Cogeco cable switches to metered billing/usage

[Modelworks]

Looks like they are all playing follow the leader now.
I had never heard of Cogeco but its home page shows it has some large cities.
http://www.cogeco.ca/en/index_o.html

Cogeco Cable provides about 2,717,000 revenue-generating units to the 2,428,000 homes passed by its cable network in the territories it serves. It is second largest cable system operator in Ontario, Québec and Portugal in terms of Basic Cable service customer served.

http://www.dslreports.com/show...illing-On-Users-101682

On the heels of Time Warner Cable's announcement yesterday that they'd be expanding metered billing trials in the States, Canadian cable ISP Cogego has dropped the news on customers in our forums that they'll be imposing metered billing on users. Bravely taking the brunt of the user complaints directly, Cogeco network engineer Krispy is fielding questions from users about the new shift. According to Cogeco, the new caps will be as follows:

Lite ? 10GB/mo bitcap - $2.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Lite Plus ? 20GB/mo bitcap - $2.00 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Standard ? 60GB/mo bitcap - $1.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Pro ? 100GB/mo bitcap - $1.00 per GB over to a maximum of $50

Users will start seeing usage charges on their bills in April and May but will not be charged officially until June -- as part of an apparent plan to get users used to the amount of bandwidth they use and the extra charges they'll incur. Everything counts toward your cap except Cogeco VoIP traffic, and users will be notified via e-mail when they get close to the cap. According to Cogeco, they'll be offering a new meter on their portal page.

The shift to metered billing started in Canada roughly a year ago, when Canadian carrier Rogers began imposing caps ranging from 2-95GB, with users on the lowest tier incurring overage charges of up to $5 per gigabyte.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
http://www.dslreports.com/show...illing-On-Users-101682

Lite ? 10GB/mo bitcap - $2.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Lite Plus ? 20GB/mo bitcap - $2.00 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Standard ? 60GB/mo bitcap - $1.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Pro ? 100GB/mo bitcap - $1.00 per GB over to a maximum of $50

Hmm so if there's a max amount, I wonder what happens when you hit it? Is it possible then to just buy Lite and simply hit the $30 max and just keep on truckin'? I'm sure there's also a speed difference as well, but that's not specified in here.

 

[DrawninwarD]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Modelworks
http://www.dslreports.com/show...illing-On-Users-101682

Lite ? 10GB/mo bitcap - $2.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Lite Plus ? 20GB/mo bitcap - $2.00 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Standard ? 60GB/mo bitcap - $1.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Pro ? 100GB/mo bitcap - $1.00 per GB over to a maximum of $50

Hmm so if there's a max amount, I wonder what happens when you hit it? Is it possible then to just buy Lite and simply hit the $30 max and just keep on truckin'? I'm sure there's also a speed difference as well, but that's not specified in here.

Yeah there's a HUGE speed difference associated with the tiers. Rogers Ultra Lite is like 2x dialup. ~12-14 kB/s.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Modelworks
http://www.dslreports.com/show...illing-On-Users-101682

Lite ? 10GB/mo bitcap - $2.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Lite Plus ? 20GB/mo bitcap - $2.00 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Standard ? 60GB/mo bitcap - $1.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Pro ? 100GB/mo bitcap - $1.00 per GB over to a maximum of $50

Hmm so if there's a max amount, I wonder what happens when you hit it? Is it possible then to just buy Lite and simply hit the $30 max and just keep on truckin'? I'm sure there's also a speed difference as well, but that's not specified in here.

With the way these companies think now, they probably just terminate your connection.

 

[techs]

F*ck the cable companies. We should just tell them their "franchise" does mention anything about internet service and tell them they can't impose caps if they want to keep offering it.

/problem solved.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Well there goes on demand services like GameTap