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Review by Gruesome 
UPDATED: 190 days ago
member for 2.1 years, 280 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Milton,ON
 $47 per month
 "Consistently solid Download speeds(Except Torrents)"
 "Low Cap and extremely pricey for what you get,"
 "Found someone else with 300GB cap for $39.85 , better for needs(edit)"
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I've liked Cogeco's service but I always review my spending whether it's Cable my cell or telephone etc. I've found them to be too pricey and their 60 GB Cap can be annoying some months. They never used to bother me with it until recently. What I find confusing is there approach in a world where caps should be rising to provide better access to online media, Caps are now being enforced even more rigidly.
We are now able to stream HD over the Internet, perhaps they find this a threat to their own business model.
The question for Cogeco is an easy one and the same one for all Internet Service providers
The Future is higher bandwidth and higher data volume
How will you meet this demand before someone else lures away your clients
Look at France as an example
Trying TekSavvy now to see if it will meet my needs, $20 cheaper with unlimited download
Gruesome
Review this today and I have finally left Cogeco, the new pricing scheme is nothing short of ludicrous and clear penalty for downloading over your cap.
The future of Internet in Canada looks grim with this kind of vision.
I've lowered my package with Teksavvy to just the basic 200 GB download for 29.95 a month and went with their phone service as well
Teksavvy works well for me but be warned you can only expect 5MB download not the 10 or 16 that Cogeco offers
Followup comments:  dazium
join:2007-02-24
Windsor, ON
| your right Teksavvy is on the right path, although their speeds are slower;but that's because they use bell copper, unfortunately they are at the hands of bell, occasionally bell provisions the line at 7-8 MB.
Teksavvy is the leader in the fight with the CRTC and Bell.
if you read the TSI forum you see there are many people who regularly post. Most if not all of the posters are well educated on the CRTC tariffs. this is in part of the CEO and the very knowledgeable tech support. this is not a TSI plug.
MY experiences with TSI has been nothing but good compared to bell. but I digress.
the problem with Cogeco, the speeds are great and consistent but the caps are unreasonable. between a few hours of youtube and well other video sites its easy to eat bandwidth, not to mention p2p such as bit torrent. In my opinion Cogeco needs to wake up, they seem to be going backwards in their thinking, while the rest of the world is upping bandwidth they are holding to the standards of yesteryear. If they are able to offer higher speeds and soon to be higher then 16 MB\S then their caps should reflect that, at the moment they are rolling out 25 MB\S, which is unknown to the general public yet!
SO far the connection which i subscribe for gets cut off almost every month 1 maybe 2 days before the end of the month, Cogeco should take the path that TSI is paving and up their bandwidth to something actually competitive for the price.
The problem is there are not enough consumers who are aware enough to realize that they are being fleeced.
A fiber provider called Donobi recently acquired by Sitestar in the U.S offers truly high speed for about the same as Cogeco's standard package.
The question is why cant Canadian providers provide the same service as other countries.
all in all I am happy with Cogeco right now but that's only because I am too far from the CO to get TSI. | |
| | 
CableGuy50MBits
@cgocable.net
| Re: your right Actully Cogeco is rolling out 50MBit to the door for starters very soon, and the CRTC is the reason for all the caps, no company can do anything unless the crtc says so, and so if cogeco wants to up the cap, then the crtc asks bell if that would hurt their financial state(which they hurt already) and then the crtc says no. And don't forget Bell enforced there cap for years, with a $8.95 per GB over. And Cogeco just up their limits to 60 from 15 GB just over a year ago. Thank the CRTC for all the tech lingering. It took 5 years of fighting to get the Cable companys to even be able to offer phone, because of the crtc and the ever crying Bell canada. | |
| | | Gruesome
join:2007-10-18
Milton, ON | Re: your right The CRTC does not impose or enforce caps
I currently have a 200 GB cap on my new DSL connection | |
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Review by Genstugots
Posted: 190 days ago
member for 2.8 years, 23 visits, last login: 186 days ago
canada
$118 per month
"its cable internet and phone"
"very bad congestion"
"needs to be fixed asap"
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* didn't consider any other options for broadband.
* ordered internet pro and digital phone for about $118 after taxes
*order process went great, but the install was iffy
*RCA voip modem
*ordered 16 meg. connection and get consistantly 1.5-3.0 megs
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Review by vega509
UPDATED: 193 days ago
member for 4 years, 106 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Welland,ON
$59 per month (month by month)
"fast, when it is working"
"latency, sloooow usenet, very low caps, expensive"
"poor value for the money,"
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Between the rate increases, and the unrealistically low bandwidth caps, Cogeco's value is diminishing quickly.
There have been NO SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS, ONLY DEGRADATION AND REDUCTION OF SERVICE over the last 2 rate increases.
Poor business model for customers, great for a short time for shareholders.
I'm stuck until the DSL improves in my area, then it's adios ......
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Review by dan991199
UPDATED: 195 days ago
member for 2.1 years, 493 visits, last login: a few hours ago
St Catharines,ON
$44 per month (month by month)
"Speed"
"BW Cap / metered billing"
"look elsewhere until the suits realize they need us customers."
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now with metered billing, a crappy isp just got worse.
AS OF JUNE 1/09 SWITCHED TO TEKSAVVY
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Review by metrotitan
UPDATED: 210 days ago
member for 1 year, 221 visits, last login: 3 days ago
undisclosed location
$47 per month
"Speed"
"60GB cap on standard plan, $1.50/GB overage charges (to a max of $30), arrogant phone reps"
"Cogeco, like most content providers these days, is aggressively working to shape user behavior to maintain old delivery models."
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Cogeco was a fabulous ISP at one point in time, but have steadily worked to limit customer's ability to use their bandwidth. First lenient soft caps, then 60GB caps with a cut off at 130% of your limit or so and now 60GB cap with $1.50/GB overage charges to a max of $30 followed by the great unknown. This is most likely being done to protect their own content delivery systems from fastly growing online competitors; a strategy being employed by many other ISPs these days.
If you're not heavily into the new economy and its new media distribution models, then Cogeco might be for you. For the rest of you, avoid like the plague if possible.
Followup comments: 
WaitForGodot
join:2009-01-07
1 edit | Cogeco is using Bell's playbook It sounds that Cogeco has switched to Bell's playbook, with caps, throttling and usage based billing not too far in the future. | |
| vega509
join:2005-11-12
Welland, ON
 ·Cogeco Cable
| just another cash grab, for less service if you subscribe to their HD cable, VOIP, and internet, they barrage you with ads for FREE downloadable movies without informing you of the cap from the cable box. My neighbour ended up with a $135 bill for internet alone.
I feel if they want you to use these services, especially since they are profiting from 2 at once, there should be no caps.
My brother in Florida pays $29/mo for 10mb cable internet service with NO CAPS. In Canada we get collusion as the major players all have put caps in effect.
The first decent service that is available here without caps will be my new provider. | |
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Review by vonSchroeder
UPDATED: 226 days ago
member for 5 years, 2251 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Kingston,ON
$66 per month
 about 10 days
"Great speed, low latency"
"Low bandwidth caps, unreasonable overage charges"
"Not worth it for anyone who wants to make full use of their Internet connection"
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UPDATE: After 3 years with Cogeco in Hamilton and 8 months at my current location in Kingston, I have left this ISP due to their introduction of low bandwidth caps and the ridiculous overage charges that accompany them. I never went over the caps myself, but the caps and overage charges are so unreasonable, and cannot be justified, that I have left based on principle.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I have been a Cogeco High Speed Pro user for 2 1/2 years now. I live in a student house near McMaster University and the pro package has been great for sharing the connection among up to 9 people at times. When I first moved in we had Sympatico DSL but our line was only capable of handling the 1.5 Mbit profile so Cogeco was really the only choice we had. But Cogeco has been great so I would not choose DSL even if our line could support full 5 Mbit.
The install went smoothly from what I remember. I think it was under two weeks from the time the order was placed by phone. The install was done in my bedroom because that is where all the LAN wiring comes together in the house. But the account was in another housemate's name at the time, so I had to stop the tech from setting up the email account and such on my computer. I asked the tech to just leave the modem and all the relevant information and I would handle everything myself. The tech was happy to do this and did not insist on finishing the install.
The setup is an RCA DCM325 modem (never had to replace to modem, knock on wood) --> WRT54Gv4 router running 3-party firmware --> 8-port SMC switch. When there were 9 in the house 6 were wired and 3 were wireless.
When we first signed up pro was 10 Mbit down / 1 Mbit up. Since then it has been upgraded to 16 Mbit down. I think the price has only gone up a few bucks since then, not enough to complain about. Despite being close to McMaster University my speeds have always been good and relatively consistent. Of course like all cable internet it slows down some during peak time after dinner until midnight, but the speed has always remained good enough to be shared by 9 people at all times of the day. Of course the speed never reaches the "up to" speed that is advertised, but it comes close and I am not complaining. Latency has always been great. I use the connection for online gaming daily and latency has always been low with Cogeco.
From what I can remember the connection has only gone down twice from what I can remember. Both times it was for less than 24 hours. The second time occurred recently and was because of some problem that affected the whole neighborhood including tv signal too. A call into tech support that night resulted in an automated message indicating they were aware of the problem that was affecting the neighborhood. It was resolved in a few hours. The lack of any real issues means I cannot comment on Cogeco's tech support.
The only problems I have had with the service concern using bittorrent with Cogeco. Simply put, bittorrent has never worked for me on Cogeco from day one. I have tried changing all my settings but nothing works. Using a VPN however does overcome the problem. It is important to note that other Cogeco customers report they have no problems with bittorrent. So it is unknown why some are affected but other are not. This has been debated ad nauseum in the Cogeco forums here at Broadband Reports so check there if you are concerned about bittorrent on Cogeco. Overall, I have not allowed it to affect my rating because I use bittorrent so infrequently that it is a non issue for me.
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Review by vuarra
UPDATED: 234 days ago
member for 4.1 years, 409 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Hamilton,ON
$120 per month (12 month contract)
"It's not Bell"
"Caps are completely useless"
"It was great, but what have you done for me lately?"
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When I first got the service, it was a two week wait, but that was when it was first rolled out in my area. I ended up getting blazing speeds for just about double the price of dial-up at the time. It was $39.99 at the time, but if you had cable service, they'd throw in the modem rental for free. Service was 5Mb/s, and I was happy with it.
Now:
Cogeco has decided to start gouging their clients by telling them that their only protection from congestion in the future is to pay overages at $1.25/GiB, up to 30 GiB, then they are cut off... unless they upgrade to a faster plan with higher caps.
No, it doesn't make sense to me, either.
Why am I still with Cogeco? Two reasons.
Their customer service is second to none. When a company tells a perspective client not to get their service because it's throwing money away, you know they're really interested in their client base.
My DSL maximum is 2MiB/s, if that. Cogeco has me over a barrel, and I'll bet they're enjoying it immensely.
Followup comments: vuarra
join:2005-10-11
Hamilton, ON | Correction I take the speed critiques back. After replacing two NICs, apparently I do get full speed.
I was at fault. | |
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Review by ReiX896
UPDATED: 234 days ago
member for 1.8 years, 11 visits, last login: 176 days ago
Fort Erie,ON
$45 per month
"Speed"
"Avoid Cogeco until packages provide value or unless its your only alternative for net access"
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In honesty, When I first began service through Cogeco I was quite satisfied despite the lack of communication between myself and Cogeco on the procedures of installation. And small amounts of incorrect information provided in pre-sale. But with in the past 8 months the institution of bitcaps and then the evolution to "Usage Billing" has degraded the value and service provided. 60gb/month a year ago was sufficient for myself and the average user but with the innovation of IP based technology Cogeco is stagnant and seems to refuse to provide the user any flexibility.
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Review by QuickSurfer
UPDATED: 238 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 772 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Georgetown,ON
$80 per month
about 1 days
"None"
"Bandwidth caps"
"Not worth it"
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New usage billing the straw that broke the camels back.
NOTE: Cogeco is at a 3 year low overall rating on DSLR for a reason.
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Review by stryke5
Posted: 238 days ago
member for 2.3 years, 63 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Burlington,ON
Contract price not specified.
"Reliability"
"The price is a little high for what you get."
"An average ISP."
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I've been using Cogeco for over a year and it's been reliable but I find it rather expensive especially with a cap now in place.
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