kal wrote:Perhaps to help cover the costs of the Wind Mobile acquisition
From the Shaw Customer Bulletin:
These rate increases help to support future Internet and network enhancements and quality programming our customers have come to expect from us.
Does "network enhancements" include Wind? If so, the money from the rate increase would be earmarked for upgrading Wind's outdated cellular network, rather than funding the purchase itself.
My personal guess is that Shaw is quite happy to borrow the money now for the Wind purchase and hope to get it back down the road in profits from their expansion into the cellular business. As I understand it, the reorganization of Shaw and Corus made it easier to get financing for the Wind purchase by balancing the debt loads of the two companies.
Another factor that would warrant a rate increase is the economic slowdown caused by the deep dive in Oil Prices. That has translated into a lot of Shaw service cancellations.
One that is fun to speculate about, but admittedly not likely, is for Shaw to go after SaskTel, which has not even been confirmed as being for sale by the Saskatchewan government. Nonetheless, Shaw would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility of doing a competitive bid if TELUS goes after SaskTel. Like Wind though, Shaw wouldn't be hiking rates to fund the purchase, but would simply borrow the money and pay it back from future profits in Saskatchewan.