Cogeco Usage Meter Still Broken As Company Charges More Than Ever For Overages Tipped by Gone 
While many ISPs are chomping at the bit to impose costly per byte overages on consumers, carriers are finding it difficult to meter usage actually. Earlier this week we noted AT&T users in our forums say AT&T is struggling to accurately measure U-Verse customer usage, and for many years we've noted that Canadian cable operator Cogeco has had trouble getting their usage meters to work correctly. At the end of last month Cogeco raised (or eliminated altogether) their limits on how much overage penalties users face at the end of the month. However, users in our Cogeco forum note that the company's metering technology is still dysfunctional, with users unable to see usage, being shown inaccurate usage, or receiving e-mail warnings that don't sync with the usage meter. Such dysfunction continues to raise questions about when exactly regulators will notice that nobody is monitoring the monitors.
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 | | It's Broken... And their customers aren't suing the hell out of them for over charges?? | |
|  | Cogdis
join:2007-03-26
Floral Park, NY | Re: It's Broken... How can they charge for something that they can't even measure? This stuff needs to be regulated and checked for accuracy like a gas pump.
Or they can stop this whole per-byte billing thing and not have to worry about how accurate their meter is. | |
| | |  Oh_NoTrogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL | Re: It's Broken... The problem is to measure all the successful packets accurately takes a lot of processing power.
These ISPs do not want to buy new equipment that are fast enough to log everything. | |
| | | | | | Re: It's Broken... said by Oh_No:The problem is to measure all the successful packets accurately takes a lot of processing power.
These ISPs do not want to buy new equipment that are fast enough to log everything.
Uh... it's really not hard. If Cogeco was punished by federal regulators with financial penalties for improperly charging customers you can bet they would fix these "problems" faster than you could say "What just happened?". | |
| | | | | Oh_NoTrogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL | Re: It's Broken... said by sonicmerlin:said by Oh_No:The problem is to measure all the successful packets accurately takes a lot of processing power.
These ISPs do not want to buy new equipment that are fast enough to log everything..
Uh... it's really not hard. If Cogeco was punished by federal regulators with financial penalties for improperly charging customers you can bet they would fix these "problems" faster than you could say "What just happened?". The easy solution is to have a law preventing limits and per byte billing. We have had unlimited internet in this country from 1995 to 2011, no reason to stop now.
Per byte billing cost to much for new equipment/resources and customers have no reason to want to pay for that. | |
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| | | | | | Re: It's Broken... The government needs to regulate this stuff to such a degree that it's no longer profitable to use a UBB model. | |
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said by mlcarson:The government needs to regulate this stuff to such a degree that it's no longer profitable to use a UBB model. Apparently it isn't. Or at least not that much had they been doing it right. Im sure if they had put the money up (or been required to) for accurate meters they would be singing another tune. In the end they want more from their customers without having to give any explanation as to what their customers are paying for (probably overages that they never went over). So how much do they think they can make in profit off the *1-5%* (or so they claim) of the most bandwidth hungry users that would justify what should be necessary costs? its probably 1% and not affecting their network in the end. They are just putting too many users on single nodes and not willing to upgrade. These companies today are being outright crooks! I certainly support regulation! | |
| | | | |  GonePremium
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON
kudos:3
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| Re: It's Broken... said by jimbo2150:They are just putting too many users on single nodes and not willing to upgrade. These companies today are being outright crooks! I certainly support regulation! I agree with you. Competition and open markets don't work when all the "competition" is nothing more a cartel of companies who keep pushing the bar to screw customers further and further with the others following in suit.
These "overage" fees exist for one reason and one reason alone - to protect their golden cash cow, television. Why subscribe to television when you can stream everything you want over the Internet? The prospect of that terrifies them to no end.
And this is the very reason why I cancelled my TV service with Cogeco and had Shaw Direct installed today. If I am going to be spending money on TV, I refuse to give a dime more to a pathetic organization like Cogeco. Unlike Cogeco and their regressive and punitive transfer limits, Shaw actually offers ample limits that all but the most hungry of heavy users would be happy with, and for those heavy users who wouldn't even be happy with what they offer, they have *shock* unlimited plans too. Cogeco is the complete opposite - pass 175GB on Ultimate 30 as of October 1st, and the broken meter doesn't stop at $50. It just keeps going and going and going, and the burden of proof is on you to prove if they calculated it incorrectly - an impossible burden, I might add.
Canadians need to support companies like Shaw, and let it be known why they've decided to spend their hard-earned money with a company like them. They are leaders, not followers. | |
| | | | | | | | Re: It's Broken... said by Gone:said by jimbo2150:They are just putting too many users on single nodes and not willing to upgrade. These companies today are being outright crooks! I certainly support regulation! I agree with you. Competition and open markets don't work when all the "competition" is nothing more a cartel of companies who keep pushing the bar to screw customers further and further with the others following in suit. These "overage" fees exist for one reason and one reason alone - to protect their golden cash cow, television. Why subscribe to television when you can stream everything you want over the Internet? The prospect of that terrifies them to no end. And this is the very reason why I cancelled my TV service with Cogeco and had Shaw Direct installed today. If I am going to be spending money on TV, I refuse to give a dime more to a pathetic organization like Cogeco. Unlike Cogeco and their regressive and punitive transfer limits, Shaw actually offers ample limits that all but the most hungry of heavy users would be happy with, and for those heavy users who wouldn't even be happy with what they offer, they have *shock* unlimited plans too. Cogeco is the complete opposite - pass 175GB on Ultimate 30 as of October 1st, and the broken meter doesn't stop at $50. It just keeps going and going and going, and the burden of proof is on you to prove if they calculated it incorrectly - an impossible burden, I might add. Canadians need to support companies like Shaw, and let it be known why they've decided to spend their hard-earned money with a company like them. They are leaders, not followers. This is why Murdoch and Co. have been so fiercely opposed to the national, government-run fiber network being deployed in Australia. | |
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| | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | said by jimbo2150:said by mlcarson:The government needs to regulate this stuff to such a degree that it's no longer profitable to use a UBB model. Apparently it isn't. Or at least not that much had they been doing it right. Im sure if they had put the money up (or been required to) for accurate meters they would be singing another tune. In the end they want more from their customers without having to give any explanation as to what their customers are paying for (probably overages that they never went over). So how much do they think they can make in profit off the *1-5%* (or so they claim) of the most bandwidth hungry users that would justify what should be necessary costs? its probably UBB isn't a profit-center aimed at the data hogs. It is a tool to prevent the majority of users from leaving the tap wide open; it is a means to offer lower-cost plans to entice the low-volume users who might otherwise do without.
Metering doesn't have to cost - it just needs an IEEE standard spec, so it can built into the cable/dsl/fiber modem.
The companies are not "crooks". They've invested billions to offer you a competitive service that you seem to crave. If their profits bother you, buy the stock and use the dividend to pay your broadband bill.
Profit is not a four-letter word. If you expect to have a retirement income stream, how do you expect your IRA/401-K/403b/415a/Keogh to earn anything, if the equities and mutual funds contained therein don't make money? | |
| | | | | | | | Re: It's Broken... said by elray:UBB isn't a profit-center aimed at the data hogs. It is a tool to prevent the majority of users from leaving the tap wide open; it is a means to offer lower-cost plans to entice the low-volume users who might otherwise do without.
Oh really. Where are these new lower cost plans then? They seem pretty thin on the ground.
Metering doesn't have to cost - it just needs an IEEE standard spec, so it can built into the cable/dsl/fiber modem.
Leaving that aside, yes it does have to cost. It adds a great deal of administrative overhead.
The companies are not "crooks". They've invested billions to offer you a competitive service that you seem to crave. If their profits bother you, buy the stock and use the dividend to pay your broadband bill.
Profit is not a four-letter word. If you expect to have a retirement income stream, how do you expect your IRA/401-K/403b/415a/Keogh to earn anything, if the equities and mutual funds contained therein don't make money?
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| | | | | | Oh_NoTrogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL | said by elray:UBB isn't a profit-center aimed at the data hogs. It is a tool to prevent the majority of users from leaving the tap wide open; it is a means to offer lower-cost plans to entice the low-volume users who might otherwise do without.
Metering doesn't have to cost - it just needs an IEEE standard spec, so it can built into the cable/dsl/fiber modem.
The companies are not "crooks". They've invested billions to offer you a competitive service that you seem to crave. If their profits bother you, buy the stock and use the dividend to pay your broadband bill. UBB is for profit. It is not a tool to prevent the majority of users from leaving the 'tap' wide open as you call it. With UBB they want people to use their connections and pay them alot more money.
We have had unlimited internet in this country from 1995 to 2011 with ISP getting huge profits. Just look at cable tv ISPs.
They can charge $50 a month for cable only, pay the networks, pay for their LAN, pay their employees and still be very profitable. Now with that same wire they can charge $50 a month for internet and instead of paying content providers like with TV they keep that money as extra profit.
An ISP offering tiers is what they use to balance their network, not UBB.
Obviously they did not build their networks to handle everyone using 50 mbps so they price that high so everyone does not buy it and their bandwidth costs are covered with a great profit. If too many people use 50 mpbs then they will raise that price so people switch to lower tiers if their network cannot handle it.
They can offer 768K, 1.5m, 3m, 6m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 25m, 50m, etc at all different prices to reflect what the bandwidth costs. No ISP will lose money because a user maxes out their connection.
FYI, 768K would be about 250GB a month in max usage.
Charging per byte will give them a potential of more money on top of the monthly fees everyone pays that they already profit from and that is why they do it. | |
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| Roop
join:2003-11-15
Ottawa, ON | said by motoracer:And their customers aren't suing the hell out of them for over charges??
it is likely that in the user agreement for the service, the user waives the right to sue the company and instead opts for a third party counseling should they be unhappy with the service. the third party is chosen by the service provider and will favour the provider over the user.
ahhh, how wonderful it is to have a last mile monopoly in canada. | |
| | | GonePremium
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON
kudos:3 Reviews:
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| Re: It's Broken... said by Roop:it is likely that in the user agreement for the service, the user waives the right to sue the company and instead opts for a third party counseling should they be unhappy with the service. the third party is chosen by the service provider and will favour the provider over the user. Clauses like that are not entirely legal in Canada. | |
| | | | | | Re: It's Broken... Maybe so but they are still there. | |
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 Unit649I B U, Who U B?Premium
join:2000-01-22
Stockton, CA | Of course THEY can.... They can see your usage no problem. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to bill for it.
But why would they want YOU to see it? You'd be able to curb your behavior and stop the over charges from happening!
I smell class action. The first person to file will get their money back and more. The rest will get a $20 settlement if they are lucky and the lawyers will get 75%. Do they have those kind of lawsuits up there?
But then again, Canada is a bit different. People are used to getting ganked on internet services up there aren't they? | |
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