Cogeco: Metered Billing 'Not About Making Money' Editorial: It's about helping children, puppies and the downtrodden... Somewhat buried under the Time Warner Cable metered billing kerfuffle is the fact that Canadian cable operator Cogeco also announced they'd be imposing overages on its customers. While we were the first to report the changes, the news is now getting out to Cogeco customers, who aren't particularly happy. Just like Time Warner Cable, Cogeco has decided the best course of action in response to angry customers is to insult their intelligence: "We’re doing this so we can give the best service to all of our customers," said Marie Carrier, Cogeco’s director of corporate communications. "This is not something we’re doing to make money; it’s to better manage our service." If it really wasn't about making money, a carrier could follow Comcast's lead and simply impose a very high cap (250GB) to rein in their heaviest users. Or they could push these heavy users, who carriers admit make up a mere 1% of their userbase, onto more expensive business-class tiers. Or, they could raise flat-rate unlimited prices on just those customers. Or, if it's really not about money, they could boot those users from the network. There's a number of creative business models to address problems faced by modern ISPs that don't involve bandwidth markups of 2500% over cost. Instead, Cogeco chose to take aim at regular users and ordinary households, implementing caps as low as 10GB with overages as high as $2.50 per gigabyte. Keep in mind Cogeco had already implemented caps and throttling, meaning any purported network congestion issues were already being addressed. Cogeco made the decision to start charging overages in addition to caps. That decision wasn't prompted by philanthropy, fairness or mysticism. The move toward metered billing is a pipe dream for investors and executives, who love the idea of charging more for bandwidth as hardware and wholesale bandwidth prices plummet and most product delivery costs drop or remain fixed. Executives also like the idea of either cashing in on Internet video delivery, or preventing it from eroding TV revenues. Cogeco's decision has everything to do with making money. Consumer advocates worry that such restrictive limits will limit consumer exploration of innovative content. Several carriers recognize that metered billing confuses customers, driving them to competitors. Of course Cogeco operates in monopoly and duopoly markets, and the lack of sustained competition is what allows the carrier to ignore, then insult their customers without penalty. And Cogeco is being insulting. Like other carriers who've recently made this migration, Cogeco has provided no hard network or fiscal data to suggest why an already very profitable (pdf) company would need to radically overhaul their pricing structure. Just be assured: it's for your own good, and it's not about making money.
|
 Chaldo
join:2008-03-18
West Bloomfield, MI | It is about making money Yea dude, ill sell you unlimited water usage, oh wait I forgot to tell you if you use more then 2 gallons each other gallon costs 5 dollars ok, yea its not about making money its just to "control the flow". Man and people thought Comcast was bad, I don't think Congress will allow Timewarner to do this, people would hella complain and move to something else in the area mostly DSL probably. | |
|  |  PhilRojo SolPremium
join:2001-06-11
Downers Grove, IL
kudos:2 | Re: It is about making money Water is a finite resource so that analogy just doesn't hold water. | |
| | |  espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
 ·Vitelity VOIP
| Re: It is about making money said by Phil:Water is a finite resource so that analogy just doesn't hold water. Water and bandwidth are pretty even scenarios. The cost isn't in the water (or the bits), it's in transporting it. | |
| | | |  RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY | Re: It is about making money said by espaeth:said by Phil:Water is a finite resource so that analogy just doesn't hold water. Water and bandwidth are pretty even scenarios. The cost isn't in the water (or the bits), it's in transporting it. The transporting cost is built into the initial monthly charge. It costs the company the same amount for the transport infrastructure if I use it for 0GB or 250GB (or 0 Gal or 2500 Gal). The cost of the bits/water is a different issue. I ask why the supposed cost (and thus the overage charge) of any usage over the arbitrary cap is more than that of the original capped usage (ie: Assigning a $0 cost to the ISP for the delivery infrastructure [AKA: "Last Mile"]). If you have two separate customers who each use xGB (ie: The Cap Amount) and each have a $Y/Month charge, why if Customer 2 does not exist and Customer 1 uses 2xGB, is he charged more than $Y for the second xGB since it is the EXACT SAME usage/load on the system as would occur with Customer 2 above and Customer 1 only doing xGB? Feeding Customer 1 the second xGB does not cost anything more (and actually less since there is no second last mile infrastructure) than feeding the xGB to Customer 2 yet the ISP is penalizing Customer 1 for the non-existence of a Customer 2. | |
| | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Vitelity VOIP
| Re: It is about making money Capacity upgrades are a step incremental cost, and the scaling isn't straight forward.
Say you start out with a 24 port switch that costs $240. You can bill everybody for a port charge of $10. What if you need 30 ports then? Well, you need 2 switches, but you end up with less than 24 ports of attachment because some ports need to be used to link the two switches together. So say you only use 2 ports to link the 2 switches, and for $480 you get 44 ports of edge user access, so your cost actually goes up to $10.90/port. Add a 3rd and 4th switch and the situation degrades further as ports are consumed for spanning.
In a DOCSIS world, capacity upgrades usually means node splits. That means more HFC media converters (nodes), more ports on the CMTS, which means the addition of more line cards (at $100k/each), which bumps your annual maintenance costs, etc.
Incremental usage turns out to be a pretty big deal when it reaches a level that forces your next round of infrastructure expansion. | |
| | | | | |  IgnitePremium,VIP
join:2004-03-18
UK | Re: It is about making money said by espaeth:In a DOCSIS world, capacity upgrades usually means node splits. That means more HFC media converters (nodes), more ports on the CMTS, which means the addition of more line cards (at $100k/each), which bumps your annual maintenance costs, etc. If you pay 100k for a line card can I sell you a few?  | |
| | | | | | | | said by espaeth:Incremental usage turns out to be a pretty big deal when it reaches a level that forces your next round of infrastructure expansion. Bingo.
But just what do these upgrades cost on a per-user basis? How about amortized over 5 years? So far, none of the companies proposing any kind of metered billing have even suggested what these actual costs are.
I think I know why... | |
| | | | | |  pizzFiber pleasePremium
join:2000-10-27
Astoria, NY
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| said by espaeth:Capacity upgrades are a step incremental cost, and the scaling isn't straight forward. Say you start out with a 24 port switch that costs $240. You can bill everybody for a port charge of $10. What if you need 30 ports then? Well, you need 2 switches, but you end up with less than 24 ports of attachment because some ports need to be used to link the two switches together. So say you only use 2 ports to link the 2 switches, and for $480 you get 44 ports of edge user access, so your cost actually goes up to $10.90/port. Add a 3rd and 4th switch and the situation degrades further as ports are consumed for spanning. In a DOCSIS world, capacity upgrades usually means node splits. That means more HFC media converters (nodes), more ports on the CMTS, which means the addition of more line cards (at $100k/each), which bumps your annual maintenance costs, etc. Incremental usage turns out to be a pretty big deal when it reaches a level that forces your next round of infrastructure expansion. 100k for a line card? I'll use my company's vendor, and resell it to you at 100k  | |
| | | | | | | IgnitePremium,VIP
join:2004-03-18
UK | Re: It is about making money No way I got there first, he's my fool err customer. | |
| | | | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Vitelity VOIP
| said by pizz:100k for a line card? I'll use my company's vendor, and resell it to you at 100k I was rounding up a bit.
UBR10-MC5X20H-D= uBR10K High-Performance Card, 5DS w/upx, 20US, MSRP $89,500
or
SPA-24XDS-SFP 24-port uBR10012 Wideband Downstream Shared Port Adapter MSRP $89,900
(Yeah, I know nobody pays list.)
My point is that it's bigger money than most people here are accounting for. | |
| | | | | | | |  en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: It is about making money If other countries can offer 50-100Mbps with +1TB cap for --
Canada = Hollywood North | |
| | | | | | | | | | We all know that you must work for a cable company.
Cause you seem to try an counter anyone sugesting the cable company is ripping us off.
Most cable companys have pulled this same logic you are sporting over and over again. It seem every other year they claim they need to upgrade the network and come up with some reason to charge us more. I get tripe play, but the cost for TV has doubled in four years. Internet has went from $15 a month to $50 a month in four years for the lowest speed. It tripled. They gave me the speed and said i needed it, but i would just as soon get 1.5meg for $15 a month instead of 60 meg for $140.
It cable company need to think bigger and put in fiber in the areas they have before someone comes along and dose it before them. That is where we are all going. Upgrading there network time after time over and over again and just increaseing the network just enough to say they did it is not going to fly anymore. | |
| | | | | | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Vitelity VOIP
| Re: It is about making money said by mmainprize:We all know that you must work for a cable company. Cause you seem to try an counter anyone sugesting the cable company is ripping us off. I actually don't work for a cable company or telco; I'm a network architect for a large healthcare organization.
My objective is simply to inject some basis of reality into the discussion from my personal experience of large network design, implementation, and operation.
One common theme I've noticed in every one of these threads is that there tends to be a lot of "armchair quarterbacking" on provider costs and expansion by people who clearly have absolutely no operational history in a large network environment. | |
|
| | | | | | | | | I don't know. I'm still very skeptical. How is it that 15 years back they had no problems paying for these (MSRP $89,500) cards when TW was offering "unlimited" bandwidth for $29.99? Yet now with a much speedier DOCSIS 2.0 network and not that many more customers in a given area that they had before they need more money to upgrade their network. And let me be more specific, they need to speed up their network yet imply caps at the same time (counterproductive reasons?) to make ends meet? Yes yes, streaming media, downloading movies, bittorrent blah blah blah. Embrace existing technologies. I bet traffic could be seriously reduced if cable and telcos embraced bittorrent and "localized" more content and let the content be more dynamic it hosting itself locally to neighborhoods instead of downloading the media (again) from the originating host server.
I'll tell you why... because this has nothing to do really with data bandwidth or infrastructure. It has more to do with the cable co.s having an investment in Video On Demand that is tanking in a big way.
Just last weekend I pointed out to my daughter who was streaming a movie to her laptop. "Daughter, you know that same movie is on Comcast VOD and you could be watching it on your rather large HDTV instead of streaming it to your laptop." Her reply was "VOD sucks Dad, I can't watch it where I want too. In this case, by the pool. Get with the program Dad." (So I guess she told me!)
The public has spoken, VOD comes with too many "shackles" for most people. The cable companies need to wake up to this fact and embrace the change. And this is only one example of change, there are many more. | |
| | | | | | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Vitelity VOIP
| Re: It is about making money said by axiomatic:I don't know. I'm still very skeptical. How is it that 15 years back they had no problems paying for these (MSRP $89,500) cards when TW was offering "unlimited" bandwidth for $29.99? The network scaling is completely different now. If you go skim a history of DOCSIS provisioning they used to split the downstream fiber runs to feed multiple nodes. At the time of initial deployment a single downstream channel of the CMTS would have a span of 4000+ homes passed; today that number is down closer to 400 or less homes passed. That's been part of the reason for reasonable cost expansion up to date -- they could just take areas that were sharing a downstream fiber port, split them to each have their own fiber port and essentially double the bandwidth provided. Now they're starting to get down to the point where many upgrades involve trenching new fiber and inserting nodes in existing coax spans.
said by axiomatic:Yet now with a much speedier DOCSIS 2.0 network and not that many more customers in a given area that they had before they need more money to upgrade their network. And let me be more specific, they need to speed up their network yet imply caps at the same time (counterproductive reasons?) to make ends meet? Yes yes, streaming media, downloading movies, bittorrent blah blah blah. With traditional network applications, increasing access speeds has the paradoxical effect of actually reducing network congestion. Networks are statistically oversubscribed in 2 dimensions: bandwidth (capacity) and time.
Say I want to download a Linux ISO to burn and install on a machine at my house. If my access speed to get that ISO is doubled I am about get it in less time. I don't download it a second time just because I can get it faster -- I get on and off the network faster (and then go and burn it to a CD / DVD and work on the install after I have it). Since I reduce my total time of high impact to the network, the statistical likelihood that my heavy usage will overlap with that of my neighbor's is reduced.
Clearly streaming and constant network use applications like P2P change that model, which is why this is becoming such a big deal with ISPs over the last few years.
said by axiomatic:I bet traffic could be seriously reduced if cable and telcos embraced bittorrent and "localized" more content and let the content be more dynamic it hosting itself locally to neighborhoods instead of downloading the media (again) from the originating host server. The point of contention is from your house to the ISP's core network. Anything beyond that point is built out using commodity Ethernet access with extremely favorable price points. It's the more restrictive and expensive DOCSIS / xDSL technologies that become a problem for expansion.
said by axiomatic:The public has spoken, VOD comes with too many "shackles" for most people. The cable companies need to wake up to this fact and embrace the change. And this is only one example of change, there are many more. It may indeed be the case that IP network-based VoD will be the winning technology for delivery of that content. If so, it's going to drastically change the network provisioning model that most ISPs are using and will significantly drop the oversubscription ratios. Keep in mind that it's oversubscription that keeps your prices what they are today: on a 100:1 ratio they can use the revenue from 100 users for every 1 unit of increase in capacity. If that gets down to something like 20:1, and the price of each unit of expansion doesn't reduce by 80% at the same time, then prices are going to need to go up to continue to support that growth. | |
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| | | | | en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | And the initial deployment costs.. ?
Planning for upgrades / capacity improvements (Docsis3 costs vs. node split?).
These costs are all built into the basic business model from the day of the first deployment. Some areas may need more capacity than others. If they chose to not plan out their expansion properly, or build for the future, that isn't 'our' fault, but poor planning.
Telco is paying their price by FTTH (VZ) or FTTN (AT&T), and its possible that AT&T will have to pay it over again.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
|
| | | | | Water and bandwidth ARE NOT PRETTY EVEN SCENARIOS!
When you're talking about transporting bits over a wire, the cost to transport that data is relatively fixed. You have to maintain the network and usually maintenance is budgeted a certain amount. The same goes for transporting water.
The more bandwidth you use is not costing them any extra at all! IF it does cost more it has more to do with their peering agreements than anything else.
Water on the other hand is a finite resource. Also, it must first be filtered and purified up to EPA standards. That purification process costs money. The chemicals and processes used to purify the water will cost a certain amount per gallon. So knowing this, ask yourself, why do you think they charge by the gallon? It's because the costs can be directly broken down into what it costs to actually prepare that gallon of water to send to your home.
Now compare this to transporting data and make the correlation. The ISP's ARE NOT the ones producing the data that you access. They only PROVIDE ACCESS to that data. That data (usually in most cases) originates somewhere else and is produced and ALREADY PAID FOR! Now, ask yourself why do they need to charge by the byte? The only answers they can give is to guarantee fair access. That's a very ridiculous reason! If that is the REAL reason they want to institute these caps, they need to seriously examine their oversubscription model. What they NEED to be doing instead is to ADJUST their oversubscription model. Maybe even update their network so that they CAN EFFECTIVELY support the customers they manage to sign up. Don't sign them up and then tell them how much they can use the service and if they use more than a certain amount, there will be additional penalties. That's ridiculous!
WAKE UP PEOPLE!! Start thinking about the real reason why these companies want to do this! It's all about squeezing more money out of their customers. That's the ONLY reason that makes sense. | |
|
| | | | Technically, water isn't any more of a finite resource than bandwidth. We have more water on this planet than we can even begin to use... literally. There are technical and cost restrictions on converting salt water into potable water. Same story with bandwidth, to a degree. The discussion could then divert to if it is technically cost prohibitive to upgrade infrastructure to provide even more bandwidth, but that's another discussion. The real difference is that you need water to live and it would be difficult to get away with placing access to water out of the reach of the majority. Conversely, you don't need bandwidth to live... lot harder to make it criminal to make it financially out of reach for the majority. Instead, it's just stupid and annoys me to no end when they pull stunts like this. "Not to make more money... HA!!!" | |
|
| | | And Congress has the power to stop them how? I don't see any law that gives Congress any power over business.
But I'm sure you want your tax money being spent on court costs after TWC sues right? I mean what better way to spend it? Giving it to AIG? | |
| | | | | Re: It is about making money Huh? Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, and I've got to tell you, this qualifies. | |
| | | |
1 edit | Re: It is about making money The Interestate Commerce does not include private networks.
Especially when it comes down to commuications. Congress appointed and created the FCC to regulate that. And what happens when the FCC does something TWC and Comcast doesn't want. They sue. But NONE of this was an issue until TWC came on board. Nobody has a problem with ATT doing it, Fontier, Comcast or anyone else.
After all people wanted a set limit on caps, ESEPCAILLY the people on this board. You didnt like having a 350+ gig cap per month so you wanted it limited. Thank your self for that. Not the provider. Also if you want all you can eat bandwidth- go buy a T1 or higher. | |
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| | BS It comes down to greed and not upgrading hardware.Same as Rogers ,Bell lost cause i do wish Verizon would come up here I would pay 150 for their highest tier .Most of us up here are really fed up with being milked for less and always seeing increases. | |
|  matteiModerated, now muzzled
join:2001-03-19
Canada | I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate quote:
“We’ve found that 1 per cent of our customers are using the majority of our bandwidth,” Carrier said. “They use the majority of our service to the point where service is getting slower for everyone else.
Uh huh. Let's see some numbers.
Bell Wireline stated to the CRTC in January that, from 2006 to 2008, top 5% usage on it's network had declined from 61.1% of network use to 46.6%. The top 10% went from 77.1% to 62.6%.
Are Cogeco customers really all that different than Bell's? | |
| |  Matt3All noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate How does what you quoted connect the dots to ISPs implying that higher usage equals piracy? | |
| | | matteiModerated, now muzzled
join:2001-03-19
Canada | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate It doesn't.
- The article, as a whole, implies abuse by a few.
- The majority of releases I've seen from Marie on this subject do.
- CSRs do.
- Employees roving these forums do (not all).
- Ignorant members with no hard data do.
After reading about this for a while, I suppose I made the erroneous assumption that everyone had received the "abuser" = pirate/criminal memo. If you disagree with my assessment of the tone I'd like to hear your take on it.
The spin begins: »Re: Great article | |
| | | | | | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate said by mattei:- The article, as a whole, implies abuse by a few.
It's called a bell curve. The outliers at the top of the graph suck down bandwidth like there is no tomorrow, while grandma is sitting there at the other end pulling up their genealogy websites once a month. A deviation shift to the left will release so much bandwidth, it's worth it for companies to do it.
The majority of releases I've seen from Marie on this subject do.
CSRs do.
Employees roving these forums do (not all).
Ignorant members with no hard data do.After reading about this for a while, I suppose I made the erroneous assumption that everyone had received the "abuser" = pirate/criminal memo. If you disagree with my assessment of the tone I'd like to hear your take on it.
Could it be because it's true? Or do you slurp down terabytes of "Linux ISOs"?
A quick search through torrent search engines, eD2K networks, and Usenet will show the VAST majority of the content to be of dubious merits or pr0n.
But, oh, you only get "Linux ISOs" and "patches" that way right?
Don't pretend like pirates are not a large part of the problem. They consume WAY more bandwidth than any family watching Hulu 24x7. | |
| | | | |  LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate said by psx_defector:But, oh, you only get "Linux ISOs" and "patches" that way right? Don't pretend like pirates are not a large part of the problem. Like when the Swedes passed a tougher anti-piracy law, traffic went down 33%. It must have been all those Linux distros that were no longer downloaded. 
Couldn't have been a 33% drop because of pirates downloading less.{/sarcasm}
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page | |
| | | | | | IgnitePremium,VIP
join:2004-03-18
UK | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate said by Linklist:Like when the Swedes passed a tougher anti-piracy law, traffic went down 33%. It must have been all those Linux distros that were no longer downloaded. Couldn't have been a 33% drop because of pirates downloading less.{/sarcasm} Most of that traffic drop was actually upstream. Socialist Sweden is nice like that, good upstreams on the socialist symmetrical fibre to the home services delivered over the socialist fibre belonging to the socialised local utilities. | |
| | | | | | Matt3All noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | 
Oh look, it's the bandwidth hogs ... not |
said by Linklist:said by psx_defector:But, oh, you only get "Linux ISOs" and "patches" that way right? Don't pretend like pirates are not a large part of the problem. Like when the Swedes passed a tougher anti-piracy law, traffic went down 33%. It must have been all those Linux distros that were no longer downloaded. Couldn't have been a 33% drop because of pirates downloading less.{/sarcasm} Like Ignite said, it was actually on the upstream side.
I love how thieves, I mean Linux ISO downloaders, say they are DOWNLOADING Linux ISOs or Microsoft patches or watching videos (or insert latest craze) but fail utterly at logic when they post their monthly stats of 250GB uploaded and 300GB downloaded. Aside from illegal content (read: music, movies, and programs/games) there isn't enough legal content for someone to upload 250GB a month, consistently.
In the meantime, join a popular torrent swarm, say CentOS or Ubuntu. There are never more than a few hundred people in there. See the screenshot I posted ... and CentOS 5.3 was released pretty recently. | |
| | | | | |  KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | said by Linklist:Like when the Swedes passed a tougher anti-piracy law, traffic went down 33%. Uh, but they switched to proxy and anonymous downloading, so it was just a brief dip while they reconfig'd.
--
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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| | | | | | | LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate said by KrK:said by Linklist:Like when the Swedes passed a tougher anti-piracy law, traffic went down 33%. Uh, but they switched to proxy and anonymous downloading, so it was just a brief dip while they reconfig'd. But it proved the point that much of broadband traffic is based on illegal piracy.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page | |
| | | | | | | |  badtripI heart the East BayPremium
join:2004-03-20
Albany, CA | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate said by Linklist:said by KrK:said by Linklist:Like when the Swedes passed a tougher anti-piracy law, traffic went down 33%. Uh, but they switched to proxy and anonymous downloading, so it was just a brief dip while they reconfig'd. But it proved the point that much of broadband traffic is based on illegal piracy. Well, no.
Folks in Sweden saw a new law come into effect and subsequently downloaded less. This 33% reduction in traffic, while likely caused by the harsher anti-piracy law could conceivably be attributed not only to "pirates" but to "regular law abiding folks" unsure about what constitutes "illegal downloading" and may have stopped downloading many legitimate files "just to be safe".
Now, let's say for the sake of argument that the 33% reduction in traffic was completely composed of "illegal piracy" (and I am highly skeptical of this). Then 33% is much less than the 80% that has been thrown around in the past by many folks on this forum and others.
Thus, this 33% reduction in traffic has actually proven that the "anti-piracy" shills and idiots overstated the internet traffic attributed to "piracy" by 246%! | |
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| | | |  andybPremium
join:2003-05-29
SW Ontario
kudos:1
 ·TekSavvy DSL
1 edit | said by psx_defector:said by mattei:- The article, as a whole, implies abuse by a few.
It's called a bell curve. The outliers at the top of the graph suck down bandwidth like there is no tomorrow, while grandma is sitting there at the other end pulling up their genealogy websites once a month. A deviation shift to the left will release so much bandwidth, it's worth it for companies to do it. The majority of releases I've seen from Marie on this subject do.
CSRs do.
Employees roving these forums do (not all).
Ignorant members with no hard data do.After reading about this for a while, I suppose I made the erroneous assumption that everyone had received the "abuser" = pirate/criminal memo. If you disagree with my assessment of the tone I'd like to hear your take on it.
Could it be because it's true? Or do you slurp down terabytes of "Linux ISOs"? A quick search through torrent search engines, eD2K networks, and Usenet will show the VAST majority of the content to be of dubious merits or pr0n. But, oh, you only get "Linux ISOs" and "patches" that way right? Don't pretend like pirates are not a large part of the problem. They consume WAY more bandwidth than any family watching Hulu 24x7. Why are you assuming this has anything to do with pirates.Bandwidth has done nothing but gone down in costs for years making ISP's even more money.
said by urbanriot:I agree with the above post, if they wanted to relieve congestion they could offer and advertised unmetered evening billing. Anyone savvy enough to download large amounts of data is more than likely savvy enough to schedule downloads during this time, and it would give Cogeco a more balanced usage model. According to bell Canada ther is no congestion during the day but only at night from 4:30 to to 2:22am.Pretty much covers anytime anyone is home.Since business run on these same lines during the day at higher volumes I dont see how that is posible.With Cogeco its either they don't wanna upgrade or want more money.I know both answers are they want more money but they are gonna be in for a treat real soon with a revolt.People I talked to people who are fed up with rates doubled in 5 years and service degraded across all ISP's and thier other services and they are ready to make thier voices heard.MP?MPP's better be aware.Your neck's are on the line. | |
| | | | | matteiModerated, now muzzled
join:2001-03-19
Canada | Did you understand the Bell Wireline numbers?
said by psx_defector:The outliers at the top of the graph suck down bandwidth like there is no tomorrow, while grandma is sitting there at the other end pulling up their genealogy websites once a month. Thanks for the math refresher. They're called tiered service offerings. Ask Krispy or check out the packages.
said by psx_defector:A deviation shift to the left will release so much bandwidth, it's worth it for companies to do it. Standard deviation of normally distributed bell curves plotting monthly GB consumption? It's shrinking. Let me help you with that: the slope is steeper and the curve is narrower. "Shifting" won't do as much as it used to.
Are you in possession of data that will prove it, one way or another?
said by psx_defector:Or do you slurp down terabytes of "Linux ISOs"? Nope.
said by psx_defector:A quick search through torrent search engines, eD2K networks, and Usenet will show the VAST majority of the content to be of dubious merits or pr0n. Who's talking about P2P? Cogeco?
said by Cogeco January 19th CRTC filing :
Regarding the Upstream side, the introduction of NBAR[Network Based Application Recognition] on Cogeco’s network improved Cogeco’s capacity of recognising P2P applications. As a result, Cogeco’s average enduser monthly usage fell significantly. Since the fall 2007, without any modification to its practice, Cogeco noted that Cogeco’s average end-user monthly usage has decreased. This change is mainly attributed to the fact that customers are using more online video, such as You Tube, and therefore are likely to use less P2P applications. Do you need help with DOCSIS upstream QPSK or 16-QAM concepts and considerations?
said by psx_defector:But, oh, you only get "Linux ISOs" and "patches" that way right? I love that you're trying to paint me with that brush. Thanks for providing an example of what I said above.
said by psx_defector:Don't pretend like pirates are not a large part of the problem. I don't pretend. I demand proof.
said by psx_defector:They consume WAY more bandwidth than any family watching Hulu 24x7. Numbers please. | |
| | | | | |  otty
join:2008-10-24
Revelstoke, BC | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate The bottom line is whether it is pirated content or not that is being downloaded is of NO concern to the ISP. The obly valid argument they MIGHT have is congestion. IF that were true MAYBE some sort of cap would be justified. The overage prices still wouldn't.
They provide connectivity. They are not the police or any sort of enforcement agency. It is not their concern what is being downloaded on their network until they receive the subpoena. Even then it is only the info required by the subpoena that is their concern. Until legislated otherwise lets stay on topic:
Caps... | |
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1 edit | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate said by otty:The bottom line is whether it is pirated content or not that is being downloaded is of NO concern to the ISP. That's not strictly true. If you rent out the basement of your house to someone and he uses the space to grow pot would that not be a concern to you? He may be paying rent to be there but he is using YOUR property to do something illegal and you have every right to take action against him.
The same applies to ISPs and piracy. Like it or not copyright infringement IS illegal, an ISPs network is effectively private property and your monthly bill is like the rent on that property. Just because ISPs choose not to get involved with enforcement doesn't mean they CAN'T. | |
| | | | | | | | | | Re: I'm tired of ISPs implying usage = pirate because its my house thats why i'll be questioned.
they cant talk to ISPs about this because they know how the "internet" thingy works. the ISP will give them my ip and my info IF IM DOWNLOADING ILLEGAL STUFF | |
| | | | | | | | | | actually, a landlord doesn't have any legal right to do anything to a tenant, not even enter without notice. what he CAN do is call the cops | |
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| | +1 This is a great article, it is what the article in the Hamilton spectator should of been.
Cogeco only gets away with this kind of stuff because many people in cogeco areas just don't have a choice.
As louis Audet said (CEO of cogeco) on buisness tv on CBC "we are very fortunate to be in the cable buisness in Ontario"
| |
| Reviews:
·Cogeco Cable
|  Agreed - they could also do unmetered evenings.
| |
| | | | Re: Agreed - they could also do unmetered evenings. Basically all of this has already been tried in Australia...
There are shades of metered billing, overage, throttling after your quota is reached and the worst the peak/off peak system to 'encourage' people to download at non peak hours.
The ONLY good thing is that at least unlike rogers or bell they don't throttle your torrents or anything else you download. If you pay X for Y data then you get it full speed all the time.
At least Australia has an excuxe (huge monopoly like Telstra + high international bandwidth costs because we only have two major cables) but for Canada you have land connections to the US (where the real internet is anyway) so why would they need this? Is last mile really that congested? | |
|
 Doctor FourMy other vehicle is a TARDISPremium
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX | Baghdad Bob is sure getting a lot of mileage Working for all the cable companies as their PR droid justifying the caps and the greed behind them.
What a fitting figure to use here.
--
"The trouble with computers, of course, is that they are very sophisticated idiots." - Doctor Who (from Robot)
| |
| claco
join:2002-09-29
Tallmadge, OH | Repeat after me It's NOT metered billing unless I also pay less when I use less. | |
| |  ropeguruPremium
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA | Re: Repeat after me said by claco:It's NOT metered billing unless I also pay less when I use less. Don't start that or the next thing you will know is that they will charge a flat $2.50 per GB no matter how much you use. That would be worse. | |
| |  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | said by claco:It's NOT metered billing unless I also pay less when I use less. BINGO!
i dont see ANYONE thats metering doing a base charge + usage.
don't tell me its NOT ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS!
--
When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
|
| | Yeah yeah yeah This is acknowledgement that they too oversold, and rather that upgrade capacity they will charge you more for using the service as it was preceeding this point in time.
If they're not about making money, well then they should lower the costs relative to the newly imposed caps. Here would be an example; if Cogeco had a cap that was 100 GB and they are lowering it to 5GB, then your bill should reflect that by being one twentieth of what it was.
So a $75 Cogeco bill would be 3.75....if they truly weren't in it for the money.
--
"When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair."---Sylvestor Stallone | |
| | RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY | Re: Yeah yeah yeah said by S_engineer:If they're not about making money, well then they should lower the costs relative to the newly imposed caps. Here would be an example; if Cogeco had a cap that was 100 GB and they are lowering it to 5GB, then your bill should reflect that by being one twentieth of what it was. So a $75 Cogeco bill would be 3.75....if they truly weren't in it for the money. That is not strictly accurate. Their cost is composed of 2 components - A Fixed Cost and a Variable Cost. The fixed cost is the cost of being able to deliver the bandwidth while the variable cost is the cost of actually delivering the bandwidth. There is a cost even if I never use the connection. Thus to compute the bill, you must first factor out the delivery capability cost before you reduce the cost of the capped bandwidth. If we set the fixed cost at $15, then that 100GB costs $60, a 5GB cap is $3, and the new bill with a 5GB cap is $18 (not $3.75). | |
| | | | They are not oversold. Cable companies have seen the success of the phone industry charging for text messages. Text messages are pretty much free. They carry no expense. Yet the cell companies charge more for text messages than any other part of the service.
Cable companies are migrating to that price model. Not only will it earn them big bucks, but it discourages competition with their video services. | |
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| | Sure i guess that Tw and Cogeco are around the same table smoking a blunt saying its not about money its about the children.  | |
| | | Great article Thank you for this article, hopefully the truth and this knowledge can get to the majority of cogeco subscribers before cogeco tries to pin it all on " just making things fair". After reading the Hamilton spectator article, it might as well of just been written by a cogeco marketing employee.
Hopefully cogeco does follow comcast and stops the throttling and ups the caps to 250, which would solve problems on both sides of the monthly bill, for investors and consumers. | |
| |
thumbs down from:
gergles 
| Re: Great article said by DrunkenClam:Thank you for this article, hopefully the truth and this knowledge can get to the majority of cogeco subscribers before cogeco tries to pin it all on " just making things fair". After reading the Hamilton spectator article, it might as well of just been written by a cogeco marketing employee. Hopefully cogeco does follow comcast and stops the throttling and ups the caps to 250, which would solve problems on both sides of the monthly bill, for investors and consumers. You know full well that this is about bandwidth hogs and their negative affects on the other 99% of Cogeco's users.
Funny we only here from the squeaky wheel whiners up in Canada. | |
| | |
1 edit | Re: Great article It's not about bandwidth hogs at all or how much certain users use. It's about innovation on the Internet and using it as a preferred content delivery providor, which cogeco is attacking full tilt. They know how much money they would lose if they let the Internet grow into a vialble alternative to tv services and Vod services that are their main cash source.
Obviously they are not going to let that happen. They would rather try to manipulate people into thinking it's heavy users fault and get users to fight it out with each other and misdirect away from the truth. | |
| | |  MrMasterjetsetterPremium
join:2000-12-16
St Thomas, VI
 ·Sprint Mobile Br..
| said by bandwidth hogs :said by DrunkenClam:Thank you for this article, hopefully the truth and this knowledge can get to the majority of cogeco subscribers before cogeco tries to pin it all on " just making things fair". After reading the Hamilton spectator article, it might as well of just been written by a cogeco marketing employee. Hopefully cogeco does follow comcast and stops the throttling and ups the caps to 250, which would solve problems on both sides of the monthly bill, for investors and consumers. You know full well that this is about bandwidth hogs and their negative affects on the other 99% of Cogeco's users. Funny we only here from the squeaky wheel whiners up in Canada. Go back to troll school. That was such a terrible attempt. | |
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 pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | Liars If Cogeco was sincere, then it would simply cut off or throttle access of users who hit the cap and not charge any more money for overages.
--
Blagojevich / Madoff 2012! | |
| | matteiModerated, now muzzled
join:2001-03-19
Canada | Re: Liars Before: throttling was the first step, cut off the second.
This June: overage fees followed by the unknown.
Application layer "rate shaping" is performed regardless of bit count. | |
|
| | the facts please I pay for what i get they are supposed ot have capacity
HOW'D you feel about driving to work and being told that form now on YOU have to go 5 miles an hour cause there are too many cars on the road.
What would the response be?
ADD CAPACITY.
THEY FAIL AND THEY ARE AIG STYLE GREEDY | |
| |
See 6 replies to this post | |
| | My two cents Let's be clear about one thing: when a company enters a market its goal is to make money. No money, no service. So, all customers want their service providers to make money. Cogeco should make money.
Next, are their other ways to charge the heavy users? Maybe. The Department of Transport charges more for truck licences than for car licences because they use more asphalt - they use more "road bandwidth".
Last, literally, Cogeco is last to enter the "over usage market", after Rogers, after Bell, after Videotron. If I were a Cogeco customer, I would be happy that they have not charged me in the past two years.
My two cents. | |
|  viperpa33sWhy Me?Premium
join:2002-12-20
Bradenton, FL | If it is about fairness....... We always hear the talk about fairness and how people should be paying for what they use. That the person who uses the internet a couple of times a week is supporting the person who uses the internet a couple of times a day.
If the ISP's want internet customers to pay like electrical customers do, then why not go to true metered billing? Start charging 30 cents an hour from the time the persons computer connects to the internet. This way it would be fair all the way around. There won't be a need to charge huge overage fees since your actually paying for what you use.
No one has answered the question why the ISP's won't go to true metered billing if it's all about fairness or so that 1% won't overuse the system. If going to metered billing is all about getting rid of bandwidth hogs, then why are ISP's offering high bandwidth content? The ISP's are doing the total opposite of what they intended to do.
With metered billing, they just shifted there customers around. Now the people who use more will be paying for the people who use less.
--
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them" Thomas Jefferson | |
| KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | Yes, consumers WANT to pay more for Less of course they do.
Suspicion Breeds Confidence! | |
| Core0000Premium
join:2008-05-04
Somerset, KY Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| "This is not... ...Something were doing to make money."
Technically she/he is correct... because, they're a business, not the government, so they can't "make(read:print)" money; but I'd bet money there doing this to 'Earn' some money.
Anyways, good thing I was wearing my boots before I read this article.. because it got deep real quick.
I am really curious why all this metered billing on broadband has started up. I would really like to know the reason. It's like some horrible disease has started to spread.
I can assume a lot of things.. but that doesn't make them right.
I would also like to know why these companies think there offering better service.. by forcing metered billing down your throat at huge mark ups? Maybe this is because of union workers keep asking for pay raises and this is the only way Time Warner can comply.
But we know what happened to the Auto Industry in America.. Same thing could happen in other areas as well I'd imagine.
I'm just rambling now.. a curious rambling person...  | |
| |
See 6 replies to this post | |
| | Businesses are SUPPOSED to make money. Of course it is about making money. Businesses are SUPPOSED to make money.
What these bill by the byte folks don't yet understand is that is it also about FAIRNESS. When everyone is billed by the byte, then everyone will have to publish the figures on how much they charge for a byte. At that point the consumer will be able to make an informed choice and my grandma will not be paying for some tenny bopper's file sharing.
There is nothing wrong with disclosure or fair pricing and there is nothing wrong with a business being about making money. That's why we call it capitalism.
-m- | |
| |  Gixxer
join:2008-08-27
St Catharines, ON
kudos:3 | Re: Businesses are SUPPOSED to make money. Their TV service is terrible, channels don't work, especially HD channels - they freeze, or blackout for minutes at a time. They don't want people downloading all their TV content online and that's exactly what I'm doing. | |
| | | | | Re: Businesses are SUPPOSED to make money. Exactly. They see all of us downloading what WE want on YouTube, Hulu, P2P, Usenet, whatever..and realize we are not buying their reality-TV TRASH anymore. Pay-per-view or otherwise.
Ultimately this is about control. If Rocky loses this fight (and I have my suspicions that he will), he will go out of business. To reiterate what others have implied: the future is now. | |
| | | | Gixxer
join:2008-08-27
St Catharines, ON
kudos:3 Reviews:
·voip.ms
 ·Bell Fibe
·Cogeco Cable
| Re: Businesses are SUPPOSED to make money. said by GyroCaptain:Exactly. They see all of us downloading what WE want on YouTube, Hulu, P2P, Usenet, whatever..and realize we are not buying their reality-TV TRASH anymore. Pay-per-view or otherwise. Ultimately this is about control. If Rocky loses this fight (and I have my suspicions that he will), he will go out of business. To reiterate what others have implied: the future is now. That's right, the only thing their TV service is good for is CNN and local news. That doesn't justify the $80 or so they're charging per month. Don't get me started on their horrible VOD and HD lineup. | |
|
 Barry
join:2008-11-04
Burlington, ON
·Start Communicat..
| I have no alternative This would be much less of an insult if they at least matched Bell or Rogers caps on similar tiers. I won't hold my breath as they have a monopoly in most areas and I'm tired of the 'less is more' PR machines.
Bell: $52.95 for 10Mbps/100GB + $10/mo. for 30GB
Rogers: $54.95 for 10Mbps/95GB + $1.50 per GB over to a maximum of $25.00 | |
|  fatnesssubtleJanitor
join:2000-11-17
fishing
kudos:14 | thank you, Karl Good writeup. I appreciate your pro-consumer bias. | |
| | | Bankrupt? Imagine they lost 30%, 40%, 50% of their cable tv subscribers and their peak bandwidth demands skyrocket as a large portion of their internet subscribers sit down to watch prime-time in HD over the internet.
What is a cable company to do? Could they even survive such a shift? | |
| |  kamm
join:2001-02-14
Brooklyn, NY | Re: Bankrupt? said by Millenniumle:Imagine they lost 30%, 40%, 50% of their cable tv subscribers and their peak bandwidth demands skyrocket as a large portion of their internet subscribers sit down to watch prime-time in HD over the internet. What is a cable company to do? Could they even survive such a shift? They make money hand over fist on BANDWIDTH already. Will they make less if TV service tanks? Of course but they will never go bankrupt.
It's just they are GREEDY as hell. nothing else.
--
[BQUOTE=[user=bicker]]Waaaa waaaa waaaa. You just want what you want and don't care to factor in what is right or true. Your perspectives are un-American, and deserve far more ridicule than I'm prepared to pile on them.
[/BQUOTE] | |
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