Review by ancodia 
UPDATED: 59 days ago
member for 3.3 years, 651 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 undisclosed location
 $60 per month
 "Fast speed & reliable"
 "low bitcaps, UBB, overcharges, broken bandwidth meter."
 "fast but low bitcap limits, broken meter, UBB billing & high fees make it a no so great choice."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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update sept 28 09 - recieve my first bill (it was incorrect btw). Discovered they charge TEN DOLLARS per gig for going over the cap. NOBODY mentioned this to me. COMPLETE RIP OFF. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO COGECO.
update : sept 09 - decided to give Cogeco another try as DSL service is only about 3.5 meg in my area. While I am impressed with the customer service/installation that is over shadowed by the high price, low usage cap, high over use fees & (and this is the kicker) the broken bandwidth meter. My reading and Cogecos meter differ by 19% (and naturally it's in Cogeco's favour). What a sad state Internet Service in Canada has become. I can either pay Cogeco $80 month to download 100g or I'll be paying Bell (via Teksavvy & the new UBB fee) $65/month to download 100g. Add to that the HST next year @ 13% and Internet service has simply become too over priced. Ultimately the blame lies with the CRTC for allowing things to degrade to this level, as their 'let them charge whatever they can get' attitude has allowed Internet access prices to reach a level where it now prevents Canadians from exploring all the new things the Internet has to offer. Sharing files? no can do. High quality video calls? no can do. Offsite backup of your data? no can do. The list can go on forever. I've been using the Internet for almost 15 years and it sort of depressing to see that after all the growth we've ended up here with an over priced, crippled duopoly controlled Internet.
I recall when the Wave first came to Niagara. People couldn't wait to get their cable modems installed. People spent countless hours exploring the Internet. Now? Cogeco ups the speed on standard & comes out with a 50 meg package. What happens? Most people didn't care, other wondered why their demands for higher caps went ignored, the rest just mocked the company and it's products. How things have changed.
The Internet experience was about exploring all the things you could do, but it has now turned into an Internet full of things you can't do because you are either throttled or capped. Krispy claims UBB is the way to go, but how is the Internet experience better with a meter clicking away in the background determining what you should/shouldn't do.
Truly a low point for the CRTC and Canadian ISPs.
whatever happenned to a business trying to be the best over the competition. Wanting to deliver the most for the least to the customer, trying to give the customer a fair deal, trying to gain customer loyalty. Seems Cogeco is cashing in on years of customer loyalty to make short term profit. Sadly ISPs seem to have devolved into a 'the customer doesn't know what they want' sprinkled with a 'us vs the customer' attitude. I thought a business was expected to deliver what the customer wants, seems ISPs (via the government) have been permitted to only deliver what the business wants the customer to have regardless of what the customer demands.
What a mess.
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my old review :
I've been a 10 year customer and was happy with Cogeco. Until mid September 07 that is , when they decided to enforce caps with no prior warning (read about it here : »[Niagara] Cogeco Bitcaps ). $50 month buys you a 60 gig cap. Go over 80 gig and they'll lock you out. Very poor value in this day of age. You're better off getting unlimited DSL for the same amount of money (read Teksavvy). DSL is half the speed but at least you will be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and for as long as you want. Cogeco also traffic shapes p2p to the point it is useless! If you p2p then Cogeco is not for you!
Don't let a bitcap monitor dictate your Internet experience. Please think twice about supporting companies that enforce bitcaps.
Followup comments:  
Antonin
@cgocable.net | Cogeco bitcaps I have to agree re frustration of recently enforced bitcaps. The real irony is that in our community (outside of Guelph), most customers are DSL anyway. | |
|  | 
neko
All Hail Canada
Premium
join:2006-08-11
canada | Re: Cogeco bitcaps Yeah the low bitcaps are terrible. So much for using any of the latest legal media downloads, like joost, etc. | |
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krillbill
@cgocable.net
| Cogeco Bitcap enforcement makes me switch... I'm a usually even-keel type; but Cogeco's abrupt bitcap enforcement is unacceptable and appeared in the middle of a subscription period without prior warning. Cogeco has not enforced bitcap in the 6 years I've had the service. In my view, effectively, a policy that is not enforced is deleted from the contract. Merely including a clause in a contract is not enough if it is not enforced from Day 0. By enforcing the bitcap after 6+ years of NOT enforcing the contract they actually changed a term of service during the subscription period without notifying the subscriber.
Enforcement of the bitcap has made me change my mind quickly about their service level -- and I will be voting with my pocketbook as soon as practical.
60 GB/mo at 7.5 Mbps is less than 2.6% monthly utilization. Lets think about that: The bitcap means you can use your line less than 20 hours per month at the maximum transfer rate.
How absurd!
Worse, when relaying my discontent with tech support at arbitrary enforcement of the bitcap the tech support person threw a lot of attitude about how Cogeco can arbitrarily change bitcaps, service levels, etc. under the terms of use. When I pointed out that, no, that isn't the way it works; he became cranky and then I responded in kind.
Fine, two can play that game: I elect to arbitrarily walk away from Cogeco as a subscriber to their service.
My plan is to switch my Cogeco Cable TV to a celestial broadcaster and to switch to an unlimited download DSL.
There is real economic impact here: I have paid about CAD10,000 in fees over the last 6 years of subscribing to Cogeco's service. As a subscriber, my value to them over the next 10 years is about CAD11,000.
$11,000 is real money, guys.
I will be sending their CFO and CEO a letter outlining how they better introduce some customer satisfaction in their ISP operations or their vaunted "customer base" asset (the value of future subscriber fees) will begin to take a hit. | |
| 
MrClean132
Sassy 'Medic
Premium
join:2000-08-28
Toronto, On
| ! My parents live in Cogeco area, and they were arbitrarily cut off with no warning. Calling tech support, one fed my father a line about downloading too much and not securing the wireless network he had detected from his computer. Excuse me!? My parents are those who go online maybe twice a week to send email and don't have a wireless system.
The next tech we called the next day said, don't know why we were cut off, and reinstated my parents back on the system.
From what I hear, the sudden implementation of bitcaps is horrendous, no emails to state that they would start making it a hard cap. My parents are now afraid to use their VOIP (they hardly use it in the first place), send digital photos to family and the such. The very reasons why I ordered Cogeco service for my parents, and it's just a kicker that they use less than 10 gigs a month at the very most.
I'm sure they are happy to get rid of heavy downloaders, but their switch tactics to a system that doesn't play nice with numbers combined with the lack of notice of disconnection, furthermore exacerbated by the snide technician have my parents switching to Bell.
In today's world where VOIP and an online presence is almost crucial, complete disconnection without lack of warning is unacceptable, and yes for the record, I do keep an eye on the emails, and received none. | |
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Scrappy2
@cgocable.net
| what happen? I had been with Cogeco for over 2 decades.
I had been loyal to them throughout .even telling people how happy I was with them(they weren't always called cogeco (and I didn't have internet for 20 years thought i better state that.).
Now I have to say Cogeco lies to their customers lying about warning emails lying about over useage (not in all cases).
And some not all techs seem to get real snobby when contacted to ask whats going on.
Over the years there has been bad times with cogoc and great times.
Now there is no time as as soon as I can get rid of there crap I am.
Now other companies should take notice of what Cogeco has done effectivly pissing away years of good reps in a mere few days. | |
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