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rocca
Start.ca
Premium Member
join:2008-11-16
London, ON

rocca to dbratt

Premium Member

to dbratt

Re: 50 Cent Overage

On Red, as pointed out - yes.

On Cogeco and DSL, there is no current official maximum - that said, we review the overages for people on those networks and provided the customer isn't using it as a '$25 unlimited' option (ie only a bit over, or doesn't do it every month and not running flat out during peak) then we reduce the overages on many of those impacted. We hope to at some point in the near future be able to offer this as an official policy on more of our services, but for the time-being it's Red only.

T361
@start.ca

T361

Anon

The way it works I think is that Start gets charged on per rate-basis on all packages, but there are no max caps assigned to 30Mbps and higher packages. Red/Cogeco seems to base their overrate charges based on the tier you've selected to take advantage of lower-revenue customer streams who don't know any better. So a 6Mbps person might suffer an $2.50/GB overrate charge while a 20Mbps person would suffer a $1.50/GB charge. Start already gets overall cheaper bandwidth costs than regular customers as they buy it as a wholesale, and they can absorb the charges to some degree with the $25 maximum or "nice keep-customer leverage cap" with the $50 maximum/no maximum ceiling that Cogeco seems to have.

This leads me to the speculation that :
1. On a per GB basis they are charged less but the original "X"GB that is free is allocated based on the speed-tier of the customer, so they can offer more bandwidth leverage room
2. If you exceed some fraction, i.e. 60% of their bandwidth costs on a low GB plan, they are absorbing those costs and not making profit
3. If you are exceeding your usage limits, they are losing significantly more money
4. Based on Speednet's database, TekkSavvy has 15-20x more customers and Rogers has 80-125x more customers in each area. Since market penetration is around 0.006% at best, they can't afford to lay down fibre optics like Beanfield who can offer 50Mbps Up/Down Unlimited @ $45 or better like in Toronto.

A big if, is if independent ISPs could leverage for lower bandwidth costs, and improve their market penetration via competitive rates... they might be able to lay out their own infrastructure. Although currently, it seems like the big three ISPs are simply just too good at advertising as most people are ignorant of alternative things (whether it be smartphones, or whatever).
T361

T361

Anon

Now the only thing I can't speculate is on...

- How can they afford unlimited 2-8AM usage windows.
-> Implying that rates are charged based on network use-times
-> Implying that that policy there is to reduce usage to free up congestion and to let everyone have 100% speeds

-> 20Mbps Down @ 30 Days @ 6 Hours = 450GB/month
--> At least $100+ billed

- How can they afford unlimited upload
-> 10Mbps Up @ 30 Days @ 100% of the time = 3.24TB/month
--> At least $300+ billed
-> Implying that the incumbent ISPs don't charge for upload
--> Non-nonsensical, as they would give the same benefit to their customers

jmck
formerly 'shaded'
join:2010-10-02
Ottawa, ON

jmck

Member

they get charged like most other ISPs get charged on usage using the 95/5 model meaning they pay for their peak usage. if they peak at 20Gbit/sec at 10pm, then the monthly bill is 20Gbit/sec.

thats why they can offer unlimted after the peak window, and hopefully this actually brings down their peak usage a bit.
bt
join:2009-02-26
canada

bt to T361

Member

to T361
said by T361 :

Now the only thing I can't speculate is on...

- How can they afford unlimited 2-8AM usage windows.
-> Implying that rates are charged based on network use-times
-> Implying that that policy there is to reduce usage to free up congestion and to let everyone have 100% speeds

The rates Start pays are for 24/7 capacity. The amount of capacity they get is based on what they need for peak hours. Therefore, what Start pays for capacity is based on peak usage. Usage in off-peak periods, such as overnight, basically doesn't cost them anything extra. They just have to be careful to not create a new peak in "free" periods.
said by T361 :

-> 20Mbps Down @ 30 Days @ 6 Hours = 450GB/month
--> At least $100+ billed

- How can they afford unlimited upload
-> 10Mbps Up @ 30 Days @ 100% of the time = 3.24TB/month
--> At least $300+ billed
-> Implying that the incumbent ISPs don't charge for upload
--> Non-nonsensical, as they would give the same benefit to their customers

Similar to the overnight stuff...

The capacity they purchase from the incumbents is symmetrical. Same amount of upload capacity as download capacity. They're basically paying based on which is higher - upload or download. So as long as the peak upload usage isn't coming close to the peak download usage, additional upload usage doesn't cost them anything extra.

Now, upload and overnight usage isn't likely quite free to Start - but it should be in the area of pennies on the dollar (or rather, pennies on the hundreds or thousands of dollars) that they'd be paying Rogers/Bell/Cogeco for peak-period download usage .
dbratt
join:2013-11-30
Canada

dbratt to rocca

Member

to rocca
Thanks Rocca! I have only been charged $25 overage and Iam in the Cogeco area. But I don't go over my usuage too much as I take advantage of the 2AM/8AM window.

Great service BTW!

rocca
Start.ca
Premium Member
join:2008-11-16
London, ON

rocca

Premium Member

Thanks!