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Review by dwane1972 See Profile

  • Location: Pembroke, ON, Canada
  • Cost: $65 per month
  • Install: about 10 days
Nice speeds, solid connection
Draconian Bandwidth Caps
Good Cable internet + It's NOT BELL!!
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I got sick of crippling lag, horrible customer service and being slaved to a 5 Meg connection with Bell. After 3 years of awful service I decided to go with Cogeco. They were offering almost 5x the speeds for around the same price, albiet with about 2/3 the monthly bandwidth cap I had with Bell. (80GB/mo vs. 120GB/mo with Bell.) See review HERE: »Review of Bell Fibe Internet by dwane1972

I ordered their Turbo 14 package, because it was the best available where I live.

14mb down/ 1 mb up/ 80GB/mo bandwidth usage for $61.

Order process was great, spoke to a real live Canadian girl from Canada.

The install process was very efficient and smooth, the installer (also a female) installed a new line from the outdoor box into my house. She did a nice neat install, she had just forgotten her staple gun to secure the cable around the perimiter of the room and told me she'd be back in after a week to secure it as she would be away from work for a week. It's not in my way anywhere so I said fine. The next day the outdoor cable burying detail came while i was at work and sunk the outdoor portion of the line. You'd never know it was there.

I have an RCA Modem DCM45.

I'm running it thru a Linksys E3200.

The whole process has been painless. They don't have contracts, tradiitonal month to month billing.

My only complaint, as above, is value for money when it comes to monthly bandwidth caps. They just increased them recently from 60GB to 80GB, which, IMHO is laughable on a 14 MEG connection.

Otherwise, I'd say it's been an overall good experience, especially knowing Bell isn't getting anymore of my money once the dust settles.

--UPDATE NOV 2012: Left Cogeco for Start. The monthly bandwidth caps with Cogeco for 80GB a month had me paying an extra $50 a month just in overages.

I switched to Start Communications and I'm not looking back.

I'm getting twice as fast internet for 50 bucks a month with 300GB cap with Start.

member for 20.4 years, 1252 visits, last login: 51 days ago
updated 11.4 years ago


dwane1972
I recommend Start.ca
join:2003-10-08
Bailieboro, ON
Netgear R7900

dwane1972

Member

Month later update...

Got Cogeco internet 14mb (no more bell! yay!) around Nov 1.
Had it a month without any problems.
Decided to get phone with Cogeco.
They came around Nov 28 and hooked it up, a different modem.
A huge RCA brick that looked like it had been kicked around someone's house for 3 years. (scratched and dirty.)
First night my modem had problems. Dropped calls, bad latency, slow internet. I noticed the modem kept rebooting. This was on a connection that, for the last month, had been excellent.
When it didn't stop i called and had a tech in yesterday.
He attenuated the line, then we tried it again but the modem showed the exact same behaviour.
He tried a second USED RCA modem and it couldn't establish a dial tone.
He then brought out a brand new modem out of the box from a completely different manufacturer.
It set up nicely and now is rocking and rolling. No random re-boots or bad connections or dropped calls.
At certain times I'm actually getting above advertised speeds! That NEVER happened with Bell!
I just wonder why he was seemingly forced to waste his time and energy on installing shoddy used equipment when you'd think that customers paying almost $100 a month should at least deserve a new modem.
I don't blame the tech, I blame the bean counters at Cogeco.
The tech was great, he busted his arse to make it work.
TBH most of the techs I've had in my home over the years have been dynamite.
SO if anyone else is having problems with rebooting/resetting/random power cycling modems I hope you get a new one like me!