[CA] Internet costs to rise

[iamawesomewicked]

This isn't accurate. We have an ISP in our town that ran its own cables to everything and now is it's own ISP. I know in places like Toronto this can't happen but it did here. I do realize it does have to connect to something outside of us but I'm not sure who they use ... it might be Ontera or something.

What's the name of this ISP?

[Raa]

I feel your pain guys. Australia isn't a lot better in many parts of the country. :(

[treemonster]

i just looked up my plan from cogeco(in ontario) and i get 125gb cap. i dunno if i've gone over it, i don't see the bill. i do a fair amount of youtube streaming(at360p or less) and some other big downloads from time to time, but gaming isn't going to use up even half that gaming all day every day.

still it's ****ing ridiculous. these coompanies have had record profits year after year and failed to reinvest in infrastructure upgrades after years of bragging up how we were set for years no matter what the internet threw at us, and now they're seeing competition to their on demand and digital cable services they're trying to squeeze them out with these caps. how they can be anymore transparent i don't know. they were trying to squeeze more profits out of independent canadian tv channels too last year or in 09.

for alot of people the quality of service has degraded, the tech house calls take longer and longer with huge windows so you are forced to take the whole day off work waiting at your door, and god forbid the tech ****s up while he's there, because it'll be another 2-6 weeks before they can come back and fix it.

my bro got digital cable in calgary from shaw, and two weeks after setting it up they decided to send a tech out to shut off the cable to the downstairs of their apartment that used to be split into two units, because there was an unpaid bill there from who knows how long before, even though when he ordered it and the tech came out he told them it was for both upstairs and downstairs. took him 2 months to get it hooked back up, then another 3 months to get the credit for service outage.

then he ordered 2 VOD boxes COD and they charged him for them on his bill. then shut them off when he disputed the charges and failed to pay the overcharge in full.

because he gets the full digital package(tv, phone internet) they make him do auto payment at the first of the month. so he just makes sure he doesn't have enough money for it to go through and pays mid month which makes more sense as ofc what other big bills can anyone think of that are due at the 1st of the month?

they used to be pretty decent. fast wait times for house calls with good techs, free upgrades and so on. then they started with the throttling of p2p traffic, then they added speedboost and started showing customers speedtests on service calls, now here comes the caps and overage fees while they promote their own online streaming services in competition with netflix which no doubt count towards your cap.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

The way I see it, it's a government-sanctioned monopoly. Bell and Rogers are on top and anyone else that wants a piece of the Internet service pie has to pay them. At least, that's how it is in most parts of Ontario.

Fortunately, I'm on Teksavvy's Express Cable plan. I pay $36.95 + tax for a 10 Mbps / 512 Kbps plan with a monthly bandwidth cap of 200 GB. Compared to Rogers' Express Internet plan, it's much better: Same speed but instead of paying $36.95, you pay $46.99 with a monthly cap of 60 GB.

My fear right now is that Rogers will eventually force Teksavvy to lower their bandwidth caps and raise their prices.

[ironsight2000]

The way I see it, it's a government-sanctioned monopoly. Bell and Rogers are on top and anyone else that wants a piece of the Internet service pie has to pay them. At least, that's how it is in most parts of Ontario.

Fortunately, I'm on Teksavvy's Express Cable plan. I pay $36.95 + tax for a 10 Mbps / 512 Kbps plan with a monthly bandwidth cap of 200 GB. Compared to Rogers' Express Internet plan, it's much better: Same speed but instead of paying $36.95, you pay $46.99 with a monthly cap of 60 GB.

My fear right now is that Rogers will eventually force Teksavvy to lower their bandwidth caps and raise their prices.

you are 100% correct.

[ambiance]

It is a sad state of affairs for us Canadians as far as Internet Providers go. I've been using Cogeco and remember when it used to be $39.95/mo. with soft, unenforced caps and now it's $46.95/mo. ($56.95 without bundle discount) for 60GB and $1.50/GB overage. The service they provide is excellent, but the low caps and the annual price adjustments are ridiculous. I know TekSavvvy is an alternative, but I have tried them before and had a very bad experience. Their service has got even worse as of late and isn't worth the cost of purchasing a modem, potential $100 service fees and being at the mercy of Rogers/Bell/Cogeco.

[treemonster]

The way I see it, it's a government-sanctioned monopoly. Bell and Rogers are on top and anyone else that wants a piece of the Internet service pie has to pay them. At least, that's how it is in most parts of Ontario.

Fortunately, I'm on Teksavvy's Express Cable plan. I pay $36.95 + tax for a 10 Mbps / 512 Kbps plan with a monthly bandwidth cap of 200 GB. Compared to Rogers' Express Internet plan, it's much better: Same speed but instead of paying $36.95, you pay $46.99 with a monthly cap of 60 GB.

My fear right now is that Rogers will eventually force Teksavvy to lower their bandwidth caps and raise their prices.

out west it's exactly the same as ontario except shaw and telus, taking the place of rogers and bell respectively. dunno what their caps are though. they even have twin services like rogers/shaw vod and online streaming.

the only difference between here and out west is shaw doesn't do mobile phones, so rogers' is out there too. rogers also has mobile wireless internet out there. but from what i heard when i still lived there they weren't upfront about ocverage being spotty in certain parts of town, especially if you lived near one of calgary's 4(?) hospitals, like a friend found out a few years back. telus' adsl also had spotty coverage with one district of the city in the interior not being covered at all, and me being allowed to take th emodem box home after paying in cash and waiting 2 weeks for the appointment and a day's wages lost.

look at my current plan aside from the lack of throttling i had with shaw, i'm actually paying more for basically the same down and far lower up(.5mb vs 2mb out west)i was paying like $35 out west for this, here i'm paying $75 according to their website.

and what's worse is they put some kind of device on the coaxial to the modem so i can't move it, and ofc the way they placed it under my desk there is no slack on the power cable to it, so if my cat decided to sleep there and disconnect the power... and that has happened, and all the lights stay on the modem, so it's not extremely obvious why my internet is down when it happens XD the sunnuvabitch even plugged it into the wall socket stringing it around the outside of the desk instead of my power bar with ample sockets open.

[MR_Candyman]

out west it's exactly the same as ontario except shaw and telus, taking the place of rogers and bell respectively. dunno what their caps are though. they even have twin services like rogers/shaw vod and online streaming.

the only difference between here and out west is shaw doesn't do mobile phones, so rogers' is out there too. rogers also has mobile wireless internet out there. but from what i heard when i still lived there they weren't upfront about ocverage being spotty in certain parts of town, especially if you lived near one of calgary's 4(?) hospitals, like a friend found out a few years back. telus' adsl also had spotty coverage with one district of the city in the interior not being covered at all, and me being allowed to take th emodem box home after paying in cash and waiting 2 weeks for the appointment and a day's wages lost.

look at my current plan aside from the lack of throttling i had with shaw, i'm actually paying more for basically the same down and far lower up(.5mb vs 2mb out west)i was paying like $35 out west for this, here i'm paying $75 according to their website.

and what's worse is they put some kind of device on the coaxial to the modem so i can't move it, and ofc the way they placed it under my desk there is no slack on the power cable to it, so if my cat decided to sleep there and disconnect the power... and that has happened, and all the lights stay on the modem, so it's not extremely obvious why my internet is down when it happens XD the sunnuvabitch even plugged it into the wall socket stringing it around the outside of the desk instead of my power bar with ample sockets open.

What does this device they put on look like? I've had Shaw put on line filters before, but you can certainly unplug everything and move it

[ironsight2000]

What does this device they put on look like? I've had Shaw put on line filters before, but you can certainly unplug everything and move it

I would like to see this too as that sounds kinda odd they would to that as people move furniture and stuff all the time.

[*RedBull*]

Eastlink ftw.

No caps :)

Even though their 30mbit and 100mbit service is advertised with caps, at the moment there aren't any because they don't have a way to monitor usage lol.

I'll have my company contact them. We offer very economical solutions for situations like this. We provide the equipment, software, and training they need to do the job. Thanks for letting me know of this opportunity.

[Growled Member]

So does this mean that those annoying Canadian posters won't be here as often?

I kid, I kid. :D

[ironsight2000]

now there is talk about retroactive fees

[Lexcyn]

What's the name of this ISP?

Vianet. They are still expanding - I actually just applied for a fibre tech job there.

[treemonster]

What does this device they put on look like? I've had Shaw put on line filters before, but you can certainly unplug everything and move it

it's like a shield or something that goes over the coaxial where you plug it into the modem so need a special tool to remove the coaxial from teh modem.

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7531/dscf0079w.jpg

kinda hard to see it in the pic

it's not like a filter or line conditioner at all.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Fred Derf
removed img tags: there's another pic later in the thread

[Fred Derf Veteran]

I lolled at your high resolution yet low-quality pic. Do I need 3D glasses to see it properly? :D

Sorry, I can't give you a more helpful comment that that though.

[ambiance]

I have the same thing. It's there for 911 in case someone decides to take the modem elsewhere and use it. Not sure if it's the law or trying to cover their asses.

[ironsight2000]

it's like a shield or something that goes over the coaxial where you plug it into the modem so need a special tool to remove the coaxial from teh modem.

kinda hard to see it in the pic

it's not like a filter or line conditioner at all.

thats soo odd iv never heard of that before

[Fred Derf Veteran]

I have the same thing. It's there for 911 in case someone decides to take the modem elsewhere and use it. Not sure if it's the law or trying to cover their asses.

I have a cable-based modem and IP telephone through cia.com and I didn't get a special thingy to lock down the cable line. Then again, they shipped the modem and ATA device to me and I did the installation myself.

[ambiance]

How much bandwidth per month do you get, Fred?

[Fred Derf Veteran]

How much bandwidth per month do you get, Fred?

I don't remember. I don't max it out by any means.

They seem to have a 60GB softcap (I just googled it) but I've heard that people have gone over that without a problem.

[ironsight2000]

How much bandwidth per month do you get, Fred?

I get unlimited go teksavvy but the will come to a end soon dam UBB

[Fred Derf Veteran]

I get unlimited go teksavvy but the will come to a end soon dam UBB

2 weeks and 5 days, in fact.

[punklefish]

Vianet. They are still expanding - I actually just applied for a fibre tech job there.

Actually Vianet runs over the Bell and Eastlink infrastructure and are in the same boat for DSL but just haven't implemented their own monitoring solution yet. Eastlink hasn't implemented bandwidth caps on their 15mb cable yet so that one is safe for now. Vianet does have it's own uplinks to Toronto for it's fiber infrastructure but that's corporate clients only as far as I know.

[treemonster]

I lolled at your high resolution yet low-quality pic. Do I need 3D glasses to see it properly? :D

Sorry, I can't give you a more helpful comment that that though.

yeah my camera sucks. sorry about the pic size. i should've resized it first.

I have the same thing. It's there for 911 in case someone decides to take the modem elsewhere and use it. Not sure if it's the law or trying to cover their asses.

i've had digital phone before and haven't seen this before. also this is the modem just for the computers. it's not hooked up to anything but my router.

[ironsight2000]

2 weeks and 5 days, in fact.

nope they must still give 30 days notice and with the new retroactive fees it pushes the dates back more.