Ontario-based Cogeco responds to criticisms by customers who soon face download caps as low as 10GB and charges of up to $2.50 for each GB of data downloaded that exceeds it.
Data caps are becoming all the rage among ISPs these days, but usually they’re limited to amounts well above an average subscriber’s reach, at least without downloading BRRips.
Many ISPs also charge “overage fees” to encourage people to be mindful of their data limits, but rarely is customer feedback solicited before instituting such a policy.
Such is the case with Cogeco, apparently the largest ISP in Ontario, who has announced that beginning June 1st it will charge customers who exceed their data caps up to $30-$50 p/mo ($24-$41USD).
Data caps range from 10 to 100GB depending on the package, and customers will be charged between
In its defense, Cogeco says the plan isn’t about making money, but rather about customers “responsible for their usage.”
But, isn’t it bad enough you pay for a connection speed that can only be used up to a certain point?
Not to Cogeco who insist that a few bandwidth hogs are using more than their fair share and thereby slowing the speeds for others.
“The only people who will pay these overcharges are those who download movies a lot,” she added. “We want to make the customer responsible for their usage.”
Carrier talks about customers who download “a lot” of movies as though they’re breaking the law. The lowest cap of 10GB means one could only download around 7 movies or 20 TV shows depending on the quality from legal download services like iTunes.
Nevermind the streaming of movies and TV shows from sources like Hulu.com or network outlets like ABC and NBC. Is streaming also an abuse of their connection? If so, what it’s really for? E-mail only?
Are a minority of users that much a problem to the whole network that an entire ISP’s subscriber-base must suffer?
I think not.
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welcome to the future of the internet. From minutes used to GB’s downloaded. Hopefully the free-market will sort this out.
The reality is these companies want to keep all their revenue streams, and streaming video, Voip, etc are all cutting into their profits. If they institute a cap they can essentially kill off the competition. ISP should of never been allowed to be a multi service provider providing tv and phone service, its a conflict of interest. Now all established providers are going this route, many of which used to be public, gone private to offer “better” service (everyone knows its because someone slept with a politician). Hopefully Google eventually throws their hat into the free internet idea, then it would force these companies hands.
ABSOLUTELY!
but in the early internet days, Canadians do not have that choice or option. The capital cost of the infrastructure is high and therefore we’re left without that ability to speak with our dollars. All major Canadian ISP’s are guilty of this infraction and CRTC has their thumb up their ass. Maybe in about twenty to thirty years things may change.
The other big ISP in Ontario has already been doing this for months (Rogers) Thank god they have a cap of 25$ of over charge or my month internet bill would be in the hundreds every week.
one thing to say
http://www.acanac.ca
please don’t remove my post I’m not spamming just trying to point people in the right direction, no caps! at Acanac , no throttling and its a real steal too at 9.95 a month
Evidently these douchebags have never heard of streaming HD or streaming multi-channel audio. Both are bandwidth-hungry. Do they know how much data a good-quality streaming radio station will pull in over the course of an 8-hour period? To state that nobody needs to download more than 10Gb a month is about as sensible as saying that “nobody needs more than 640K (of memory)”.
I’m currently on my buddy’s Cogeco account and let me tell you it’s horrible having this Sword Of Damocles transfer cap hanging over our heads. I’d really like to go out and download a couple of demos of new first-person shooters but that would chew up a significant amount of the transfer quota.
I’m a Cogeco subscriber, my plan is supposed to be max download speed 17 MB and 100 GB bandwidth per month, I never exceed it and should be allowed a rebate or permitted to carry forward unused bandwidth.
meaning what? that it’s alright to charge $100/month for their shitty service. Thanks but no thanks.
@ MR
You’re right about the competition angle, especially here in the US where there really is no competition between cable providers, each has their own coverage area free from competition (dial up dont count).
too expensive and too stupid! some poor country (here) also got unlimited plan to unlimited usage… this guy want to earn more just thinking the old plan will work in this new age… lol, he think that dsl is actually dial-up…
As long as they don’t lower the current 60 gigs per month for standard…but with video online getting bigger all the time i can’t see it sticking to that amount a few years down the road.
This wont last. All it will take is for one person to start a lawsuit against any overage charges that questions HOW the ISP knows the traffic is SOLICITED. I know… I worked for a cable ISP when Code Red hit… On certain IP blocks, over-usage was hit *very* quickly. Does YOUR activity light go completely mute with everything behind it off? Probably not, as the worm of the week will always be knocking down your door. And if the ISPs *are* inspecting your packets and have proof of any sort, then the privacy issue comes into play… This is fine for now, but once someone wises up and realizes that the ISP *could* DoS or merely ping-test people over their amounts without any proof of solicited traffic to the user, this model will fail and class-action might follow. I mean, what is to stop the ISP’s from “padding” their profits under this policy? I have often suspected that certain AntiVirus programmers are responsible for virus outbreaks *cough*MCAFEE*cough*, so what’s to stop ISPs under this unregulated model from creating their *own* job security? I hope it forces ISPs to throttle down to whatever they can offer you at full lode 24/7. I think it may level the competitive market at that point, and then push competition back into place. (Where is my 100MBit line like in EU? You want to CAP my 10-15Mbit line AS-IS?) Ballocks I say… Fight it.
It just goes back to the fact that they are selling you something that they just don’t have – in infrastructure to support the speed and bandwidth they advertise. If they advertise x amount of bandwidth at x dollars p/month, why can’t I use it as I see fit? Because they don’t have it. False advertising once again gets ignored because it’s ’semantics’….It’s not semantics – it’s a friggin ripoff!!!
Minkorrh said: “If they advertise x amount of bandwidth at x dollars p/month, why can’t I use it as I see fit?”
Exactly. My ISP has recently advertised that it has doubled its download speed. At what cost? By limiting my download capacity to one half of what it used to be?
I think most if not all corporations servicing internet customers are likely more interested in revenue streams rather than data streams.
Data caps are an effective way of increasing revenue in an ever growing general internet market.
“A few” bandwidth hogs??? Then provide usage statistics every month, visible even for third parties, adequately redacted to ensure privacy — and make the next month cap, say, at 20 times the global average value times some factor depending on the package. Not only it would be fair among subscribers, but also provide enough pressure for ISP to charge adequately and upgrade timely.
well all i can say is that it is about time we start fighting back
we can sit here and bitch all we want, but as long as that is all we do then nothing will ever change. Idont know what the answer is but for sure i am going to check this place out http://www.acanac.ca/... If anyone use it or has any info about it please post
Does this mean that they didn’t instal; enough viber optics in the ground? That would be a very stupid thing.
I download everything I can and will always do it forever intil I die. My life’s goal is to download $1 billion dollars in files from the net. I should get close with the equipment I have. Then I hope to register this achievement in Ripley’s Believe it.
There is a web site coming out soon called http://www.webwildink.com there is going to be some organizing and fighting back on that site so check it out.