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“Does this make sense now?” Peter Bissonnette, Shaw’s president said in an interview this week. “Maybe the caps are too low [at other providers] and the charges are perceived to be too much.”

Shaw remains mildly supportive of the practices, the executive suggested, invoking the same arguments of network congestion and need for future investment Bell has been vocal about. But as of now, Shaw has shelved its plans to impose the regime.

The language used by Mr. Bissonnette is also less than certain. “Is there another way we can do this so that our customer’s needs are being met and they know what they’re paying for?” he said.

Shaw’s hesitancy does every Internet user out West a favour by preventing Telus Corp., which has 1.2 million broadband subscribers, from lowering its caps as well.

To put some perspective on the disparity between east and west, the most popular plan offered by the Vancouver-based company is its 75 GB plan, which costs $39 a month or $34 in a bundle.

At Rogers, one of the most popular plans was a $36 offer for 25 GB/month, a tier the company further lowered to 15 GB late last year.

“It’s absurd to me that you would be talking about 15 and 25 gigabytes,” said an industry source in Western Canada, apparently having no idea that a 25GB plan is standard for many subscribers on the other side of the country.

Such restrictions, especially at a time when usage is soaring, has some analysts questioning whether a review of the 2009 decision permitting major carriers to use UBB itself is next.

“We continue to wonder whether the outcry on wholesale usage-based billing would lead to consumer demands for the removal of usage-based billing for retail customers as well,” Dvai Ghose at Canaccord Genuity said Wednesday.