Neat Trick: Rogers Offers Online Video And Broadband Cap To Punish You For Using It
from the that'll-work-well dept
Two separate initiatives by cable companies are coming together in conflict. We've seen how many cable companies are trying to set up video portals that will let subscribers to cable TV get access to the same content online, as a weak attempt to reduce churn of consumers dumping cable altogether and concentrating on online options. But, at the same time, they're also looking to implement broadband caps with high overage fees. Those two concepts are shown together with Rogers offering both a video portal and low metered caps with high overage fees. So your incentive is to not use the video portal (which apparently is limited in the first place). How is that going to reduce the churn? It seems like a far better option is to just go with another provider that actually focuses on adding value rather than limiting it. Too bad there's so little competition up in Canada. Ahhh... that explains things, now, doesn't it?
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Filed Under: broadband caps, cable, canada, metered billing, overage fees, tv content
Companies: rogers
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It explains everything
I can't even choose a competent ISP here because the condo has an exclusivity deal with Rogers. Also cable is rolled into the condo fees, making "ditching it" a non-option.
How is this even allowed?
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...not likely but possible...
man i feel bad for people who have to deal with caps that low...
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the MOST not reliable network
NOPE
once word gets round it counts to cap its game over .....
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Rogers is writing themselves out of business
So all Rogers has left is its internet and cell divisions, now they face renewed competition on the cell front from bell and telus and new players entering the market. Due to this Roger's is onto other desperate measures to control the market like firing management and buying enough of cogeco's stock(hedge your bets) so they can get their hand up it's butt juuust far enough.
Anyways, cancel your cable TV, return your HD box... you won't miss those extra channels really. We're going back to the stone-age here in Canada under the rule of these massive duopolist media corporations.
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No opini
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No options
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Neutrality Yo
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Personal Experience
Rogers is awful. Their customer service sucks, their technical service sucks, their DNS recycles every three hours, their caps are ridiculous in this day and age, their prices keep going up. Their only redeeming factor is that Bell sucks just as hard.
The only differentiator is that Rogers ping speeds tend to be better than Bell's by about 60-70ms. If a decent service ever opened up in Toronto, I would switch in a heartbeat.
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Rogers Customer
Having said that, I'm far more frustrated with the wireless offerings here than Internet. No carriers have unlimited calling options.. and wireless overages are far more significant than Internet ones.
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My choices were Rogers or DSL. Bell has a DSL stranglehold. They have throttling ever hour of the day that I am home and awake(even on third party DSL like I was on). Plus DSL connection in my neighborhood limits DSL to 2Mb max. I get 10Mb with Rogers.
But I agree, caps are low and overage costs are high ($2/G). I have a 60G cap and I have easily use 10G in a day. Do the math. Right now I have used 30G and still have 22 days left till a new allotment, so I have to be very careful for the rest of the month.
I also have no cable TV. HDTV over the air is better quality than cable, and most networks are online so I can stream any missed shows (or torrent).
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Re:
Don't know what their service is like yet, but it had several things going for it:
1) It's not Bell
2) It's not Rogers
3) They support net neutrality
4) They have unlimited bandwidth plans
5) No contract - month by month
So I thought I'd give it a try...
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... sometimes government regulation is a good thing
the wholesalers [the ones who own the land lines and the cell phone towers and all that good stuff], and I'll admit there are only two of them, have government mandated minimums in what they must provide in all Sorts of things. [side effect of the older one originally being a government department and the deals involved in unbundling the network]. the retailers [actual ISPs, in the case of the internet stuff] are ridiculously numerous and compete just like any other business. works very well.
[it should also be noted that cable tv is a VERY new thing, in practice, here, and is provided as something of a 'bonus' by one of the wholesalers as a side effect of them running fiber optic lines in the first place. it's 90+% just an alternate delivery method for ground station [?] and satellite[which we've had for AGES] tv though. so, no actual 'cable' companies.]
admittedly, there were some interesting hiccups near the beginning when the older wholesaler was also a retailer, but that got split up so it's all good.
so, yeah, we have a functional duopoly in the 'dumb pipes' role, which can't pull anything stupid without getting sat on by the government, and a nice competitive environment over the entire country for actual provision of services.
for all the problems my own country has, it always amuses me when i see instances where government intervention and limitation of corporate freedoms [not actual individual's Rights, mind you] have been of great benefit.
all this aside, sucks for the folks in Canada. And the US, for that matter. If it's a big deal, may i suggest emigration?
The South Pacific's nice this time of year ;-)
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Left Rogers for Teksavvy
The only problem with Teksavvy is that they're a Bell reseller, and Bell's been trying to throttle its resellers and force bandwidth caps onto them... that will be fun.
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