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However, it now appears after meeting with its users, Shaw appears set to go ahead and implement some form of UBB on its retail customers.

“We are of the mind that we still have a tremendous upside in terms of pricing power on our Internet services and through the course of our consultations with our customers, I think what we’ve seen from that is a recognition that the principle of ‘if you use more, you should pay more’ holds true,” Shaw chief executive Bradley Shaw is quoted as saying in a transcript of the call from April 13.

“But we believe as we work our way through some of the feedback we received from them that there really is a win-win for our shareholders [as all of] their customers in the way we offer our tiers of Internet services.”

Mr. Shaw said the company would have more to say about its new pricing and packaging plans in the “late spring, probably May, early June.”

“People have said to us, let’s not divide the Internet product today,” Mr. Shaw said. “Let’s figure out how to create a world-class Internet experience and then we can figure out how to do pricing and packaging from there. So, we think it would be reasonable to get further clarity before we’re going to go back and talk to some more customers about it. You’ll probably read about it on the social media like you seem to be reading about all the stuff, which is great and probably have more formal announcements end of May or early June.”

Critics of UBB are slamming Shaw’s decision to go ahead with plans to implement new pricing schemes. OpenMedia.ca — the populist organization that launched the Stop The Meter protest campaign, which garnered nearly half a million online supporters — accused Shaw’s executives of using “skewed language” and misrepresenting the views of its customers by claiming users would be happy with UBB.