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JohnTIZ Review by JohnTIZ
UPDATED: 73 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 7 visits, last login: 16 days ago
 Windsor,ON
 $155 per month
 "Fastest Internet Speed, No Downtime"
 "Expensive, Throttling, Prices just go up, up, and up. Bandwidth Cap!"
 "Cogeco is on a Slipperly Slope with regards to pricing"
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My Other Reviews ·MNSi
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Every year the price inches upward. Even though we subscribe to Digital Select All TV there are still some channels that cost extra. Considering the television portion of the bill comes to around $100, they are pushing their luck.
They discount their pricey internet service if you combine it with the TV service, but it still comes out to $155 for the package. That's a bit rich. But my wife likes the TV service for some reason, so we had been staying with Cogeco until recently.
Technical support is quick to get ahold of and reasonably friendly, but not highly trained. On a recent technical concern, I had to call a friend of mine who works for a competitor to get help with my problem.
Internet speed is the drawing card. Cogeco is blazing fast at 9.x or better. Rumours of throttling unfortunately appear to be true. Since switching to another provider two weeks ago my torrent performance has increased dramatically. I am very satisfied with my download speed with non-torrent traffic....but here's the rub - they have this download cap that makes the whole download speed advantage null and void. I got the dreaded warning email twice this year and had to monitor my usage for the rest of the month. Total pain in the arse. But last month was the straw the broke the camel's back. The cap is now a "hard" cap and they nailed me for $1.50/gb for every gig over the cap. So on top of the almost $2,000 a year I pay, they want MORE for actually using their connection "too much". I called and cancelled my service, switched to a local DSL provider, and haven't looked back since.
Overall, if you want the FASTEST internet connection around and don't mind coping with stupid bandwidth limits, rising prices, and torrent throttling, Cogeco is a good choice. If you can settle for 5meg service and true "all you can eat" internet with no packet shaping or other such stupidity, look elsewhere.
Followup comments:  scottvl
join:2009-09-17 | Cogeco sucks I am leaving Cogeco for the exact same reason, been with them for over 10 years and they are forcing me to leave over trying to nickle and dime me. | |
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WiMax Review by WiMax
UPDATED: 79 days ago
member for 6.3 years, 29 visits, last login: 6 days ago
St Catharines,ON
$22 per month
 about 5 days
"Reliable, great retention pricing"
"Poor install service, low band caps, invoicing options are 20th century ARCHAIC!"
"Good value for money if on retention, if not, there are better options"
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I've had Cogeco HSI for about 9 years. The past 3 years the service has become very reliable although I suspect there has been limited bandwidth shaping that has affected my 3rd party VOIP. I have HS Lite and speeds were just increased recently finally making my VOIP very reliable. When I moved, the third party install company didn't bother to show up on the apppointment date and after I took a day off work and waited around all day. Cogeco said there was not much they could do, I demanded that the install be done the next day or I would bill them $480 for my time. It was escalated to a supervisor that forced the issue and I had an installer the next morning (Saturday). When they arrived, they rushed the job and would not do as I asked. They wanted to charge me over $100 to put the line in another location, I told them to fly a kite. They left the job half finished, I had to finish it myself, fortunately I'm a tech and knew what to do. I'm not impressed with PVC Contractors of Fonthill, I'm OK with Cogeco. My biggest issue is invoicing. I don't want a mailed invoice, I want it emailed monthly. They won't do it unless I call them each month. Even if I go on auto billing from my credit card, they still won't email an invoice and I still have to call them. I cancelled auto billing after they made an billing error of more than $80 and I didn't notice it for over two months when I happened to be reviewing my credit card invoices. Having said that, they were apologetic and gave me one free month of service for the inconvenience of having to sit on the phone for over 30 minutes while they determined what happened and corrected it. Also, I called a few months ago to say that the new band caps were too low and that the overall value was going down rapidly especially with rising rates. I asked to cancel and they offered me my same service for $5/mo less than what I was pating so I'm not complaining over $19.95/mo especially when speeds just went up. I may go to HS Lite Plus when I move in a few weeks but that will depend if they extend an offer sent to me recently saying that I could have it for only $5/mo more than what I pay now. I just moved, they would not install 5 jacks unless I ordered TV. I only want HSI, they would only give me one outlet. I had prewired the house so i could move modem, they didn't care, made me pick one and left. Called to file complaint, supervisor said they would send someone out to do it right, changed his mind and let someone else call me late at night to say so and they never left their name. TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!
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leaky Review by leaky
Posted: 83 days ago
member for 5.7 years, 2009 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Fort Erie,ON
$133 per month
"very reliable,fast speeds"
"still waiting for full HD cable tv in Fort Erie"
"above average"
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They upgraded my street for full HD last may , still waiting for the switch to be turned on
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waynecbaker Review by waynecbaker
UPDATED: 85 days ago
member for 7.3 years, 1848 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Hamilton,ON
$46 per month
about 5 days
"A reliable connection with steady download speeds"
"A data transfer cap of 60 gigabytes per month"
"A reasonable choice if you don't need unlimited data transfer"
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I ordered the Cogeco High Speed Internet standard package and was contacted by a customer service representative concerning any questions I might have had about the service. About 5 days later, I had a service technician install the cable modem and connection to the cable system.
I have a reliable connection with a consistent download speed of 14 megabytes per second with few if any slowdowns. The e-mail service is also dependable with a storage allowance of 100 megabytes for the main e-mail account.
The only thing you may want to consider is the data transfer allowance, or cap, of 60 gigabytes per month for both downloaded and uploaded data combined. Most general purpose users probably wouldn't have difficulty staying within this allowance, but heavier users might. Such users may want to consider a digital subscriber line (DSL) service that has no data transfer caps.
With my digital cable television package, I get a $9 monthly discount off the usual price of $55 a month.
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dad_of_3 Review by dad_of_3
UPDATED: 99 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 1145 visits, last login: a few hours ago
SE Ontario
$64 per month
about 3 days
"awesome speeds"
"hard bit caps now enforced, usage billing -- a new low :-("
"great isp if you need fast connection, not so good if you use a lot of bandwidth"
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Update 16 August 2009...
Cogeco recently increased it's speeds (ie 10Mbit to 14 Mbit for Standard)..
Although this is nice and all, it is obviously an attempt to divert attention away from the UBB (user based billing)fiasco. If Cogeco wants to increase customer satisfaction, then they should be increasing the cap to at least 200-300 gigs with no price increase.
Update 2 April 2009...
Implementation of a usage based billing system seems quite unfair on Cogecos part..Chargeing $1.50/GB up to a max of $30.00??? for Standard??? Teksavvy only charges $.25 /GB for overages...explain that???
_________________________________________________________________
I've been a cogeco subscriber for 25 years (TV), and went with their internet service about 5 years ago now. Never had any issues with the cable tv aspect. As for internet access, first off no one can touch cogeco's speed and reliability. I have had 99.9% up time. However, like a lot of subscribers of late I am very displeased with the lack of notice concerning their recent decision to enforce the bit caps. I have been to say the least.. inconvenienced .. All it would of taken is a little notice. I actually agree that cogeco can enforce the caps, but doing it mid month shows a lack of foresight I would not of expected from this company. It's been over a week since this has happened and there is still no official explanation from the company. A little back peddling on Cogeco's part would certainly go a long way in smoothing a lot of ruffled feathers. It is getting harder all the time to defend this company. Come on Cogeco, show us some respect!!!!
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I_H8_Spam Review by I_H8_Spam
UPDATED: 104 days ago
member for 5.7 years, 1244 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Dundas,ON
$65 per month
about 2 days
"Good while it lasted"
"Price/Bandwidth, Caps"
"Cancelled 5/09"
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New location I have severed all products, going Teksavvy.
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digitalfutur Review by digitalfutur
UPDATED: 114 days ago
member for 9.3 years, 4513 visits, last login: a few hours ago
BurlingtonON
$49 per month
about 14 days
"Reliable, 3 IPs @ no extra charge, fast"
"Free fSecure internet security package inferior to Norton 360 3.0"
"Best of the Cable ISPs"
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Update Aug 1,09 - D/L speed has increased to 14 MB/s in the past month, upload to just over 1MB/s fo the hi speed standard package. Recent price increase of $2/month so value is unchanged, as is my rating. 60GB cap meets my needs as I don't download movies and typically use less than 70% of the cap. The quality of a bluray DVD is far better than a d/l movie and the computer is not hooked up to the TV anyway.
Update Aug 23,07 - Gee, I got a system message asking me if I'd like to update. OK, here goes. Cogeco rocks even harder, 10 MB/s down, 900kb up, at CAD 42.95 /month bundled, with a 60GB monthly bitcap. No complaints here.
Update Oct 17,04 - another speed increase a few months ago to 500 kb/sec down. Yeah !
Update Jun 26,03 - Smooth sailing, and speed up to 300kb/sec down most evenings. Who needs DSL?
Update Nov 6, 02: Smooth sailing, no complaints. Stable and fast. The price increase to $45 /mth did not apply to me as I have a cable/internet package.
Update May 3, 02: D/L speed has increase to 2000 due to hardware upgrades on the Cogeco netwrok. Connection is rock solid, but tech support is wanting and the website still has limited info. This is not a problem for me as I work for an IT company (not Cogeco) but a newbie would be overwhelmed...
I used to live in Toronto and had Sympatico DSL because Rogers@home was not available. Then moved to Burlington where Sympatico DSL was not available at the time (it is now).
Comparing the two, both are very reliable but Cogeco is about 75% faster d/l on average than Bell (actual measured speed 1700/320 cable vs 900/130 Bell). So Cogeco is a better deal. I woudn't switch back to Bell unless Cogeco's speed and reliability turned into Rogers.
Followup comments: metrotitan
join:2008-11-21 | There's a lot more out there than movies, these days. I don't download movies, yet the combined cap is too small for my household's needs. | |
| vega509
join:2005-11-12
Welland, ON | 3 ips? what do yuo mean by 3 ips? | |
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chdude3
join:2003-07-29
Oakville, ON | Re: 3 ips? He means 3 IP addresses. | |
| | | vega509
join:2005-11-12
Welland, ON | Re: 3 ips? that I know, how do you get 3 ip addresses? | |
| | | | thirteenmike
join:2009-07-31
Burlington, ON
| Re: 3 ips? you'd have to install a hub or a switch...so you would run:
Cable Modem ->>> Hub/Switch->>> Internet Device 1, Internet Device 2, Internet Device 3
If you have 3 devices hooked up to the hub/switch and then change one all you gotta do is power cycle the hub/switch and there you have it, a spare IP for you  | |
| | | | | vega509
join:2005-11-12
Welland, ON
 ·Cogeco Cable
| Re: 3 ips? the OP said he has 3 ips at no additional charge. I assume he mean 3 ips from Cogeco. You can have as many ips as you have ports on your home network.
$49 per month
about 14 days
"Reliable, 3 IPs @ no extra charge, fast"
"Free fSecure internet security package inferior to Norton 360 3.0"
"Best of the Cable ISPs" | |
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fugger Review by fugger
UPDATED: 115 days ago
member for 6.7 years, 1853 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Welland,ON
$47 per month
"Late night speed!"
"60GB Bandwidth Cap!, $1.50/GB over charge, rates increase all the time, unstable bandwidth"
"Switch if you can find a better deal!"
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Cogeco is by far the best ISP in my area, only because I'm too far away from Bell's CO to use Teksavvy (200GB Cap or Unlimited bandwidth).
I had absolutely no qualms with Cogeco up until recently when they decided to further their harassment of customers and charge $1.50 per extra GB over their weak 60GB cap.
After they implemented this bandwidth cap they also increased our rates however they did finally upgrade our speed unofficially to 14-15/1mbit. The kicker is since this upgrade I been experiencing unstable speed presumably from them oversubscribing my area.
It's easy to limit my internet consumption but I feel that in this day and age a bandwidth cap is absolutely ridiculous.
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xroofiox Review by xroofiox
UPDATED: 117 days ago
member for 1.6 years, 38 visits, last login: 6 days ago
Canada
Contract price not specified.
"Easy to get"
"Throttle/unknowlagable tech support/no R&D/unfair pricing/lack of options"
"research all other options"
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Cogeco has the capabilities to offer a very fast and reliable service. However they are holding back there by throttling customers bandwidth. therefore the customers will never ever see the speeds that they are PAYING FOR!
in short.
If cogeco isn't offering the service people are paying for
then they shouldn't offer it to those people
people should stop supporting these ISPs that can't uphold their promises of fast internet speed.
Followup comments: wowproducts
join:2007-08-13
Kingston, ON | My connection I get what i pay for and reliable tech support i got from them and just had Cogeco here yesterday to fix an issue i had so i do not know why you are saying all that stuff as i get what i pay for 15672KBs (16MBs) with internet pro. | |
| | MrShag
join:2006-07-09
Hamilton, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Cogeco Cable
·Mountain Cable
| Re: My connection The prolem with the Caps is that they are giving yur a BMW, and telling you that you can drive at a 100 mph. However you can only drive for 300 miles. Then they just shut the car off, no matter what you are doing.
As far as my problems. It took them almost a month to get my phone to work. They totally boned the number-port. They had over a week of lead time. Amd they stil messed it up.
Especially with my wife giving birth to our forst child, who is a premie. Not having a phone in the apartment really sucked.
Then when the phone was connected, and working, the techs who came out, hit the modem, and blew up the ehternet plug.
later,after calling in, the guy told me that he would ahve someone call me the next day. I waited untill almost noon in order to get a call. I left. I camer back, picked up the modem, and then I took it to theretail outlet, at Limeridger. seh told me that she couldnt swap the modem, I had to wait for tech support.
As I am a student, I need the net connection after being ast the hospital all day.
So I call again, the guy says that i would have to wait here all day on saturday in order for the guy to come out and swap my modem.
On friday they managed to get somone out.I unplugged the modem. I swaped it out. he typed something in, and called tech support to have the modem re-aquired. Why couldnt I dso the same thin.
Way too many issues. Only a 1/2 month off my service.
Call teksavvy.
--
" Hi Im such and such, and I use Mountain Cable Vision because they offered me a deal fir the promo, not to mention I have no choice." | |
| | wowproducts
join:2007-08-13
Kingston, ON | That why have Rogers for my home phone because also if you didn't know cogecos phone service also uses the bandwith on your internet too and cograts on the baby. | |
| | | 
beatsnpieces
join:2007-12-17
1 edit | Re: My connection said by wowproducts :
cogecos phone service also uses the bandwith on your internet too
That is 100% false. Get your facts straight before posting. | |
| | | | 
Annon
@etnet.ca
| Re: My connection Ex-Cogeco employee here, and actually cogeco's phone service does use bandwidth, very minimal not worth looking at, but there are still packets sent and received therefore you are still using bandwidth, maybe you should do some research or talk to someone who works in the NOC (Network Operations Center) at Cogeco. | |
| | | | | TheOne85CA
join:2007-11-22
Burlington, ON | Re: My connection Absolutely, it does use bandwidth, but its calculated seperatly from the internet bandwidth and as such doesnt inpact your internet browsing or effect your monthly cap. | |
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beatsnpieces
join:2007-12-17
2 edits | said by wowproducts :
cogecos phone service also uses the bandwith on your internet too
I say again, that is 100% false, get your facts straight before posting. | |
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fiberx Review by fiberx
UPDATED: 120 days ago
member for 121 days, 2 visits, last login: 113 days ago
Hamilton,ON
$130 per month (12 month contract)
"speed"
"speed when node isnt congested dumb support price caps"
"switching to tek savvy"
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New speed is great when my node isnt oversubscribed.
Prices went up for everything cuz of this im switching to tsi.
Caps are too low.
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Review of Cogeco Cable
(23)
(49)
(12)
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I don't need UNLIMITED data transfer...
"Congestion"