Review by MysticGuitar  - Location: Waterdown,ON
- Cost: $300 per month (12 month contract)
- Install: about 6 days
Good "Tech support, large On Demand selection, fantastic phone service"
Bad "High internet prices, high on-demand rental prices, fairly barebone television service, internet reliability issues"
Overall "Cogeco offers a truly amazing home phone service, but lacks with their internet and television offerings."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
My Plans:
Television: HD Digital Select 8 + Movie Network
(TV#2 same plan, but without HD)
Internet: Ultimate 60
Phone: Freedom
I'm not generally impressed with Cogeco's television services, nor am I unimpressed. They get the job done, and the HD programming has little to no visual artifacts. Cogeco offers a fairly barebone television service, one that meets all of your basic expectations, but doesn't go beyond the television medium with any kind of additional 'smart' features, such as those being offered by both Rogers and Bell. (ex. apps)
Cogeco provides a fairly significant amount of On Demand programming, even though the quality of all television shows is standard definition, most movies are available in HD, including the movies found on the 'Premium' section, such as The Movie Network content. The movies, excluding those offered in premium subscription plans, has an average rental fee of $7.95 for HD new releases. This price is higher than other internet-based rental services, such as Apple's iTunes store (which charges $5.99 for an HD rental of new releases), it is still an acceptable price for most movie-goers looking for a quick flick to watch on a Friday night with the family. Still, for heavy movie watchers, this may be a thing to consider before choosing to switch to Cogeco.
Although Cogeco has been expanding and improving their internet offerings over the years by including a higher monthly bandwidth cap, as well as increasing the speeds of the various plans that Cogeco provides. They are behind the competition in terms of upload channel speed and general network reliability. A 60 Mbps download connection coupled with a 2 Mbps upload channel doesn't justify a $100 monthly price, especially when you consider the speeds offered by the other internet service providers throughout Ontario, with Bell offering 50/10 connections at a price of $82.95, and Rogers having 45/4 for $74.99, Cogeco is simply not a viable option as an internet service provider. However, this is a very different story when it comes to the Cogeco phone services.
Cogeco, although not generally known as being a telephone provider, actually offers an outstanding phone service at prices far lower than both Bell and Rogers. Cogeco's Freedom plan is $50.99 monthly, and includes unlimited North American calling at any time of the day, a service that most other provides charge at a premium. For instance, Bell offers a comparable service with their Home phone Choice plan, which includes 5 free calling features. This plan is $42.94 monthly. For long distance calling, you must pay an additional $31.90, making your total monthly price $74.84.
I just can't stress enough how Cogeco's phone service is a truly amazing service for the price, and highly recommend Cogeco for their phone services alone. However, for internet or television, there are other far better providers out there to choose from.
When it comes to tech support, specifically phone-based support, the Cogeco agents were fairly polite and knowledgeable with their assigned departments. Although I've found myself at times being cycled between various agents before my problem could be resolved, they always treated me with respect and understanding. Cogeco has always been able to help, no matter how minor or severe the problem. That being said, one of the agents I've talked with recently did not know how to properly help me with my problem, and started to suggest I buy or subscribe to an additional package, which had absolutely nothing to do with the problem at hand. This specific agent at times made all kinds of suggestions as to what may be causing the problem, none of which were at all logical, and seemed to be nothing more than rapid guessing. So, even though Cogeco support isn't perfect, they remain to be one of the better tech support services I've come in contact with, if not the absolute best.
member for 1.4 years, 172 visits, last login: 4 days ago
lodged 204 days ago
Comments:
 | | Order To Live? Just to confirm, the 'From Order To Live' field is the amount of time it took Cogeco to set up and activate my services once my order has been filed. Is that correct? | |
|
| |
|
