Hi Garth,
I e-mailed Shaw Direct in regard to its satellite service when travelling outside of Canada. I found out they will not be offering anymore satellite service outside of Canada.
There was no reason given.
Is it because of government policy or Shaw’s policy? There are thousands of snowbirds who like to keep the satellite service while outside of Canada so that we can keep abreast of Canadian news.
Paul Dupuis,
Red Deer, AB
Hi Paul,
The problem that rears is called copyright. Canadian satellite providers purchase the copyright to programs that are shown in Canada to Canadians. They cannot purchase the U.S. rights as these are already sold to U.S. satellite providers.
Bell Canada was the first provider to lose coverage in the U.S. as the Canadian government requested they focus its footprint further north so more Canadians in the north would receive better signals. The footprint that was over part of the U.S. was wasted coverage, in which they could not use it in their calculations to generate advertising revenue.
Shaw was the favoured provider of TV signals for Canadians until they were caught up in the copyright problems. I have recommended that Canadian snowbirds put their Canadian satellite subscription on “leave” (with no payments necessary and the account will still be active upon their return to Canada). What snowbirds can do is take a month-bymonth subscription to Direct TV in the U.S. using your U.S. address.
