Open Letter to Rogers.ca: Come Pick up Your Equipment
April 02, 08 by sharky 9,424 viewsBy nature, I’m not a whiner about the little things in life. And even if I was, I most certainly wouldn’t take it out on my helpless website. But I’m pissed - and what better way get a message across than to post it on my own site. However, much to the dismay of my blog, I’ll make an exception.
Rogers Canada - Changes to their TOS
Rogers’ customers were in for a shock this week when letters arrived across the country in reference to changes in their Terms of Service.
Not only have they jacked up the price of my Internet service by $2 a month starting in March, but now they’ve put a cap on monthly bandwidth, as well. The new limit is 95 GB per month, with an additional $1.50 per GB. This is not good news to P2P file sharers on Rogers. Not into the P2P scene? No matter, this is gonna hurt you, too! You’ll have to start being careful about how much YouTube you watch and streaming audio you listen to. All those things add up fast!
Rogers + Sandvine = P2P Throttling
There’s little doubt in the minds of Rogers’ subscribers that they actively employ throttling & shaping schemes on P2P traffic, much in the same way that Comcast does. At times I’ve seen my BitTorrent download rates drop to as little as 3 KB/s, even less, for weeks at a time. To alleviate this I’ve incorporated every single anti-throttling technique known, incuding SSH, proxies, obvuscation, tunneling, advanced BitTorrent client hacks & mods — you name it, I’ve tried it.
Indeed, it now appears that Rogers is waving the white flag against their P2P-loving customers. With a new motto of “Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, charge ‘em extra”, does this mean they’ll do away with the traffic shaping? Not likely.
The Rogers Letter
All Rogers’ Internet clients would have received this same TOS update letter. Notice near the bottom that my stats are “off the map” in terms of bandwidth usage.
In response, here is the exact “e-letter” that I sent to them:
Fellow Rogers customers, I urge you to do the same. While this will likely have any effect on the changes in their TOS, you don’t have to be bullied by your corporate Internet company. They aren’t the only horse in town. Bye, bye, Rogers Canada.
On a final note, these changes don’t go into effect until June, 2008. That means I have two months to download like a f*ckin’ madman!! You all excuse me, now. I’m off to BestBuy to stock up on blank DVDs.
I’ll update this post with their response to my letter.
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01 • Trackback :: p2pvine.com 02.04.08 at 6:19 pm
Open Letter to Rogers Cable: Come Pick up Your Equipment…
By nature, I’m not a whiner about the little things in life. And even if I was, I most certainly wouldn’t take it out on my helpless website. But I’m pissed - and what better way get a message across than to post it on my own site. However, much …
02 • Matthias Says: 02.04.08 at 6:32 pm
I totally agree that rogers has continued to show poor service in the last few years. It angers me when ever I see them add more charges but the problem is they provide the best service in my area. The other options provide an even more pitiful service than rogers does. So I`m stuck with their service.
03 • Domin8er Says: 06.04.08 at 11:56 pm
Thanks for the info, I am also a victim of Rogers evil schemes, but, sadly, I/we don’t have a choice, because Bell sucks just as much.
-Domin8er.
04 • Rene Says: 18.07.08 at 10:55 am
Sooner or later there will be another company promising the stars, delivering for about 2 years and then start imposing caps as well…… The problem is, we eat too much bandwith… Yes I said it WE, as in US the customers. They may be getitng it dirt cheap but it goes out the window just as fast as it comes in. What they should be doing as a solution is leaving the price alone as in no increases, establishing the caps and making customers pay for overuse… Now to make it even more fair is to NOT advertise that we can download as much as we want anytime we want. I don’t mind bandwith caps but what I do mind is being told one thing and then getting another.
05 • keepositive Says: 15.09.08 at 9:54 am
Thanks for sharing. I canceled everything with Rogers. Now ( one yr. latter) I am getting basic cable tv. I use Primus and has since I have been off Rogers and Bell. I pay $68.20 for All my unlimited ( and it is just that) long distance in North America, Internet and home phone with all the bells and whistles. That includes taxes too. Thanks for sharing your blog. I love my services now. All the best in your find.
keepositive