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Rogers Shrinks Download Limits As Netflix Arrives
Meshach writes "Hot on the heels of Netflix coming to Canada, Rogers (one of the biggest ISPs in Canada) has shrunk download limits. 'As of Wednesday, new customers who sign up for the Lite service will be allowed 15 gigabytes, a drop from the 25 GB limit offered to those who signed up before July 21. Meanwhile, any new Lite user who goes over the monthly limit will have to pay $4 per GB up to a maximum of $50 — a spike from the previous $2.5 per GB surcharge.' Officially, there is no connection between the two events, but it seems an odd coincidence, especially when Rogers charges customers who exceed their bandwidth allowance."
I like how the overflow bandwidth costs over 500% wholesale costs. $4.5 is just insane. I almost wonder if 3G bandwidth isn't cheaper than that. Just goes to show that they aren't doing this in order to offer everyone a good service, but rather to punish and blackmail moderate users into buying a higher tier subscription service.
No surprise, coming from Rogers.
That sucks! Maybe Netflix should offer lower quality, smaller files, while you Canadians get up and raise holy hell about the lack of competition for internet access, even if that means the government should offer some.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I can understand limits on consumer lines. You can have fast and cheap, but not all the time if you want fast all the time it costs more. Ok, but that still needs to be a reasonable amount. The 250GB cap Comcast does is quite reasonable. That's enough to do a whole lot and never get near it. Mainly the compulsive torrenters are the ones affected. But 15GB? That is just stupidly low. You can hit that without Netflix. Surf the web regularly, watch Youtube, download some game patches and you are there.
Talk about unreasonable :P.
Boycott Rogers.
And switch to what, exactly?
They have a geographical monopoly across virtually all of Canada. If you live in an area serviced by them, you have a choice between Rogers and Rogers. Are you seriously asking people to give up entirely on the internet?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Time to jump ship by the looks of things. Best vote with your choice of ISP.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Yes. I've been surviving fine without the internet for almost 5 years now. I still use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Google, Skype, and Steam but I dont use the internet.
DSL? Satellite Internet? HSDPA? The alternatives are always there. It's just that they're not cost-effective enough that's all.
In the most extreme case, you can start-up your own cable company to fight Rogers. That's exactly what Aurora Cable Internet did, and they're still the fastest and cheapest cable Internet provider in Canada.
And switch to what, exactly?
DSL. If you can't live without cable modem, then that's the choice you've made. Those with more flexible connectivity criteria have more options and are not tied to the cable company (Rogers or otherwise). You're pretty much in a "Doctor, it hurts when I do this" situation.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
We buy a raw 100Mbit/100Mbit Internet connection with guarantied bandwidth for 1300 US$/month. We haven't renegotiated that price in a while, but I hear that bandwidth prices have been falling very fast since then. A big ISP would probably get bandwidth cheaper still.
Our current price works out to 25GB/$ if we use it 100% 24/7. So if you are paying more than 15/25=60cents for our Internet connection limited to 15GB/month, then you are being cheated.
I really don't get why Internet connection limits are so often so low. The fraction of the price you pay which actually goes to cover Internet bandwidth costs in a normal Internet connection is miniscule.
This is just the opening shot in the upcoming battle between cable providers that want you to use *their* on-demand movie systems vs Netflix and similar companies. It's not surprising it happened with Rogers first, but this will inevitably happen in the US too. Netflix's streaming of movies is the residential ISP's worst nightmare come true. They'll be in a position where they have to tell their customers that something they used to be able to do for no additional cost will suddenly become a new confusing expense showing up on their cable bill with no apparent additional benefit to the customer.
Problem with monopolies when some other entity dips into their cash flow they find a way to get it from somewhere else . That somewhere else is normally the customers they have a strangle hold on. does Canada have anti trust laws? if so this seems like an ideal time to hold their feet to the fire
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
I switched to Teksavvy Cable a month ago and it's awesome. No throttling, 200GB cap, and 10/1 speeds for $42. You can't match that with any other provider in Toronto.
This is obviously abusing a semi-monopoly to conduct price gouging, and the government should intervene.
Typical prices ISPs will pay for is the mere one-time cost of network equipment plus ~$25/Megabit/Mo, for a commitment to transfer data, the price is typically the same no matter how much data's transferred as long as the 95th-percentile traffic rate's not over the commit (95th percentile billing on a burstable link), otherwise known as $25,000/month per gigabit.
Sometimes an ISP might buy more bandwidth at different times of the day than others, but, in any case, they would do that because the cost is less, not more than the typical market rates.
Over a 1000Mbps backhaul, approximately 800 customers can be downloading 1 Megabit continuously 24/7, at an approximate avg cost to the ISP of $3125 per customer for that data, but in that case, 324000MB is transferred per customer on avg per month, resulting that each Megabyte transferred costs the ISP approximately $0.009 per megabyte.
Web hosting providers will typically charge $0.15 to $0.80 per GB per month on average.
Roger's "overage pricing" is like 4X the rate charged by even the most greedy of hosting providers.
Why is it that ISPs (and cell phone carriers) seem to ignore economies of scale? Its expensive to lay cable as a small ISP but when you get larger and larger it becomes cheaper thus bandwidth becomes cheaper. It is even more obvious when it comes to cell carriers, it costs a lot of money to put up a tower, it costs significantly less to upgrade that tower to 3G/4G, etc.
Not to mention that the more people who have the ISP the more profit the ISP makes thus making it even easier to lay more cables and increase bandwidth.
The bigger the company, the cheaper the services and the better the quality of service should be based on economies of scale.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
At the same time, they are pushing their Rogers on Demand service to all their customers too. http://www.rogersondemand.com/
Which means either charging people to watch TV content by 'downloading' it, or maybe, will they give a break to people who are on their network to use their service?
This is precisely why net neutrality is important and required.
uh uh uh.. you still used the internet for slashdot!
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
Yeah, and Aurora is... owned by Rogers. Look at http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2008/13/c9876.html
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Wikipedia: The purchase agreement was finalized and approved on June 12, 2008 and Aurora Cable Internet became part of Rogers Cable services.
And switch to what, exactly?
They have a geographical monopoly across virtually all of Canada. If you live in an area serviced by them, you have a choice between Rogers and Rogers. Are you seriously asking people to give up entirely on the internet?
Your center of the universe attitude clearly proves that you live in Eastern Canada. First of all, Rogers does not have any presence in Western Canada - we have Shaw and TELUS. Second, Bell provides DSL in your area in direct competition to Rogers. Complaining about a lack of options while citing only a single vendor as being the only viable option clearly demonstrates your ignorance on the topic.
I am a Rogers customer. I like the speed and latency (Express plan), but hate the bandwidth cap. Normally, I don't go over it, but occasionally do so.
Here is a matrix of their plans.
Two plans changed for new clients signing up after July 21: Lite and Extreme. Lite is what the summary describes. Extreme was 95GB for $60 a month, now it is 80GB.
They want to make money in two ways: via their own video service, and by charging extra for bandwidth that people will use for Netflix.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Rogers is also a cable provider and also provides its own On-Demand service for movies. Maybe reducing bandwidth limits on its accounts is a way to maintain profit from those customers who will be utilizing Netflix rather than Rogers On-Demand.
$50CDN/month for unlimited Internet at cable speeds? Sounds fair.
Actually, you're right. If I download hundreds of gigs, or a terabyte or two, I'll come out way ahead... Unfortunately, I don't expect the price cap to remain for long.
I'm all for making the ISPs a public utility. It might be the only way to turn them into what they should be.. a pipe, just like the gas and lights.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
You failed to mention that Rogers Video is one of the largest chains of movie rental shops in Canada. That's what makes this an especially weird coincidence.
At one point, I couldn't get a cell phone from Rogers the telco, apparently because I owed some late fees to Rogers the movie rental shop, which I could only pay at the movie shop. So I went with another telco. Weird, anyway; I hadn't realized they were all so tightly connected.
Why don't ISPs bill home users by the amount of bandwidth used so the users don't pay for the bandwidth they don't use?
Because users like simplified billing and a flat monthly rate - with no surprises on next month's bill.
Consumer protection is virtually non-existent in Canada. The CRTC is a spineless puppet entity, solely to serve big business. Cable providers are mutually exclusive across Canada as far as I know, meaning only one exists per territory. Bandwidth caps, as you can see, are draconian, UBB (usage-based billing) is ridiculous. The list goes on and on...
I just switched from SHAW to NakedADSL and get 200 gigs up and down while SHAW was 60. Now I haver had problems with SHAW contacting me about going over BUT but bit torrent even for linux distro's is useless on SHAW. The NakedADSl although not as fast download as SHAW never had a problem with bit torrent so far.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I'm not sure where this "If you're in an area with Rogers, there's only Rogers." Here in Alberta, we've got Shaw for cable, as well as Telus for... whatever they offer. As far as I know, any area with Rogers has at least one other competing cable company. So there's not just alternatives, there's equivalent alternatives.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
I know why you were modded troll. That $50CDN/month is IN ADDITION to the regular service rates.
"His name was James Damore."
You just posted on /. your post is invalid.
And with DSL, your choice is...? Bell and Bell resellers? Some choice.
ISPs don't owe you anything you haven't paid for at the price they are willing to sell to you. Nor do they owe it to Netflix to deliver their content.
The issue is you haven't got a choice. Well, you've got Bell or Rogers, but both have monopolies on their respective cables, and any competition is buying bandwidth from them. Ultimately, they set the rules no matter your ISP.
If you want IP service to be a utility where the public helps set the rates then get your local government to provide it under a public utility district or something.
I'd like a pony, too. By what magic wand should this happen? The best case would be the local gov't leases from the Big Two, just like all the other middle-man ISPs. If you think a local-level government has any leverage or regulating ability over Bell or Rogers, then you're remarkably naive.
Rogers not only has bandwidth concerns. They also operate a chain of movie rental stores. Netflix poses a dual threat to Rogers.
...just like the gas and lights. Which are metered service. It still comes down to paying enough for what you use to keep the infrastructure operational. How the costs of that service are spread out to the users is the question. Quite often metering is the fairest way.
Oddly, where I live (Indian County) I pay a flat rate for water/sewer. The infrastructure is just getting installed to meter. I think I pay more than I should, and I may be. We'll find out when the meters and the billing software gets updated.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
We're actually a bit lucky in Alberta - Shaw and Telus have varying quality depending on what neighborhood you're in (my Shaw service is superior, but my parents get better speed/reliability with Telus). From what I'm seeing they're actually having to (gasp) compete for service.
Additionally, in the Edmonton area there's a few smaller players who are trying to get into the Wifi end of things. I don't live in any of their footprints, so can't speak for quality, though.
Why don't cities bill pedestrians and motorists by the number of miles they've traveled so the bedridden and terminally-handicapped don't pay for streets they don't use ? You could also add a door-crossing fee to the bill as well. They could offer weight tiers for the users so the fatter the walker, the more expensive the amount per mile.
The internet has evolved to a point where it is seen as a public utility. It should be offered, managed and subsidized like any other public utility. Governments build roads and waterworks, each of which are orders of magnitude more costly to deploy and maintain than even the most exotic data networks.
If our government can piss $1B on a moronic G20 meeting and related psyops, surely they could spend that money to build a national ISP that makes Rogers look like a science fair runner-up.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
There needs to be new blood in the ISP industry. I personally think we should have a nationwide government-run fiber network, just like any other public utility. Failing that, a wealthy thrill-seeking investor could do in a pinch. It's not exactly difficult to undercut the big boys, you just have to swallow the very costly barrier to entry. These monolithic 19th-century telcos simply don't have the flexibility to compete, and they all know it, which is why they never rock the boat...
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Out west, We have Shaw. And their bandwidth cap is very forgiving, customer service with them is second to none. Not sure what the deal is heading east (manitoba and beyond) but out this way, shaw kicks ass :)
Why don't cities bill pedestrians and motorists by the number of miles they've traveled so the bedridden and terminally-handicapped don't pay for streets they don't use ? You could also add a door-crossing fee to the bill as well. They could offer weight tiers for the users so the fatter the walker, the more expensive the amount per mile.
This is done in the USA. It is called gas tax and title taxes. Also, heavy haulers pay significantly more.
If they start metering, then I'll want any and all unwanted advertising to subsidize my connection. That's why I think it shouldn't happen, because we'll still be dealing with content regulation. A flat fee for a set speed is the best way. Charging for bit rates is the fairest way, not the number of bits.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
(sorry for length, hope this might be helpful, probably overstaing obvious, anyways.....)
I don't want to bash Rogers, they paid me a good salary and I had a great experience working there many years ago.
I'm far removed from the company now, but I *think* and it appears marketing/management strategy remains unchanged.
My experience though in sales has been that the marketing and upper management has some strange way of making promotions and changing products for better (and unfortunately) worse. Most of the promotions are pretty positive and get a lot of new customers and sales for cable, PPV, specialty channels and Internet. This new download cap probably won't be a problem since most customers don't use or understand the Internet much. I'll bet most are just check e-mail and news and won't even use close to 15 GB. I'd be more concerned if I were a parent. Kids with an XBox 360 or PS3, what with downloading patches, playing online, demos and Torrent, Netflix, Youtube, blah blah blah. The parents don't use the net much, but the kids you can't control and the kids and parents probably don't realize how much is being downloaded.
I makes no sense to me that it would cost the ISP (Rogers) more for bandwidth as time goes on. I would think bandwidth costs would decrease and extra services like mail servers (a lot use Gmail, hotmail), news servers are no more, and I would think less people have 'homepages'.
Rogers is not unlike Bell, Shaw and to the US neighbors AT&T and Sprint etc in that they like any company wanting to make a profit and draw people away from competitors. Bell also has TV/Satellite offerings. So given industry trends, I won't be surprised if this bandwidth change is directly related to a conflict of interest, one they know the CRTC won't touch or are too slow to move.
I live in Vancouver, so I've also the opportunity as with Ontario and Quebec residents, to be a TekSavvy customer. It costs me more with a dry line, but well worth escaping the Telus or Shaw. Bonus - they are more than generous with bandwidth. I'm happy with service - as long as Telus doesn't start pissing me off by trying to get the useless CRTC to cap non Telus DSL subscribers on their loop. As taxpayers, we've more than subsided the Ma Bells - to the point these should probably be considered public infrastructure.
You still have national elections there, right?
I never said it was going to be easy. I remember sneaking a partial T1 into Canada to a cable provider back in '95 (they had one customer on the US side, north of Spokane, and they back hauled it via the cable system.) just to get around the horrid telco T1 rates.
Canada is going to have to have a Internet Revolution and overhaul Rogers/Bell. I'm surprised you've put up with them for this long.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
You need to provide some citations. Because I'm pretty sure that satellite Internet has Rogers hands-down when it comes to geographical coverage. That's one of the ways we've gotten Internet coverage at the family cabin up near Flin Flon. There's also province-wide dial-up from the telcos, not that that's a real alternative. My wife also says that all the cell phone towers have WiFi on them, but I've never heard the full story on that. And the population (as opposed to geographical) coverage certainly has access to DSL. When we were up in Fort McMurray visiting family for Canadian Thanksgiving we had both cable and DSL service in the house (my nephew is a big gamer and buys his own dedicated cable connection).
So, I'm pretty sure that most people are a long ways from having to entirely give up on the Internet if they drop Rogers.
Get your neighbors together in your building. Propose a plan after checking with ISPs. Tell them you want business class service, and how much it is. Then split that with your neighbors. This might be fiber. It might not.
AT&T did something like this with there data plans after Nextflix arrived. Every company knows netflix is high bandwidth so they shrink or cap people to make money. Wonder if nextflix is in on all this.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
So what. I am a Canadian and I use the American spelling rules like 'center' and 'color'. There is likely Americans down south who like to use British spelling conventions too even though they are American.
The situation in Canada sucks. Bell and Rogers do whatever they want and the CRTC goes along with it.
Oh, well, I don't have cable TV or Internet, but I do have cell phone service through Rogers. Time to jump ship to Wind Mobile, I think...
Remember, they cap their overage charges at $50. So, the max you can pay with this is around $86/month (the "Lite" plan is $36/month). That's around $83USD.
:-)
For comparison, the Extreme Plus plan is about what I'm paying in the US for Comcast, at $70/month. That offers 125GB of transfer per month, or half the Comcast cap. Of course, it also offers 25mbps download and 1mbps upload, which is better than the 16mbps and 876kbps I get.
But what happens if I go over my 250GB cap? Comcast seems to be saying they'll provide you a warning if you do it once, and will shut you off if you do it regularly. I'd rather pay $4/GB if I go over, up to a cap of $50, than just be cut off. It doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me... Sure, I pay less per GB at my hosting facility, but I'm sure if I was giving Comcast thousands of dollars per month they'd move on that $4/GB as well.
I agree, but you may not like the delivered price. You can get b/w cheap at a peering point, but getting that to your home at the guaranteed bit-rate is not cheap. I know that the cost of last mile circuits in Canada is horrendous and that is where the reform really needs to start: Bell.
I live in the Seattle area and know that we host a lot of BC firms just because of that.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
DSL, point to point wireless, Shaw, etc.
Anyway, this is a classic Netwrok Neutrality casebook example.
Where a carrier of multiple services (such as Rogers), favours their own content with substantially better rates of carriage,
they are blatantly breaching Network Neutrality.
Being as this is a near monopoly situation for many of their customers,
a strong case can and must be made for legislation and intervention.
Too bad we live in Canada where on issues like this governments an be so easily bought.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
i wish i could get business class line from Rogers. :(
but the wont provide the service to any area not zoned commercial/retail/industrial by the local municipality.
If the bit rate can be measured accurately, you could be charged for whatever it is averaged out over the month. Then they wouldn't have to guarantee a set rate, unless you want to pay for one. The last mile is where the government is most needed to compete against the private firms. Only then could the price become reasonable. Heh, just like American health insurance. (couldn't help taking the pot shot there)
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
When we were up in Fort McMurray visiting family for Canadian Thanksgiving we had both cable and DSL service in the house (my nephew is a big gamer and buys his own dedicated cable connection).
Wait wait wait... so your telling me Canadians have basements?
Please, take a shot at our health-care, although we are finally seeing some positive movement there.
You often buy IP by the 95/5 rule, meter every 5 minutes and then throw out the top 5% of peaks and bill at the 95% point. That keeps quick flashes of very high traffic from killing you.
But buying a last mile circuit like an OC-3 or T3 you'll be paying for the whole thing all the time (renting a pipe.) Metro Ethernet networks (MAN) can be billed either way, depends on what the market will tolerate.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Yes, and defending the person gets modded flamebait.
"His name was James Damore."
I feel sorry for all Canadians, seems like things over there aren't any better than in the US.
In comparison, I currently have a 200/10 Mbit/s cable connection (yes, 200) for 54,90 € per month. There are no transfer caps, no noticable speed fluctuations and practically no downtime at all.
That's just cable. I could easily get an unlimited 14.4 Mbit/s 3G connection for just 13,90€ per month. That includes two SIM cards (one for your phone) and a USB modem.
God bless Finland!
If you could organize a real boycott where Rogers loses 50%+ of their customers there might be some change. Yes, you might have to go without internet for a while, but with the caps they have now you barely have internet anyway.
Toll roads bill based on how far you go! At the least the ticket based ones do the other ones are gate based so the rate is not the same all over the same systems.
What an awful way for mom to figure out her machine has been hijacked and sending spam near non stop for the last month.
I don't think you can even get Rogers internet in Nova Scotia. There is a choice between Eastlink cable and Bell DSL, with a hodge podge of smaller places doing long haul wireless and such. Rogers DOES have cell phone "coverage" in this area, but it is laughably expensive and paltry coverage when compared to Bell or Telus's coverage.
Here in Eastern Canada, we have Bell and Eastlink for internet, as well as Telus for Cell. Rogers isn't available in this area, either. I don't know WHERE this "Rogers Internet" is, but I suspect it's Ontario, which, as we all know, is like.. 99% of Canada, but only if you're FROM Ontario.
Bruce must have mod points.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
In the US we hardly have completely "unlimited" lines. Most people are limited to 10Mbit speeds, not 100 or 1000 like other countries (and upload is limited even more). Seems like we shouldn't have to worry about monthly bandwidth.
There needs to be a nationalized, government-run ISP. You guys up North should have learned from health care that big private corporations are only going to screw you in the end.
I'm surprised that Canada hasn't figured out that broadband internet needs to be run as a public utility.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Usually grey and judgement.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Because bandwidth costs nothing! Or rather, it costs a fixed price in maintenance, plus an upfront investment.
Having people pay per usage is basically saying you can reasonably expect people to give you money for exactly nothing in return. That is not how the market is supposed to work...
Oh well, this is what happens when you have a combination of information asymmetry (dumb users) and a quasi-monopoly (rogers).
I use primus. No cap, and acceptable bandwidth. Too expensive compared to Europe, but what can I do?
I am so sick of hearing this typical comment from lazy people who are more than happy to spread their asscheeks and let Rogers and Bell frack them up the butt into the depths of their bowels instead of even considering an alternative. Does Bell get all the money you would pay for an account from a reseller? NO! So I would think that everyone that hates Bell or Rogers would be more than happy to drop them and switch to an ISP where a good chunk of your monthly bill goes into non-big-business pockets. But alas, it's always easier to sit, do nothing, and complain instead of taking action.
I live in a city with a population of less than 1M and we have at least half a dozen choices for DSL. If you don't want to switch from crappy rogers, or from bell to a reseller where only a portion goes to Bell instead of everything then that's your choice, not Rogers', not Bell's, so shut up and deal with your decision, or lack of.
There are some areas where Bell or Rogers are the only choice for hi-speed; if you are in that situation then I feel your pain and your complaints are then justified.
I admit that I am a power user. My point was that I can hit the 250GB cap alone, without netflix and without illegal torrent downloads. If I can do it alone without netflix; a family can easily hit the cap and exceed it when you add in multiple people accessing the internet at the same time especially if you have multiple people streaming movies. That is why the cap is unreasonable.
My other point was that in the future we will demand bandwidth in ever increasing amounts yet the caps will hold us back. Looking back at the history of computers, my first computer had 5k of ram. Then 64k, 128k... My first PC had 512k which was less then the 640k max. Now I type this on a laptop with 4GB. (And yes as a power user it is not unusual to get to the point of hitting the swap partition.) Media was the same way, from 360k floppies to 1.4mb, 640mb cds, 4.3gb dvds, and now we are at the point of 50GB blu-rays. And sometimes (especially with games) we get to the point that we need multiple disks. No one dreamed of using all this memory and storage just a few years ago... Why do you think bandwidth that is barely adequate today will be sufficient tomorrow?
As for why I am complaining, it is simple... Once the infrastructure is built, it does not cost more to transmit 2MB over the network than it does to send 1MB. Companies advertise an "# Mbps" connection for a certain price and then overcharge us if we actually use it. Also, here in the US, we have literally given BILLIONS of dollars to the telecommunication companies to build out the network(through government subsidies and tax breaks); yet our access is more expensive and slower than many other industrialized nations. All this while the executives are complaining that they are losing money while getting multi-million dollar bonuses. (And when Time Warner announced it was testing smaller caps a year ago, people found out through their earnings reports that their internet division was raking in the dough without caps, and while barely putting any money into improving the infrastructure.)
Looking for a job?
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DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Do you have any idea how many Canadian jokes we Ontarians have to put up with just because the rest of you can't be as normal as us?
We had that with phone service in the western provinces. Telus (BC and Alberta) used to be a crown corporation, as did MTS (Manitoba), then some bright people decided to privatize them.
Sasktel (Saskatchewan) is still a crown and offers pretty good service IMO, in competition with Shaw, Access, and a bunch of small guys in the major cities.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Not to take the side of the cable company, but the Lite service is the second from the bottom in terms of cost. It's not meant for the high-end bandwidth consumer. As the site says, that service is stated to be "Perfect for email, moderate web surfing, and sharing files." It's 3M/256k with a 15 gig monthly limit. However, if you plan to download several movies a day, this clearly isn't going to be enough for you. Thankfully, the company offers OTHER service options. The Ultimate plan, has 50/2 and a 175 gig limit, with only 50 cents per additional gig. Of course, you'll pay more for that plan, but I don't think anyone was seriously thinking that the second cheapest service plan should have completely unlimited bandwidth.
And if the ultimate plan isn't enough for you, there are business plans available which will offer even more, although it's likely going to cost more and the plans apparently aren't available to view on the site. But this is pretty typical for a cable company. I'm not sure what the complaint is supposed to be.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
From what I can see, Bell with its Bell TV satelite service has a lot to loose to Netflix as their Pay-Per-View @ 5.99$/film may suffer from Netflix's streaming (if available here) and could opt for a similar strategy and lower their monthly quota on their DSL access.
Videotron wich is a major cable operator and ISP and also the major owner/operator of video clubs is owned by Quebecor Media which also operate Archambault Music who sells DVDs. They, also, have a lot to loose to Netflix and may lower their monthly quota.
My plan with them was originaly unlimited and then they lowered it to 100gb/month so what's next?
I only recently found out that those were not the American spellings. They have always looked right to me.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
You are either:
1) outright lying for emphasis
2) not from Canada
OR
3) from Toronto where you think that all of Canada = anywhere you can drive to in 30 minutes.
From Sault Ste Marie west there is virtually no Rogers. The half way point of Canada lies within 40 miles of Sault Ste Marie. So the west half has virtually no Rogers. Shaw Cable and Telus (dsl) are in Canada western half and Shaw is currently Canada's largest cable company.
Videotron is the largest cable provider in Quebec, Canada's 2nd largest province and home of almost 25% of the country.
Per Digitalhome.ca (non clickable link - http://www.digitalhome.ca/2009/11/canadas-largest-digital-service-providers/)
1. Bell – 2,084,000
2. Shaw – 1,678,335
3. Rogers – 1,597,000
4. Telus – 1,213,000
5. Videotron – 1,145,400
6. Bell Aliant – 797,682
By my math the top 3 Cable companies have 4420735 subscribers, with Rogers pulling 36%. Or in your words "monopoly across virtually all of Canada"
And with DSL thrown in they service 18.7% of the 8515417 subsribers served by the top 6. Not even 1 in 5.
While I'm not applauding the recent move they made, to call them a virtual monopoly with less then 20% of the market is a bit much. Valid arguments ring truer when real facts are used.
if you gave them free Internet, they'd complain, saying you should be paying them to use it ...
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
At least we on the West Coast can call in the winter and brag about our sunshine =D
God is dead -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead -- God
Zombie Nietzsche lives! -- Zombie Nietzsche
Almost every major city in Canada has the shitty option of going to your local crappy phone company and getting even worse customer service and slower downloads with higher pings.
Most of them would rather cry for the government to do something. Of course what they overlook is that the reason they are in this situation is because the government "did something" to fix some other perceived failing of the market.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
There are lots of alternates to Cable Internet...Well 2 here in Canada for the average joe consumer: Radio and DSL or perhaps that should be DSL and radio What is interesting is that rogers sells the cable TV as well (clearly) and so they able to punish their competitiro. Interesting. I am looking forward to netflix coming to Canada. I'll definitely be losing the movie channels on my satellite dish.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
I'm not so sure if lucky would be the right word. Telus has download caps (like 60'ish gigs. Not much for one person, 3+ with video streaming/Steam and you'll notice it fast), and Shaw... I will never use them again. Total nightmare of a company. Internet would go down on a daily basis. Complained and they said it was something wrong with our router. Wasn't until a whole apartment was going to quit using them (3-4 months later) to make them send a tech to see that the box was badly damaged and needed repair/replacement. Happened in 2 different places (I didn't control the bill so it was free for me, but still too unreliable of a company). Thats why for quite some time, if not still, they would splatter their ads claiming that they "didn't have contracts" because that was the only thing that they had that was good and were in the middle of a PR nightmare (this started when they decided that every channel anyone watched was now going to be $10 a month more to get them).
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
I kind of agree. You can't get blood out of stone. Bandwidth costs money. Net neutrality is the reason for these knee-jerk actions by ISPs.
Kriston
So what. I am a Canadian and I use the American spelling rules like 'center' and 'color'. There is likely Americans down south who like to use British spelling conventions too even though they are American.
...and then there are the idiots all over the world who believe sticking "an" in front of words starting with hard consonants makes them...something. What? Smart? European? What? Who the fuck was taught in grade school or high school English class that you say "That is an chicken sitting on an egg."? It's not "an" chicken sitting on an egg it is "a" chicken sitting on an egg.
The English article "an" is to be used only in front of words beginning with vowel sounds when spoken verbally, such as "an honest politician" or "an English gentleman" or "an asshole!". The article "a" is to be used in front of words beginning with a hard consonant sound when spoken verbally, such as "she is a beautiful woman" or "is that a cocker spaniel pissing on your shoe?" or "you're a fucking jerk".
If one is using "an" in front of consonant words as some kind of post internet age form of "emphasis" I suggest it only makes one look goofy, uneducated, or striving too hard for some odd kind of attention. I still haven't figured out where this FUBAR'd execution of this English language article started. Was it Europe or here in the US? Or?
People I know personally, who know how to use this English article properly, have started using "an" in front of consonant words in print (emails) but never do it while speaking verbally through their lips. If I was sufficiently creatively inclined I'd put together a cartoon parody of this and stick it on YouTube to shame people into dropping this stupid plague that has sprung up all over the web.
My understanding is that both Rogers and Bell are also trying to persuade the CRTC to government regulated download limits of 60 GB for all ISPs. This of course would allow them to protect themselves from customers going to another ISP.
Also, before shrinking download limits, they've also doubled overlimit fees.
They've began to offer on ad supported on-demand video online, except this "free" video is still subject to their usage limits.
DSL is your answer? Really? I used to have Speakeasy DSL service when I lived in San Diego. Absolutely 100% awesome. Well, I moved to Colorado. Speakeasy is under the impression that no matter where I live (three different locations) the "local" DSLAM is always happens to be about 20km away. Well, I can get 128kb service for $120 at 20km range. Oh look! Comcast offers 10mb service for $60.
Really, my only option other than cable is dialup. 56kb service is still around $10 a month and is half the speed of DSL. Somehow or another, I think a LOT of Canadians are in the same boat that I am in.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
yeah sunshine inbetween the never ending rain... You do have nice mountains though I'll give you that
In the cities where the majority of the population live it's less to do with distance than it is lack of maintenance of the equipment. Rogers and Bell don't pull in such a huge amount of money only from selling packages that are barely above dial-up. They also make a large amount from never upgrading their infrastructure or repairing anything.
I am so sick of hearing this typical comment from lazy people who are more than happy to spread their asscheeks and let Rogers and Bell frack them up the butt into the depths of their bowels instead of even considering an alternative. Does Bell get all the money you would pay for an account from a reseller? NO! So I would think that everyone that hates Bell or Rogers would be more than happy to drop them and switch to an ISP where a good chunk of your monthly bill goes into non-big-business pockets. But alas, it's always easier to sit, do nothing, and complain instead of taking action.
Sure, there is alternative action. For example, TekSavvy has finally struck a deal with Rogers to provide cable internet service in some regions in Ontario, in particular the GTA. Their deals are great and much more cost-effective than Rogers, however they require significant up-front costs -- installation (they need to hire a Rogers guy to come flip an electronic switch) and hardware (you need to own your own cable modem). For me, TekSavvy becomes a better deal at ~7 months, and I would be more than happy to switch
Unfortunately, their deal with Rogers is not a contract, and Rogers is free to change the terms of the wholeseller agreement whenever they like. If two months from now Rogers downranks TekSavvy cable into oblivion, then I am left out to rot in the Sun.
The fact that Bell and Rogers (or whoever your local telephone and cable providers are) have an artificial duopoly on the last mile basically screws everyone over and completely stifles competition.
Aikon-
What's funny is bandwidth prices have dropped dramatically for service providers.
I pay for colo space on a few machines, they keep offering me more bandwidth at the same price. I get 10x what I did 8 years ago for a slightly lower price.
Sure there are some different economies for a last mile provider. But the trend for technology and networking is for the prices to go down, and I'm convinced cable and DSL companies are paying a lower price than they did a few years ago.
Honestly these companies have had it too easy. They would offer some service and bandwidth, and there was no content for people to download so the bandwidth went unused while customers still paid full price. Now that there are things with wide appeal like hulu, youtube hd, netflix, whatever. These companies are seeing their networks actually being used and feel they need some sort of compensation for it beyond what they have already been getting.
They got paid for nothing for many years, now that they are doing something they want to get paid more.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
A few years back, I had "up to 5M" service and "up to 10M" was offered for additional money or if you had a bundle. When I moved, I got the bundle and therefore got the "up to 10M" service. But my previous "up to 5M" service was faster than my new "up to 10M" service. Key words: "up to". It's always been a rip-off!
Actually economics, not the government resulted in the problem. See "Natural Monopoly".
ie. for there to be more than one cable provider available, there has to be more than one cable line running past your house. There is a fixed cost to maintaining those cable lines. More cable lines means more costs for the providers. And those costs ultimately get passed down to the customers.
ummm cable and telephone lines are pretty much in the definition of Natural Monopoly.
Bell and Rogers would have a "duopoly" regardless of what the government did. All the government really did was to force them to provide services in rural areas so Canada doesn't have shitty rural internet service like the US does.
Can anyone out here explain exactly how the isps control our download speeds? I have comcast at 6 megs, but know they also sell faster and slower services. (Att is the same way... multiple speeds available over the same wires) Some say they also throttle back the speed if they don't like what you are downloading. I'd sure like to know exactly how they do it. Water is easy... crank on the valve. Audio is easy, crank on the volume control. but internet speed?? I need some help here, please.
There are cities in the US and elsewhere that are sick of the Telcos
Charging huge rates so they can make mega bucks for their mega mansions
and stock options.
Do a Co-op ISP and buy up dark fiber as a not for profit between cities.
Then treat it like a Co-op or even city owned util and move on.
The Telcos have shown they are ALMOST as corrupt as the Federal Government.
http://www.tispa.org/node/14
They had to work hard to be that corrupt, LOL !
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
"Natural Monopoly" is a theory that was developed in the early 1900s to justify the government intervening to give AT&T what was essentially a monopoly over telephone service. I can only think of one case where a monopoly developed without direct government intervention, Microsoft. The railroad monopolies were all a result of government intervention. The AT&T monopoly over telephone service was the result of government intervention. The cable monopolies are the result of government intervention.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
ummm cable and telephone lines are pretty much in the definition of Natural Monopoly.
Bell and Rogers would have a "duopoly" regardless of what the government did. All the government really did was to force them to provide services in rural areas so Canada doesn't have shitty rural internet service like the US does.
It doesn't have to be like that, though; the municipality could own the phone and cable lines as they do the electricity and water. You then purchase service from whichever provider you choose, all of whom can compete on a fair basis.
The governments subsidized the initial build-out, which is great, but now that the infrastructure is there, it's time to revisit the ownership rights. Telcos in Canada have absconded with the continual government subsidies to fill to boost their bottom line, while letting their technology languish in the early 1990s. If you had real competition, then ISPs would be striving to provide the best possible service they can to entice more customers to join them.
So it's an oligopoly, is that really any better?
Teksavvy and 3web are alternative ISPs that resell Rogers cable internet. You will have to check their sites for availability in your area. Not sure about 3web but teksavvy offers 200GB and Unlimited caps.
Jonathan Albrecht
yeah having the government provide the infrastructure is another option. Or you can regulate things so that it has to be a separate company maintaining the lines from the ISPs providing the data over those lines. Either way you have to make sure that company or government isn't giving preferential treatment to any of the ISPs.
yeah every economist in the world has this big conspiracy going on. You caught us, please don't tell the rest of the world.
Well, if you rent in Toronto, might be a good time to try and grab an apartment somewhere in Cityplace (cityplace.ca). Telus offers intenet service to those buildings with 100Mbs Down / 5Mbs Up fiber connections for $50/mo. Monthly transfer limit is set 300GB but there isn't *currently* any charges for going over (they're planning to add one eventually).
Is that like when Obama said that "every economist from the left and right" says that his economic stimulus has saved or created 2 million jobs? When as far as I have heard only a handful agrees with that (and those are all on the left).
If you are so sure that "natural monopolies" exist, please name two that came about without government intervention.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
(Sorry for not replying sooner – I didn't notice this until just now.)
I'm not trying to say resellers are useless; even if it all comes from one or two top-level suppliers, it's still some form of free market and hopefully pushes Rogers/Bell to a little more honesty than they'd have if the resellers didn't exist. My point is, though, that when the reseller's bandwidth is being capped/filtered in some way (i.e., upstream's upstream still has final say on what the bandwidth does), even an account on a reseller is pointless. For example, a friend of mine has Teksavvy DSL and BitTorrent is capped during the day because Bell has decided that's what their doing in his area, regardless of who's getting the bill for the bandwidth.