Yesterday's actions can have a profound influence on tomorrow. Such a notion might apply to a couple of decisions Shaw Communications Inc. has made in the last half-decade. The first of those was its 2010 move to spend $2 billion to purchase the broadcasting assets of Canwest Global Communications Corp., which included the Global TV network and several specialty channels such as HGTV, Showcase and Slice. Then in 2011, Shaw — after having spent $190 million on spectrum in 2008 AWS auction — said it was abandoning plans for mobile services and instead building a network of WiFi hotspots for its Internet subscribers. Fast-forward to today, and Shaw finds itself challenged by certain factors that would have been hard to foresee just a few years ago, such as: • New...