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<title>Cogeco forum - dslreports.com community</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/cogeco</link>
<description>Cogeco forum current topics</description>
<language>en</language>
<copyright>Copyright 2007, dslreports.com</copyright>
<pubDate>Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:28:53 EDT</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:28:53 EDT</lastBuildDate>

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<title>Usage Billing</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22165733</link>
<description><![CDATA[Ok I&#146;ve got my flak jacket on and buttoned up tight but before I dive in please remember Chelle&#146;s comments and try to keep your comments constructive as otherwise they&#146;ll get ignored and/or deleted and you won&#146;t get your point across &#150; even venting can be done in a constructive manner.

Here&#146;s your officially unofficial notice that shortly you will be receiving a letter informing you of a change to bitcap policies as Cogeco begins usage billing &#150; note that there will be a 2 month monitoring period where numbers appear on your bill but NO MONEY IS CHARGED TO YOU during this 2-month period, this is to help customers understand what the impact will be to them BEFORE we start to bill. The letter will have full details but basically the gist is that there&#146;ll be a per Gigabyte overage charge dependent on plan with a maximum charge, for example here&#146;s the residential packages and overages,

Lite &#150; 10GB/mo bitcap - $2.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Lite Plus &#150; 20GB/mo bitcap - $2.00 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Standard &#150; 60GB/mo bitcap - $1.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Pro &#150; 100GB/mo bitcap - $1.00 per GB over to a maximum of $50

Now I&#146;ll try and proactively answer questions I can think of,

1. When?

For April and May you&#146;ll see usage charges on your bill BUT they&#146;ll be credited back to you which means we will not start charging until June 1st. This is to give you all an idea of what your usage is to help you prepare

2.Will you warn me before I go over? 

Yes, we will send a notice to your Cogeco email address before you go over and then as you&#146;re going over we&#146;ll redirect you to a webpage before we start charging so that you&#146;re aware

2a. Can you send the notification to a non Cogeco email address?

Not right now&#133;well we could but we actually care about your privacy so we want to ensure we have a system in place that will properly vette those email addresses so we&#146;re not sending the notices and your info to whomever. I have no ETA for this feature right now but I will let you know when I have more

2b. Can you forward my Cogeco email address to a non-Cogeco email address since I never check it?

Again, not right now but I&#146;ll see if we can maybe implement this faster than 2a and get back to you all

3. Are you raising the bitcaps?

There are currently no plans to raise the existing bitcaps 

4. What happens if I download lots even though I&#146;ve hit my maximum charge?

If the activity is degrading the service to other customers we&#146;ll temporarily interrupt your connectivity like we do today

4a. But what if I WANT to download lots more over my maximum charge without degrading other people&#146;s service?

You should probably investigate a higher tier of service as you&#146;re probably on the wrong plan for your usage requirements.

5. At what bitcap will you charge and how much will you charge?

Lite &#150; 10GB/mo bitcap - $2.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Lite Plus &#150; 20GB/mo bitcap - $2.00 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Standard &#150; 60GB/mo bitcap - $1.50 per GB over to a maximum of $30
Pro &#150; 100GB/mo bitcap - $1.00 per GB over to a maximum of $50

6. What about commercial?

Currently commercial accounts are not in scope for June usage billing. I don&#146;t have a concrete ETA on when it will be implemented for commercial but I will give an educated guesstimate of &#147;not much longer&#148;.

6a. What the heck&#133;so commercial customers get a free ride?

Not really, it will be coming for them shortly as well but in the interim see my answer to #4

7. What&#146;s considered billable traffic?

Everything that passes through your modem except Cogeco VOIP traffic

8. Where can I check my bandwidth?

https://selfcare.cogeco.com &#150; as you&#146;ve seen in other threads we&#146;ve got a new meter which will hopefully meet your needs a bit better than our older version, that should be fully operational shortly once we resolve issues discovered yesterday

9. Why are you doing this?

There&#146;s no possible way I can answer this question in a satisfactory manner for 100% of people or answer it in less than 30 pages and I&#146;m sure someone, somewhere will likely violently disagree with me anyway but reality is that &#147;bandwidth&#148; is not free. While &#147;transit&#148; may appear cheap the reality is a network like this takes continual maintenance and upgrades to get the &#147;transit&#148; to and from you and the internet is becoming more and more media rich every year so it&#146;s just a natural evolution of the technology. You can scream it&#146;s a money grab and that&#146;s your right to have that opinion but if you want my opinion it&#146;s not a money grab and personally I&#146;ve been saying this is the direction the industry is taking since 2000 and long term I personally feel this is for the best as we will all be paying for what we use and not the usage of others that may have drastically different online needs and habits. 

10.&#9;Cogeco is [insert negative comment]

Well technically it&#146;s not a question but I figured I may as well proactively address the negativity that will likely ensue plus I wanted a #10 to balance the list out! Seriously though, I fully understand that some of you are not going to be happy about this and it may indeed prompt you to investigate other options &#150; while I hate to see customers leave I understand that you need to find the best solution for your online needs and while I personally do not feel there will be the mass exodus that many envision only time will tell so maybe time will show me as being entirely wrong. I will tell you that I&#146;ve been looking at these bitcap numbers since about 2001 and reality is those people that exceed current bitcaps are in the minority&#133;by a LONG shot&#133; so personally I don&#146;t anticipate usage billing to impact the majority of customers except maybe to cause some unnecessary concern or confusion in the short term. 

So there you go, that&#146;s the deal, you&#146;ll be getting the official letter in the mail shortly. Please respect BBR and the moderators if for no other reason than your voice won&#146;t be heard if you don&#146;t &#150; if you REALLY need to scream and yell at someone send me a PM so you can direct your anger at me and avoid hitting innocent bystanders in the forum. As always there are many Cogeco employee eyes on the forum so they&#146;ll be tracking it and we&#146;re always open to good ideas so we are listening however I will be bluntly honest with you and tell you I do no foresee any change to this policy and usage billing disappearing but maybe time will show me as wrong and you&#146;ll all get the joy of pointing and laughing at me.

Lastly...no, this is not an April Fools joke

EDIT NOTE: Edited my mistake in #2
--
you can lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink...you can put a man through school but you cannot make him think  --ben harper
]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22165733</guid>
<pubDate>2009-04-01 14:59:12</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>[Burlington] Random sound disruptions with HD channels</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21735709</link>
<description><![CDATA[Hey,
I just got the Cogeco Digital 1 select package with the HD channels. Everything is great so far except for one thing.

I'm not sure whats up, but when I'm watching a movie/tv show (so far I've notice this only happens with HD channels) randomly, the sound will "mute" or something... its _like_ the sound is being censored but I know its not actually done on purpose. There isn't really any static and its just for a second or two and it happens randomly... its odd.

Any idea what might be wrong? I'm using an HDMI cable for Audio/Video.

Thanks,
Aaron
--

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
- Bushism]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21735709</guid>
<pubDate>2009-01-13 17:51:10</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>[Windsor] Is one modem better than another?</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22651247</link>
<description><![CDATA[HI All,
Currently I have an RCA DCM315 that has had some intermittent problems lately. Its about three years old. I know at the time when I got it it was "the best" router to obtain maximum speeds. Is there a specific modem I should ask for when exchanging this one?
Thanks!
Joe]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22651247</guid>
<pubDate>2009-07-03 18:50:31</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>WTF? what&#x27;s with Cogeco re: stations that disappear...</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22630130</link>
<description><![CDATA[I'm sitting in my family room watching the 6:00pm news on CHCH tv -- 716 on the box.

I watched for about 11 minutes, then the screen goes black, no vid and no sound. I jump back to the CBC, it's fine, so is CITY-Tv and Global too....but CHCH is still black.

I wait...and now it's been 12 minutes....still no CHCH?

WTF is that?

Do any of you get this kinda 'drop-out' of stations or do I need to call for a tech visit?

Christ, I'm beginning to think BELLExpressView might be better and that's saying something!!!!

:-(

Jim]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22630130</guid>
<pubDate>2009-06-29 18:25:19</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Pre-sign up questions</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22648816</link>
<description><![CDATA[Hi all, I am currently in the process of leaving my ISP(Bell) and I'm looking for a new provider. I live in Burlington around the Palmer Rd area, and I'm thinking of going with Cogeco. I know Cogeco has extremely low bandwidth caps, but seeing as it's the only real option in my area I don't have a choice. Here are a couple of questions I have before signing up.

1) On average what is Cogecos typical latency to New York and Chicago? I use a lot of latency sensitive applications (VoIP, Gaming, Etc.)

2) How bad is the congestion in my area during peek hours? (hopefully someone who works at Cogeco or someone in the same area as me can answer this)

Thanks in advance.

-Andrew ]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22648816</guid>
<pubDate>2009-07-03 09:10:23</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>[Cable TV] OMG</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22651349</link>
<description><![CDATA[I said I was cancelling because I'm cutting back my budget.
They offered me a cheaper price if I signed a 1 year contract.
How do they think that is better?
If they'd offered me a cheaper price and still no contract then I would've considered it.

I tried to send them feedback directly but it tricked me.
I entered what seemed like everything but when I clicked submit, a big form came up saying I had to register.
If I knew I needed to register to leave feedback, I wouldn't have bothered.]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22651349</guid>
<pubDate>2009-07-03 19:13:29</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>[Hamilton] Cancelled well over 2 weeks ago.. Still have service?</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612108</link>
<description><![CDATA[Hey all you Cogeco reps out there..

I cancelled my service 2+ weeks ago, told I would recieve a box to send my modem in (or deliver it to Limeridge), havent recieved one or gone to the mall either.

I have noticed my modem is still syncing with the network, so I decided to try it out... Still have an active internet connection.

Can someone please verify with me that I will absolutely not be charged for this 2 + weeks of inactivity?]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612108</guid>
<pubDate>2009-06-25 21:42:07</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Bandwidth monitoring - whats up?</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22520080</link>
<description><![CDATA[I have just checked my bandwidth usage and was surprised to see a validation notification. As you can see I'm only at 26.35% and the notification says I'm at 85%???? And also I have recieved no notifications from the system and yes I have checked my spam and junk email filters. Better not see this reflected in my monthly bill.

Has anyone else noticed this?]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22520080</guid>
<pubDate>2009-06-09 07:48:06</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Throttling</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22634258</link>
<description><![CDATA[So is cogeco throttling really bad or what nowadays? When trying to play wow w/ my wife at like 7pm it was locking up every 2 seconds, barely playable and extrememly iritating. Fast forward to 9:30pm/10pm or so, it's fine.. no hiccups or anything.

I'm on standard, use some what close to within my bandwidth cap each month but yet it's terrible during the day and fine during the night? Makes no sense....]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22634258</guid>
<pubDate>2009-06-30 12:26:17</pubDate>
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