Review by vonSchroeder 
UPDATED: 221 days ago
member for 5 years, 2243 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Kingston,ON
 $66 per month
 about 10 days
 "Great speed, low latency"
 "Low bandwidth caps, unreasonable overage charges"
 "Not worth it for anyone who wants to make full use of their Internet connection"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
UPDATE: After 3 years with Cogeco in Hamilton and 8 months at my current location in Kingston, I have left this ISP due to their introduction of low bandwidth caps and the ridiculous overage charges that accompany them. I never went over the caps myself, but the caps and overage charges are so unreasonable, and cannot be justified, that I have left based on principle.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I have been a Cogeco High Speed Pro user for 2 1/2 years now. I live in a student house near McMaster University and the pro package has been great for sharing the connection among up to 9 people at times. When I first moved in we had Sympatico DSL but our line was only capable of handling the 1.5 Mbit profile so Cogeco was really the only choice we had. But Cogeco has been great so I would not choose DSL even if our line could support full 5 Mbit.
The install went smoothly from what I remember. I think it was under two weeks from the time the order was placed by phone. The install was done in my bedroom because that is where all the LAN wiring comes together in the house. But the account was in another housemate's name at the time, so I had to stop the tech from setting up the email account and such on my computer. I asked the tech to just leave the modem and all the relevant information and I would handle everything myself. The tech was happy to do this and did not insist on finishing the install.
The setup is an RCA DCM325 modem (never had to replace to modem, knock on wood) --> WRT54Gv4 router running 3-party firmware --> 8-port SMC switch. When there were 9 in the house 6 were wired and 3 were wireless.
When we first signed up pro was 10 Mbit down / 1 Mbit up. Since then it has been upgraded to 16 Mbit down. I think the price has only gone up a few bucks since then, not enough to complain about. Despite being close to McMaster University my speeds have always been good and relatively consistent. Of course like all cable internet it slows down some during peak time after dinner until midnight, but the speed has always remained good enough to be shared by 9 people at all times of the day. Of course the speed never reaches the "up to" speed that is advertised, but it comes close and I am not complaining. Latency has always been great. I use the connection for online gaming daily and latency has always been low with Cogeco.
From what I can remember the connection has only gone down twice from what I can remember. Both times it was for less than 24 hours. The second time occurred recently and was because of some problem that affected the whole neighborhood including tv signal too. A call into tech support that night resulted in an automated message indicating they were aware of the problem that was affecting the neighborhood. It was resolved in a few hours. The lack of any real issues means I cannot comment on Cogeco's tech support.
The only problems I have had with the service concern using bittorrent with Cogeco. Simply put, bittorrent has never worked for me on Cogeco from day one. I have tried changing all my settings but nothing works. Using a VPN however does overcome the problem. It is important to note that other Cogeco customers report they have no problems with bittorrent. So it is unknown why some are affected but other are not. This has been debated ad nauseum in the Cogeco forums here at Broadband Reports so check there if you are concerned about bittorrent on Cogeco. Overall, I have not allowed it to affect my rating because I use bittorrent so infrequently that it is a non issue for me.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cogeco Cable |
|
Cogeco Cable
(25)
(20)
(50)
(13)
·