how-to block ads
|
next review in page
 Review by markma 
member for 6.8 years, 267 visits, last login: 26 days ago
updated 4.3 years ago
 Windsor,ON
 $53 per month about 12 days "speed" "inconsistent tech support quailty, lack of tiered packages" "best available in my area for a cable ISP - had my share of issues with speed and phone/install technicians"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
This is a good ISP overall if you don't have much else to choose from. The speeds for me have been as advertised, but I ran into my share of connection and speed problems over the 8 years I have used this ISP.
I'm on a business package and while the price isn't bad for what I get speed/cap wise, I could use more bandwidth.
I just want to get right out the shoot - and say thanks to the first tech who installed my internet back in 2001. He was so professional that he just put a new splitter on my living room cable tv line and ran a cable to my cable modem. That worked for about 5 hours before another tech was sent out to do it properly.
The current downside for me is the inconsistent tech support - I usually have to get 2nd and 3rd phone tech opinions when I have a problem before I get around to a straight answer. Some tech's are more willing to work with you than others, considering my attitude was positive throughout - this was disappointing.
In the end, I would like to see Cogeco start offering tiered business packages where you can purchase blocks of extra bandwidth. This appeals to me specifically, but perhaps others have similar needs in this area.
The next best package is $89.99/month for 200gb bandwidth. A bit pricey for me, so I just more carefully monitor my bandwidth.
Bottom line, I have no real reason to switch unless another cable ISP becomes available in my area, with services that are in my favor. Current DSL alternatives are not in my best interests as I wasn't able to get Bell Sympatico working due to possible phone line issues where I live. This though is speculation, as Bell was not able to tell me why the internet wouldn't work.
Comments:
 | next review in page (previous review)
 Review by WindsorGirl
member for 6.4 years, 38 visits, last login: 2 years ago
lodged 4.3 years ago
- Windsor,ON
- $90 per month
- "Stable when working"
- "Sudden drops and packet loss and Tech Support will always tell you it is on YOUR side when it is their servers.."
- "Not the best customer service but exellent download speeds."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Get anywhere from 1422 - 6414 DL / and always around 590 - 604 UL.
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
Review by McKaig
member for 4.3 years, 7 visits, last login: 4.3 years ago
lodged 4.3 years ago
- St Catharines,ON
- $60 per month
- "Getting ~8.5mb/s on advertised 10mb/s"
- "But not until I had them change my service to what i was actually paying for!"
- "Good connectivity, but I feel a little dicked around"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
A few things to mention about my experience with cogeco internet thus far.
I ordered the standard package, and when the scheduled tech was suppose to come out, he never showed.. I called and they said he came and no one answered (impossible), and that he left a rescheduling note (no note). To his credit, it was New years eve, so maybe he had other plans (then dont schedule me on that day!) I was only upset about that because I had to make plans to stay home that morning, or else the next apointment was a week later.
When they did come back, tech was a good guy, in and out in about 15 mins.
Of course, I started testing my up and down speeds once it was all setup, and was getting around 550kb/s down and 110 kb/s up. I called tech support, to inquire, asked what was up, he tested the modem from his end said he had no problems, getting down speeds of around 43mb/s and 1.5mb/s up..
So i explained how ive done a bunch of tests myself, and dont get anywhere near that, and I said my speeds resemble the ones for the lite package. He says, Oh, well.. your account is set on lite. So i ask what does my bill say? He says standard.. He said it was an accident, and that he fixed it.. after that, speeds were back to what i was paying for
The kicker? I started to think.. how many other people not as inquisitive as me has this happened to? I have a friend and also my uncle who use cogeco internet as well, and refered them to a few speed testing sites.. and low and behold, SAME THING. But they don't know better, right.. so I had them call cogeco, and they all got their speeds changed to what they were paying for..
Accident or scam??
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
 Review by auggy
member for 11.4 years, 6105 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 4.4 years ago
- Brockville,ON
- $45 per month
- about 10 days
- "Excellent speed and reliability"
- "Low bandwidth cap"
- "Very good value, I would recommend Cogeco in my area"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I switched to Cogeco Cable from Bell Sympatico about a year ago and I am very happy with the service.
The installation went smoothly and I have much improved speeds and reliability with Cogeco.
Although the bandwidth cap is low I would still recommend Cogeco Cable in my area.
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
Review by Axanon
member for 4.4 years, 11 visits, last login: 51 days ago
updated 4.4 years ago
- Milton,ON
- Contract price not specified.
- "Excellent speed, Friendly and Comprehendable Customer service"
- "Expensive"
- "A little more expensive than DSL, but much better customer service and alot faster"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
We are currently in the process of switching from Cogeco to Bell (Sympatico, and ExpressVu). After an unfortunate experience with Cogeco's Television services we opted to change services. We were offered a (somewhat) fantastic sounding package by Sympatico.
Anyways, I have 2 virtually identical computers right by each other and since we have a few more days of Cogeco's internet left, I've got one computer on Sympatico high speed and the other on Cogeco High Speed.
THE TEST:
I run Linux on both machines (thats of little consequence though), and I KNOW with Cogeco my download speeds for repository packages have always been superb. (Basically this is like a software catalogue for programs you want to install on your system).
On both machines I selected identical packages (both sources are also set to the same server for obvious reasons). On the Sympatico machine, I could not get a faster download than 265k/sec. On the Cogeco machine the exact same packages downloaded between 900k/sec and a blazing 1200k/sec. At some times I think Cogeco even blinked to about 1300k per second, but for the sake of an average speed it was 1200k/sec.
I am a serious downloader, and one thing I have noticed about Cogeco is that even if you go over your monthly cap from time to time, we have never been charged extra. Will Sympatico be as forgiving?
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
On the rare occasion, if I have ever had to deal with Cogeco's CS/TS on the phone I have to say they are some of the most friendly and helpful people (for the rare exception of one or 2 calls). These people are presumably locals and I think there has only been one time where a rep was hard to understand.
Today when I called Sympatico for help with installing the new service I was transferred to a call center (presumably in India?) and the 1st call I was disconnected, on the 2nd and 3rd calls the 'techs' were so incredibly hard to understand they eventually needed to transfer me to a manager, who was still pretty hard to understand, but the problem was eventually resolved.
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
 Review by MarkAW
member for 11.7 years, 4585 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 4.4 years ago
- Canada
- $39 per month
- about 2 days
 Bell Canada- "installation is the best"
- "Big inprovment over the years"
- "i'd tell anyone to get cable internet from cogeco but watch out for their customer service slow as hell."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I was one of the first to get cable internet (Quintenet) in my area and they were great with installation (Cogeco has taken over now and my speeds have gotten better) customer service has improved over the years.All i have to say about Cogeco now is that they rock,i don't know why i didn't go cable before.
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
Review by InFloW
member for 10.7 years, 2914 visits, last login: 209 days ago
updated 4.5 years ago
- Fergus,ON
- $69 per month
- (month by month)
- about 30 days
- "Great Speeds"
- "Tech support is not great when it's an area wide issue"
- "Great speeds if your area is not having congestion issues"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
|
Things have been great with Cogeco for almost three years now with almost 0 issues. After the rebuild almost 3 years ago I've been getting a consistent 16mbit download and 1mbit upload. My pings have also become very consistent with very few spikes compared to before when there was a lot of congestion.
I'd say the only real knock is from the past when tech support were not aware of problems that were affecting entire area's. Several times it's taken me posting on broadbandreports forums in order to find out it was a global issue. There could be some room for improvement in having the tech support know of ongoing issue's in area's.
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
Review by wowproducts
member for 5.7 years, 50 visits, last login: 3 years ago
updated 4.5 years ago
- Kingston,ON
- $64 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 1 days
- "Great Speeds"
- "Fails To Notify of planned outages for rebuild/repair"
- "Great When Not Working On The Line"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
|
They are quite helpful but lack the ability to tell anyone of rebuild of system well in kingston anyways. as for bandwidth caps...I don't worry about them as I Don't worry much as 120Gig is alot of space....but i play games, download and upload movies and music all the time and not once gone over the bandwidth. we are pleased with there service but looking to move to different service but unfortunatlly not other highspeed is really available in the area. we have 16mbps down and 1mbps up
Comments:
| next review in page (previous review)
Review by Hitman05
member for 9.9 years, 92 visits, last login: 8 days ago
updated 4.7 years ago
- undisclosed location
- $42 per month
- "Speed, Reliability, Customer service"
- "60Gb cap is acceptable but extremely heavy downloaders may hit it"
- "Solid choice for home broadband"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
|
I just moved from the Ottawa area - we had Rogers broadband (their Extreme tier, which was about $57 a month and provided 10mbps). Being that i work from home, making extensive use of a VPN connection, and also play games online, I wanted something reliable and fast with plenty of monthly bandwidth. My options were basically DSL from Bell or another reseller, or Cogeco cable. I'm more comfortable with Cable internet, as I used to work for a "major DSL provider" and I'm aware of all the reliability and speed issues that can occur if you aren't close to the CO. I signed up with Cogeco for the Standard service, as well as cable TV and VOIP home phone from them.
I won't go into detail on the phone or TV; suffice to say that I'm also very happy with both as well. I should mention that because I have more than one service with Cogeco, my Internet bill is cheaper.
The Internet has been absolutely rock-solid so far (I've had it three weeks). My VPN connection to work stays up all day, and the speed is consistently fast. Speed tests show that I'm getting between 8.5 and 9.5mbps, which is about right considering I'm testing against non-Cogeco servers. So, in terms of speed and reliability Cogeco is equal to Rogers, which I never had a problem with.
However, I will say this: Cogeco's customer service has been significantly better than Rogers OR Bell. When I called to ask questions, and also when I signed up, I was given clear answers that matched the information on their website. The agents seemed genuinely friendly and did not sound as though they were reading from a script.
I also tested Bittorrent speed, for those that are interested, and I received up to 250kbps on a well-seeded torrent. That is FAR better than I was able to get on Rogers after they implemented bandwidth shaping (I was getting about 20kbps!). I haven't tested other torrents, so I can't call this a definitive test by any means. Now, I very rarely torrent anything so it doesn't really matter to me, but it's nice to know that I should be able to get somewhat decent speeds (though still far below the maximum bandwidth available on my connection) as more online services move to a torrent-style decentralized download system.
Comments:
| next page (previous review)
Review by wycito
member for 4.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 4.8 years ago
updated 4.8 years ago
- New York,New York,NY
- $54 per month
- "Reliable"
- "pricy"
- "still ok"
| Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Cogeco is really good, the fastest and more reliable ever
Comments:
|
|
·