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Original Review May 1, 2002 Ordered Cogeco@HOME back in November 2001. Took a week for them to get a contractor out to install the cable modem. I'm pretty handy with computers so I installed the NIC while he ran the RG6 around my room. The contractor did a really good job of stapling the cable to the bottom of the floor, and running it around corners and underneath my bed. I can't see the cable, so I'm really happy about that. No @HOME software for me, so he just made sure the modem was online, and that I could connect. No problems with installation. Was given by the installer: -Ericcson Piperider Cable Modem -D-Link 10mpbs NIC (would have preferred 10/100, but I had my own anyway) -10ft cat5 Ethernet Cable Everything worked fine for the first month, got speed around 1900/350 for downloading and uploading without having to adjust my computer settings. Then problems started happening. My modem would drop connection once every 10 minutes and then come back online. Sometimes it would go offline for a day or so. Whenever I had to call technical support, I would be waiting around 40 minutes on hold to speak with a technician. I had to do this multiple times, logging problems with the modem until they finally sent out a service technician. The technician was scheduled for later next week, but I got a call from him 2 days later asking if it would be OK to come out earlier. I had no problem with this The field technician checked the signal and found something wrong, and replaced all the splitters and connectors inside and outside the house in quick order. He also replaced the Piperider modem with a Samsung Inforanger. He commented that the Piperider modems haven't stood up as well as the Samsung modems. Once I was back up and running, I called technical support again, and spoke with a billing representative regarding my downtime, and she immediately applied a credit for a free month to my account for the inconvenience. I was quite satisfied with the way the situation was handled. Since that one service call, I have barely had a hiccup on my service. It is constantly online, with excellent speeds- around 1900/350mpbs for an advertised line speed of (2048/384). I have had no problems with the mail servers or connection speed, aside from a few brief outages that were quickly resolved. Cogeco@HOME handles the conversion to Cogeco High Speed Internet very well- the connection was switched over to their own platform with no outage as far as I can tell, and email/newsgroup access was switched over well before February when @HOME shut off the servers, so there was no loss of email or service. The newsgroup servers are still having problems however. Binary files are very often incomplete, but this was communicated to me to be a hardware issue, and is being addressed. Text newsgroups come in fine though, so unless you are downloading a lot of binary files you should not see a problem. As for technical support, I rarely call unless there is a problem I wish to report- most of the time I can get assistance in the Cogeco forum here on DSL Reports- some of the engineers for Cogeco post in the forum and offer assistance, which I greatly appreciate. Data Caps per month are a bit annoying, but they will be changing soon I am told. Most of the time the cap is loosely enforced unless you are affecting someone else's service. One of the other good points to Cogeco's service is that they offer up to 3 IP addresses at no additional charge. Compared to some ISPs who will charge your around $7 per additional computer, this is a good feature if you will be setting up a home network using a hub. Bottom Line, aside from a few problems at the start, this internet service has been reliable and consistent, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who, in the Niagara region, wants to get a quality broadband service. Review Update: November 14, 2002 I've had the service for about a year now. For the majority of that time, I've had no major problems. Email has never been an issue, and connection was always very stable. I moved my cable modem downstairs into my basement. I ripped up the RG-6 that was bordering my room, took it downstairs, and hooked it into one of the splitters where all the cable lines feed into the house. I had to remove a high-pass filter in order to gain modem sync. The modem worked downstairs reliably for about a month or so after I had moved it, until I started getting intermittent connection issues. My modem would lose connection every couple of nights for hours at a time. The calls from technical support really didn't help much- I got a lot of misinformation over what was simply a signal issue. One of the representatives tried to convince me that my modem was losing sync because someone was "Stealing my IP address" and wanted me to call back once the modem was offline so he could track his MAC address. Then he alluded to the problem being due to Proxy Arp. Riiighht.... Thankfully the next person I talked to was a bit more truthful. After a service call, a couple of replaced splitters and moving the modem up to the main feed off a 2-way splitter, everything is peachy. Modem is nice and stable, no intermittent disconnects. I've changed my network setup a bit, and am now running 4 machines behind a self-built router. The connection works perfectly with it, and I can actually switch back to a public IP to isolate one machine (with a hub outside the network) with absolutely no problem. I don't need the 3 IP addresses anymore, but they are helpful when isolating a machine if troubleshooting needs to be done (so I don't have to reboot the modem). As far as speed, when its good, its very good. Just recently within the last 2 months or so, there have been regular speed problems during peak hours. Between 7AM-1AM speed would go down to a fraction of the normal, and packet loss and latency would ramp up. Fortunately, the issue was fixed, as it was affecting most of St. Catharines. Unfortunately, technical support did not seem to have any information on the problem, even after testing, and a month of calling, and emails I sent with data to support the problem were never returned. I can only conclude that the phone technical support representatives are not getting access to all the data and tools they need to troubleshoot the problem. I do have to thank the Cogeco employees that post here on DSLR as their assistance and the information they have provided have been invaluable. There are very few ISPs that allow their employees to post in public forums, and I really value their help. There has also been an upload problem where P2P, IRC, ICQ, and other programs that use non-standard ports to transfer data have been slow due to a software glitch. Certain changes on the network made in response to the growing problem of P2P have seemingly crippled non-standard port upload data transfers. There has been a fix for this, however some people are still complaining of slow upload speeds. I was never affected by this, as it only affected certain areas of Cogeco's subscriber area, so I really can't comment on that. Other than these two issues, there have been almost no interruptions in service or speed problems. The newsgroup service still has issues. Binary completion is still very poor, although from the information we have been given it is a result of the peering arrangements, not the server itself. The hardware problems with the actual server were fixed, but completion still hasn't improved significantly. Its still fine for all text groups, but for binary downloads its almost impossible to get complete files. I believe it would be beneficial for the server to be able to serve large binary files, as it costs Cogeco less money for their subscribers to get the files from their servers, instead of hauling the data over one of the transit links. I hope to see the newsgroup service improve in the future, but so far it has been disappointing. The Acceptable Use Policy has also changed. Data caps per month have been changed to 10GB/5GB download/upload per month. There is no bandwidth meter as of yet to track this via Cogeco, so for the time being, they are soft caps. Sometime in the new year the bandwidth meter will be implemented, and users going over their monthly allotment will be charged $8/GB. I may not agree with this policy of data caps, as rationing my internet service doesn't seem right, but with the growing problems of P2P and bandwidth abuse, I can see the need for it. There have also been different packages made available for the internet service: Standard Residential: 2048/384kbps, 10GB/5GB Monthly Caps Pro Package: 4096/640kbps, 20GB/10GB Monthly Caps Lite Package: 128/128kbps, 1GB/1GB Monthly Caps All in all, I do stand by this ISP. This service has been very stable, in spite of the issues I mentioned above. Any large issue is usually resolved within a few days, or information regarding the issue can be made available, one way or another. The NOC and support representatives are competent, friendly, and helpful. For the majority of the time, full advertised speed and services can be utilized. member for 22.2 years, 2284 visits, last login: 4.4 years ago updated 21.3 years ago
The best part about Cogeco cable internet is value. The installation is free and can save you $60 if you want cable TV installed at the same time. Average dowload is 1.5-2 Mbps, which is twice of what Sympatico offers. The download quota is 10 GB, also twice of what Sympatico offers. They both have the same price $45 /mo with 3 month promotion at a reduced price. My experience about installation is mixed. My first appointment did not go well as I was moving that day. I left a note on the intercom to the tech to call me as I was in another unit of the same building. I was in and out of those two apartment moving stuff. I was never called. No note was left to let me they were here either. I waited and waited... I found out that they came and left without leaving any notice. I had to reschedule. I got the "first appointment" as that is the only way to guarantee a time. It will otherwise be a "morning" or "afternoon" or "whole day" appointment depending on how booked that day is. The tech showed up on time this time. He ran the cables to my rooms, installed a splitter, and left a modem to me. No instruction booklet, no welcome package, no email or other account set up information. I had to read the user guide and plugged the modem in to try. It was fortunately very easy to install as I already had a NIC for DSL before this. However, if you run in to troubles, you will not even know where to call (no tech support number was given) or what your account id is (he never left any paper to me). I remember they used to have TWO techs.... one for cable and one for computer installation. They try to save money on the computer tech visit but their cable tech is not trained well on getting internet customer started. However, it did work quite smoothly for me as modem DHCP assigns an IP and my Windows just picks up automatically. My average speed is 1900/380. I'm in Eastern Ontario. My fastest download (eg, from Tucows Cogeco server in Quebec) is 250 KB/S in Internet Explorer. I hope the speed can keep up this high constantly. I would highly recommend this ISP for experienced users. member for 21.5 years, 230 visits, last login: 344 days ago lodged 21.5 years ago
At first my connection was fast and reliable ( 250K dl and 50K ul) but for a week now its been extremly slow ( 30 - 50K dl and 10K ul). Tech support is no help they keep saying its my NIC card, wich I know is bullshit cause I conected with the USB and its the same. Anyway if anyone can help please email me or post on the forum. member for 21.5 years, 21 visits, last login: 19.2 years ago lodged 21.5 years ago
They upped the price once already, but the install was smooth.. the techs knew what they were doing. Speeds have been good, ~300k max I've had some pretty nasty runins with the tech support.. They have a 5 hour waiting policy before the 2nd tier tech support will call you back. I get 3 IP addresses, so I can run my 3 computers w/o having to have a router. member for 21.8 years, 2 visits, last login: 21.8 years ago lodged 21.8 years ago
I was a little concerned when my pre-sales question, What's the average speed? Stumped the tech support person. However I have had a flawless connection since installation. member for 21.8 years, 2517 visits, last login: 3 years ago lodged 21.8 years ago
I had cogeco installed back in September of 2001 when it was still managed by our local cable company and known as Quintenet. The installer was generally worthless and I asked him to just leave the stuff and I would install it myself. He seemed irritated that I had Windows 2000 and told me it wasn't supported. Anyway, he wasn't even in his truck yet when I had it up and running. I didn't receive or use any software and my NIC was already installed so all I had to do was plug in the Com21 modem and reboot. Ten minutes after that the connection was shared between two of our computers. I had speed issues in March that were fixed by a hardware upgrade by the ISP, the problem was affecting most of Eastern Ontario but in my opinion it was taken care of quickly and hasn't tainted my opinion of the company. I haven't really used the tech support so I have no comment about that and I don't use the email or news servers so I can't rate those either. Overall, I would recommend the service, it's fast and stable and affordable. Update January 2004 - Have cogeco at my third location and still have no complaints whatsoever about the service at any of the past or current addresses. Recent speed increases have brought the standard package up to speeds of 5mbit down/640 up without a price increase. member for 22.1 years, 4228 visits, last login: 6.1 years ago lodged 21.9 years ago
Good points: My connection is consistently around 2 Mbps, regardless of the time of day. Other than a problem with a setting in the box outside, the connection has been totally reliable. Bad points: The initial 1 week wait seemed to be a bit much. I also had to wait nearly another week to get a technician to come look at the line problem (above) I was having. The fact that there's no documentation on the modem I received is a bit distressing. There is also no documentation for other services offered (mail, nntp, dns). The tech who did the initial install had to write the pop and smtp servers on my copy of the "subscriber agreement". I would suspect this has to do with the demise of @home. All in all, the experience has been pretty smooth. I'd recommend Cogeco to anyone looking for a fast ISP who isn't Bell. member for 22 years, 398 visits, last login: 21 years ago lodged 22 years ago
Over all A good value member for 22.2 years, 1 visits, last login: 22.2 years ago lodged 22.2 years ago
Installation was very very fast. Ordered the service on a saturday (yes, sales reps were available on a saturday) and had the guy out on the following monday to install the modem. Had a problem after 3 months with my Com21 modem, called on a saturday again, had the cable guy out on the monday to replace it with a Samsung Inforanger modem. Tech support has always been easy to talk to and get ahold of. I have had a few email outages but it's not overly concerning to me. Now if only I can figure out how to uncap this modem Overall, I have had a great experience with Cogeco and love the service. member for 22.6 years, 5 visits, last login: 19.8 years ago lodged 22.6 years ago
You hear lots of horror stories about cable but my experience has been great. I would highly recommend Cogeco to anyone. As far as tech support is concerned I've never had to call them. member for 22.7 years, 440 visits, last login: 9.4 years ago lodged 22.7 years ago |