though bandwidth usage would apply.
Read more about this topic: Shaw Communications
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