

jono181

join:2004-06-05

Toronto, ON jono181 Member This is absurd Let's get this charge reversed for him.



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Re: This is absurd said by jono181: Let's get this charge reversed for him.



He needs to get the media involved. This kind of crap is insane. There is no $50 maximum on the 30 and 50Mbit plans. Cogeco announced this. It's a legitimate charge as far as Cogeco is concerned.He needs to get the media involved. This kind of crap is insane.

amungus

Premium Member

join:2004-11-26

America amungus Premium Member Re: This is absurd

No reason for this. It most definitely doesn't cost the carrier that much to transport the data on the customer's behalf..



Less than 1TB/mo? Come on. How much harm is this in the grand scheme of things? Is the customer not supposed to use their bandwidth? Why have a "fast" internet that is practically neutered and unavailable to use?



I hope the customer gets this sorted out. Totally insane to be charged this much for using their service as what will CERTAINLY (and already, quite obviously IS), 'ordinary use.'



ISPs need to wake up to this. It's not going backwards anytime soon, no matter how much they would like to wish for it. I question the use of the word "legitimate" hereNo reason for this. It most definitely doesn't cost the carrier that much to transport the data on the customer's behalf..Less than 1TB/mo? Come on. How much harm is this in the grand scheme of things? Is the customer not supposed to use their bandwidth? Why have a "fast" internet that is practically neutered and unavailable to use?I hope the customer gets this sorted out. Totally insane to be charged this much for using their service as what will CERTAINLY (and already, quite obviously IS), 'ordinary use.'ISPs need to wake up to this. It's not going backwards anytime soon, no matter how much they would like to wish for it.



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Re: This is absurd said by amungus: I question the use of the word "legitimate" here



As for being legitimate as far as business practices go, fuck no. They're worse than even Bell Canada and Videotron, which would make them the worst ISP in all of Canada as far as UBB goes. It's legitimate in the sense that this isn't a billing error. They changed their terms as of October 1st to have no $50 maximum on Ultimate 30 and Ultimate 50, so Karl is a bit mixed up in how he worded the original article. My letter, as posted in the article, was for the 14Mbit package which increased from $30 to $50.As for being legitimate as far as business practices go, fuck no. They're worse than even Bell Canada and Videotron, which would make them the worst ISP in all of Canada as far as UBB goes.



CableConvert

Premium Member

join:2003-12-05

Atlanta, GA CableConvert Premium Member Re: This is absurd I think the other question is the reliability of the meter itself. Who knows if it is correct. There is no independent 3rd party monitoring it



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Re: This is absurd said by CableConvert: I think the other question is the reliability of the meter itself. Who knows if it is correct. There is no independent 3rd party monitoring it Exactly. I'm surprised this hasn't yet gone to court.

25139889 (banned)

join:2011-10-25

Toledo, OH 25139889 (banned) to CableConvert

Member to CableConvert

not a utility no 3rd party.

Rekrul

join:2007-04-21

Milford, CT Rekrul to amungus

Member to amungus

said by amungus: Is the customer not supposed to use their bandwidth? said by amungus: Why have a "fast" internet that is practically neutered and unavailable to use? No, they're not. ISPs believe that you should only use the bandwidth they give you in short bursts, so that your connection is idle 75% of the time.Because they can charge more for faster speeds. They sucker people in with the promise of fast speeds and then cap the usage to prevent people from truly using it. Or they tack on overage charges knowing that people will quickly burn through their monthly allowance and start racking up extra fees.

Warez_Zealot

join:2006-04-19

Vancouver Warez_Zealot Member Re: This is absurd said by Rekrul: said by amungus: Is the customer not supposed to use their bandwidth? said by amungus: Why have a "fast" internet that is practically neutered and unavailable to use?

No, they're not. ISPs believe that you should only use the bandwidth they give you in short bursts, so that your connection is idle 75% of the time.Because they can charge more for faster speeds. They sucker people in with the promise of fast speeds and then cap the usage to prevent people from truly using it. Or they tack on overage charges knowing that people will quickly burn through their monthly allowance and start racking up extra fees.



Anyhow, Canadian ISP's are sketch... My uncle upgraded to Shaw/Mountain Cable Broadband 100. It was all honky-dory until they downgraded his modem to broadband 50.



Luckily I noticed, cause they were going to charge him for bb 100, for the bb50 speeds and bit cap. So that means it was manually provisioned improperly after the upgrade for no reason aside to save Shaw capacity at the bb 100 charge.



These guys are crooks, and it's time the CRTC bust up all these ISP's and make infrastructure and service providers two separate autonomous entities. Yeah, it's a huge conflict of interest. They can't be the a service provider and own the infrastructure... They want you to keep spending $200/mo on all your services, so it's in their interest to keep your inet bill as high as possible to make up for the lost revenue in all the cable services you don't have but are downloading instead. :/Anyhow, Canadian ISP's are sketch... My uncle upgraded to Shaw/Mountain Cable Broadband 100. It was all honky-dory until they downgraded his modem to broadband 50.Luckily I noticed, cause they were going to charge him for bb 100, for the bb50 speeds and bit cap. So that means it was manually provisioned improperly after the upgrade for no reason aside to save Shaw capacity at the bb 100 charge.These guys are crooks, and it's time the CRTC bust up all these ISP's and make infrastructure and service providers two separate autonomous entities.



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Re: This is absurd said by Warez_Zealot: Anyhow, Canadian ISP's are sketch... My uncle upgraded to Shaw/Mountain Cable Broadband 100. It was all honky-dory until they downgraded his modem to broadband 50. It's worth noting that Shaw 50Mbit service, even at their 100Mbit prices, is still faster and more affordable than anything Cogeco even comes close to offering.



elios

join:2005-11-15

Springfield, MO elios to Gone

Member to Gone

no kidding it would only take 24 hours at 50Mbps to blow though 700GB not sure what the cap is in the frist place but if its about he same your looking at 48 hours a month at full speed to rack up a bill like that



that just under 2 hours a day of down loading EASY to hit if your streaming movies and TV



btw at 30Mbps 125GB only takes 11 hours of use you could kill that in a week with a netflix account

at 50 it only takes 6 hours

WTF is the point of speeds like that if your going to blow through it in one night

amungus

Premium Member

join:2004-11-26

America amungus Premium Member Re: This is absurd EXACTLY the metrics that 'they' (any ISP with or considering caps) do NOT want YOU to consider at all.



When placed into a simple set of terms like this, anyone can so easily see how much crap this is that it just isn't funny.



This entire notion of capping needs to be more seriously addressed. Restricting one's use of internet in such a manner is flat out foul.

25139889 (banned)

join:2011-10-25

Toledo, OH 25139889 (banned) Member Re: This is absurd and then people would complain about having to call in to talk to someone about their usage.

Warez_Zealot

join:2006-04-19

Vancouver Warez_Zealot to jono181

Member to jono181

said by jono181: Let's get this charge reversed for him.





Now they're pulling this kind of crap like a second rate company.. How they have fallen... I bet they don't even pay the store front sales agents commissions anymore..



I wish their poor customers success, cause this is beyond absurd. Man, I worked for this dirt bag company back in the early 2000's in the store front. They had much more class back then. I worked part time during college, and made a decent amount in commissions.Now they're pulling this kind of crap like a second rate company.. How they have fallen... I bet they don't even pay the store front sales agents commissions anymore..I wish their poor customers success, cause this is beyond absurd.



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Only a matter of time When I got the letter back in the late summer and saw that they were eliminating the $50 fee, I knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. Now it has.

flycuban

join:2005-04-25

Homestead, FL flycuban Member More money more money... Its all about making more money year after year. Seems that the new way of companies. With salaries not going anywhere, do they really expect people to keep paying for higher prices?



winsyrstrife

River City Bounce

Premium Member

join:2002-04-30

Brooklyn, NY winsyrstrife Premium Member Who is responsible If Cogeco says they sent the bill, but the users says they never received it?



On a side note, the first bill was $891, If I understand correctly. Did the user continue his service while the overage charge was still active? I'm trying to figure out why the service wasn't cancelled / suspended after an $891 charge was incurred on the auto-payment account.



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Re: Who is responsible I think the bigger question is why didn't Cogeco call him to tell him the metre had ran up so high. Cell phone companies do it for roaming fees and overages. If the metre has no upper limit, Cogeco should be obliged to do the same.



I really hope this guy calls up CTV (Citytv won't touched it - owned by Rogers after all) or the Toronto Star and gets them to run with it. This sort of stuff is insane.



winsyrstrife

River City Bounce

Premium Member

join:2002-04-30

Brooklyn, NY winsyrstrife Premium Member Re: Who is responsible Funny I was just about to mention similar situations with cell phone companies. I thought the problem was that cell phone companies DO NOT contact the customer when they are incurring high overages. Perhaps the situation is different in Canada?



It would be very courteous of Cogeco to have called the customer when his account showed highly irregular expenses incurred. Courtesy isn't so much a priority these days...it's all about legal responsibility now, which is why Cogeco is insisting they sent the customer a letter.



If this customer receives full/nearly full reversal of the costs incurred, does this mean everyone should receive similar treatment if they receive bill with similar costs? I realize it may seem like I'm in favor of Cogeco, when I am not whatsoever. I am trying to find a balance between both sides, if such a thing is possible.



urbanriot

Premium Member

join:2004-10-18

Canada urbanriot to Gone

Premium Member to Gone

said by Gone: I think the bigger question is why didn't Cogeco call him to tell him the metre had ran up so high.

Cogeco would make less money if they warned innocent people that had no idea these charges were in effect.



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Re: Who is responsible said by urbanriot: Cogeco would make less money if they warned innocent people that had no idea these charges were in effect. ding ding ding ding ding !!!



drjp81

join:2006-01-09

canada drjp81 to Gone

Member to Gone

said by Gone: I think the bigger question is why didn't Cogeco call him to tell him the metre had ran up so high. Cell phone companies do it for roaming fees and overages. If the metre has no upper limit, Cogeco should be obliged to do the same.



I really hope this guy calls up CTV (Citytv won't touched it - owned by Rogers after all) or the Toronto Star and gets them to run with it. This sort of stuff is insane.

CTV is owned by bell. They surely have similar plans down the pipe...



Gone

Premium Member

join:2011-01-24

Fort Erie, ON Gone Premium Member Re: Who is responsible said by drjp81: CTV is owned by bell. They surely have similar plans down the pipe... Being owned by Bell would mean that they would love to make their competition look horrid.



TwiztedZero

Nine Zero Burp Nine Six

Premium Member

join:2011-03-31

Toronto, ON TwiztedZero Premium Member Despicable! An absolute needless despicable vitriolic abomination!

No ISP in Canada should be able to do this to a consumer EVER!



Chucks Truck

@teksavvy.com Chucks Truck Anon The Prime Minister has to do something Great news for people with unsecured wireless. It's almost like magic something that costs Cogeco next to nothing or less than a dime could cost someone $2,500.00. Something should also be done about completely ridding Canada of the CRTC and set up an independent body for the good of the public.



Noah Vail

Oh God please no.

Premium Member

join:2004-12-10

SouthAmerica Noah Vail Premium Member The Regulator



and



America is portrayed by a few Canadians as being a nation corrupted by business. I guess the implied solution is a more powerful government.

The stories I read don't support that ideology.



Neither gov nor corp is a reliable friend to us.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is that they are at each others throat; and that we are free of them for a while. What regulates Cogeco. Is it the CRTC andAmerica is portrayed by a few Canadians as being a nation corrupted by business. I guess the implied solution is a more powerful government.The stories I read don't support that ideology.Neither gov nor corp is a reliable friend to us.Perhaps the best we can hope for is that they are at each others throat; and that we are free of them for a while.



elwoodblues

Elwood Blues

Premium Member

join:2006-08-30

Somewhere in elwoodblues Premium Member Re: The Regulator The CRTC allowed the telco's to implement economic ITMP's (Internet Traffic Management Programs) without any parameters and of course the Telco's took full advantage of this.



lester2

join:2005-09-01

London, ON 1 recommendation lester2 to Noah Vail

Member to Noah Vail

Thanks to government regulation my ISP can exist and offer unlimited. That being said I'm still jealous of Americans with FIOS. Government and corporations are usually one in the same when it comes to telecom in any country. I hate most of the CRTC decisions but key decisions by them have given me the option for unlimited. Would our internet be better without regulation?... I'm really not sure. In Sweden it seems to work... North America not so much.

BiggA

Premium Member

join:2005-11-23

Central CT BiggA Premium Member Overages Should always be capped out at 150% of the cost of unlimited. If AOL did it back in the day when people were trying up individual phone lines, why can't they do it now with networks 1000x as fast?



franknalco

join:2005-01-27

Littleton, CO franknalco Member Monopolies seldom lose It is this kind of nonsense that leads me to conclude that all the hoopla over "cord cutters" is dubious. In the final analysis, both Hollywood and these cable/broadband providers are going to get their money - either with ridiculous programming packages, or with ridiculous licensing and bandwidth fees. The notion that you can alter your delivery method but remain faithful to the two monopolies (Hollywood on the one hand and service delivery providers on the other) and somehow "win" is ludicrous. CableTV may one day seem cheap when compared to metered billing broadband + rising licensing fees at Netflix/Hulu/whomever. When you fight monopolies, monopolies seldom lose. On the contrary, they often roll with the punches and come out ahead in the end.



Rob

Premium Member

join:2001-08-25

Miami, FL Rob Premium Member The answer to the problem.. Instead of using the word "socked", let's start using the word "raped". If the MSM and everyone used the term "raped", things would quickly change.



Example:



"AT&T socks customer on international data roaming charges"



"AT&T rapes customer on international data roaming charges"

elefante72

join:2010-12-03

East Amherst, NY elefante72 Member But not unusual I just looked. If I happen to direct dial my inlaws in canada w/ my verizon cell they will charge me $.50/min, whereas if I do it through GV its $0. So in fact that is much more obnoxious than this charge. When I roam in Canada $69c/min.



What do I do: 1. I use GV 2. I use a prepaid SIM and redirect my GV to the phone while I travel there.



I will vouch that all of my family is scared to use the internet for video because they are not really sure how doing such will impact them, so they dont. I caught my father-in-laws tenant piggybacking on the unsecured Bhell 2wire and closed that down, after seeing 100GB of data streaming after he changed from Rogers, so that is real too. These yoys are not securing their WAP, and eventually--like europe--will make the end user responsible.



While I agree 700 GB probably cost them $7 in transit fees, this is what they setup to make money. Network subscription is their problem. If they went to docsis 3 and didnt upgrade the switches then they are just being cheap and laughing to the bank. (artificial scarcity) The margins while still fat in cable are being squeezed (or maintaining), while telecom/HSI costs are going down. So it is natural in a natural (or not) monopoly for them to take advantage of this situation.



Canada is even worse than the US (for now) because the biggies own not only the infrastructure, they own sports teams, sports channels, regular channels, wireless companies, newspapers, magazines, almost everything. It's a consolidated supply chain. Now I have made a killing on Rogers and BCE stock, so I am not complaining.



Natural monpolistic behavior is to raise rates on the most profitable items where there is minimal competition, especially when natural rates are going down. You can see this will At&T following Verizon to the top, and I'm sure Sprint will have to cave sooner or later. Tmobile will lag and may just go to LTE advanced after the pricing goes down, because HSPA+ is fast enough for now.



I know you guys dont fins this shocking. We have all seen the $5000 cell phone bills, however unlike the US in Canada they tell you to f**k off. It is a reminder in how bad the customer is treated over there....You can persist though.



The fact that the CRTC is a telecom rotation doesnt help, and the fact that UBB should come with some sort of ACCURATE meter sorta like petrol, if in fact consumption is even tied to cost which it is not.



Funnily enough UBB doesnt even portray actual carrier costs...Bandwidth and network switching do... You can see Teksavvy allowing unlimited during night hours.



swintec

Premium Member

join:2003-12-19

Alfred, ME swintec Premium Member ??? His first bill showed $800+ due and he didnt raise this issue then, only to get a bill for $2,000+? Wouldnt an $800 bill tip people off to something being screwy? If the first bill didnt grab his attention, I would think it would be pretty easy for him to overlook a simple notice stating no max overages anymore.



Corehhi

join:2002-01-28

Bluffton, SC Corehhi Member Main reason I don't do auto withdrawal I will not have things automatically deducted from my account for this reason. These guys can take every penny in your account before you know it and good luck getting it back.

Gruesome

join:2007-10-18

Milton, ON Gruesome Member You guys need to

Their execs need a raise to inspire them to do better cut them some slack, they're still trying to pay for their failed business venture in the acquisition of Cabovisão in PortugalTheir execs need a raise to inspire them to do better

05381257 (banned)

join:2011-05-03 1 recommendation 05381257 (banned) Member Canada.... LOLz...



dillyhammer

START me up

Premium Member

join:2010-01-09

Scarborough, ON dillyhammer Premium Member Re: Canada.... said by 05381257: LOLz...





Mike We are painfully aware. A glimpse into your future perhaps? Bet on it.Mike

Doonz (banned)

join:2010-11-27

Beaumont, AB Doonz (banned) Member Re: Canada.... I Honestly feel bad for you guys out east (Move to the west we need more workers!!!!)



Dec 2011 Download 1.41 TB Upload 138.34 GB Total 1.54 TB



All for 120 a month in Shaw land



ExMainttech

@cgocable.net ExMainttech Anon wow Well when I worked there and we had a meeting on all of this and all of us in the one dept voiced our opinions on this and the upper hands more or less told us they didn't care and said they dropped the overage caps in Portugall because of competition and public rage. I am not totally against caps but this is rather pathetic....I bet Bell is smiling all over this latest article.



I think I am done supporting them anymore, I haven't been there in almost 2 years and a recent email I got from HR regarding a job posting, it upset me along with a nagging phone call from Billing over putting our payment on the wrong account number, they cleared it up with no major issues however the tone on the phone was uncalled for.

Rekrul

join:2007-04-21

Milford, CT Rekrul Member Impossible! To be clear the user was consuming a lot of bandwidth, one month clocking in over 689 GB of overages Clearly there has some kind of mistake here. We all know that the average user uses less than 250GB a month!

fathamburger

join:2010-07-16

North York, ON fathamburger Member we'll also try and help



»www.worldbroadbandfounda ··· node/246



Agreed. We need to help kill this if we can Wrote this up again aimed at more of an international audience (with DSLR mentions and credits) here.Agreed. We need to help kill this if we can



XoX

join:2003-08-19

Qc, Canada XoX Member it suck ouch...



Since they want to bill us like Hydro and the water, they should have the same lay apply to them...



I mean i am with TSI and thanks god they to do bother to much with the usage because their meter suck a lot when it work.



If an ISP want to bill customer by the usage they should have the tool used be certified like the gaz, hydro, water meter are. That apply to Bell who want to charge wholesaler by the usage.



Simba7

I Void Warranties

join:2003-03-24

Fromberg, MT Simba7 Member WTH? Oh, I know I'd be calling my ISP and chewing some ass off if I received a bill like that. Hell, I'd even walk to the corporate office and chew it off in person.



How freakin' hard is it to implement an actual working meter? Not that hard, honestly. Everyone makes it sound so difficult.. IT'S NOT.



All you need is a Cacti (or whatever you'd like) server monitoring a specific CMTS port and/or CMMAC address and how much traffic that said CMMAC address is transferring. They can do 5min intervals to accurately graph how much said user is using and if the total goes above X amount transferred, they get an email telling them that they're about to go over their threshold.



For thousands of users, I'd suggest a rather high powered server (or servers) to keep up with the SNMP requests and graphs. Still, not that hard.