Have you ever gone over your BandWidth limit?

[localwebguy]

I went over on Rogers recently and got nailed with $1.25/GB. Easy to do when regular activity averages 900MB/day.

I remember when I first got on high speed internet. No limits, no throttles, no blocked IPs, no blocked domains. The internet was as-intended.

We need to fight these f••kers or they really will turn the web into a subscription-style operation like cable tv.

Your thoughts?

 

[Social Gent]

Webguy, I agree! Same with the phone packages. Used to be unlimited calling anywhere in N.A. Now it's all controlled and limited unless you buy the "premium" package, which is twice as much as the "only"/normal package was 2 years ago....

 

[localwebguy]

It's the 80GB limit. I accidentally left a torrent app open during the xmas break for 3 days and I got nailed with 18GB in one day. Way up for me and offset everything. Tomorrow I roll over to a fresh start.

I have a nice router and when I upgraded my service to the 80GB cap they made me upgrade the router to their BS router/modem combo. I googled a minute to figure out how to bypass it but one my computers still sees it on the network while the others only see the intended router. By default theirs is open and unsecured.

 

[localwebguy]

You make some good points and I agree with a lot of it. I've been working on the internet since the mid 1990's and in that time I have seen virtually everything there is to see online. With that broad perspective I have good reason to want more (service) for less (money) for more (people).

You're looking at it like it's a good service that has a fair price point, and I do not argue that good service should have fair price points. What I do argue with is the constant restriction of service with a steady increase in cost. My download speeds a decade ago were not as high as now but I wasn't restricted as I am now. I didn't mention the net neutrality issue in-depth but now that the CRTC has green-lighted ISPs to charge per kilobyte you will see how unfair this becomes.

I have worked alongside many techs over the years and as they explain it (because I am not that level of tech), the ISP does not need to charge overage fees for the network to maintain it's integrity. That concept is a matter of marketing and it's rooted in profit. They don't want you to know that the networks can handle a lot of traffic and throughput. There are improvements waiting to be installed, in the form of fibre optics and the electrical grid, but the networks that are in place at the moment are phone and coaxial lines so it is in their (ISPs) best interest to maximize their (existing networks) profitability until they crumble.

So if you break that into simpler terms, they're charging us too much because the majority of us don't understand the game.

 

[localwebguy]

You`ve honestly never run into a blocked site? When I was working for a major adult tube site I would investigate perverts (because LE was useless) who posted terrible content to the site. NONE of the sharing sites these people used were ever blocked. In all my years working on adult websites I never ran into an adult-oriented site that was blocked. Not even the obviously illegal ones.

The sites I found to be blocked, while using Rogers, were alternative media sites that spoke about things that don`t fit the status-quo. I would attempt to follow a link and get Rogers-branded pages telling me there was a problem, or sometimes nothing at all, not even a 404 message. I would go home and see it working fine on Bell. I thought that`s got to be a network issue that resolved, but again it would not work on Rogers so I asked friends and associates in the US to look at they would see it while I do not. I was able to determine through this process of checking the same URL from multiple ISPs at the same time that one of those ISPs was not resolving the DNS.

If you know how DNS works then you can easily see how the ISP could screw that up, or intentionally blacklist an IP or URL.

All .com`s (domain names) are just a pretty face for a number, such as 192.168.1.1. That number is called the IP address, and it is where the domain name points to. When you type in https://terb.cc the website you see is located at 69.90.76.167. You could put an http:// in front of that and prove it.

Firefox knows where the domain name points to because of domain name servers, DNS. If you are using Rogers then Rogers is the door you go through for all your web activity. You type in a domain name, firefox asks Rogers for the corresponding IP, Rogers answers, Firefox makes the connection, then the website loads.

If Rogers` DNS points to the wrong IP then you get the wrong site. If they list it, but block it, you get whatever page they redirect you to, such as a Rogers-branded error page, or they can just throttle the throughput on it.

And that my friends is the proposed future of the internet without net neutrality. Your ISP will offer branded services and give you great throughput on it, but the competing services can be blocked or throttled to a point where you can`t stand to use them, and you default to your own ISP.

 

[richaceg]

do rogers or bell still offers unlimited internet? please do tell.

 

[larry]

...The sites I found to be blocked, while using Rogers, were alternative media sites that spoke about things that don't fit the status-quo. I would attempt to follow a link and get Rogers-branded pages telling me there was a problem...

how about one current example? i'm interested. and yes, their extreme service uses a crappy unsecure router combo. did you turn off the commercial gateway?

 

[Tangwhich]

do rogers or bell still offers unlimited internet? please do tell.

No. I believe that bell grandfathered those with it from before.. I don't know about rogers.

 

[localwebguy]

Yes, commercial gateway was deactivated. After that my original router kicked back in.

At the moment I don't have an example. I complained to rogers, made an infopic regarding one and posted it online and tried to draw attention to it. It either was a bug that resolved or they unblocked it.

 

[larry]

What they don't care about either is your local network. I had a router in my house centrally located and all set up with forwarding an stuff. upgraded to extreme and the combo is in the basement. i tried to ask the rogers salespersons if i could disable their router to use my own but they didn't even understand what i meant. luckily, i had some switches sitting around so i was able to swap a switch for my old router to enable the 5 systems i feed by wire and was live again. then i had to find out by myself how to change the passwords so i have some element of security.

 

[OddSox]

If Rogers' DNS points to the wrong IP then you get the wrong site. If they list it, but block it, you get whatever page they redirect you to, such as a Rogers-branded error page, or they can just throttle the throughput on it.

So far, nobody is forcing you to use Roger's DNS servers - you can set it to whatever you want. That being said, Rogers does censor the net - and so does Google.

And that my friends is the proposed future of the internet without net neutrality. Your ISP will offer branded services and give you great throughput on it, but the competing services can be blocked or throttled to a point where you can't stand to use them, and you default to your own ISP.

Competition is the key - having Bell and Rogers (Shaw too) run all of Canada's infrastructure is not conducive to good service or good prices. I'm not sure if completely eliminating the CRTC is the solution, but they sure need fixing...

Then there's other issues with branded services. Recently there were rumours that Rogers would buy the Leafs empire - if that happened how long would it be before you couldn't watch hockey unless you had a Rogers cable account? Add in a television network and a newspaper chain and...

 

[silverone83]

Here is my beef with the "caps" that are imposed by internet providers today. The person above mentioned that they have 50Mbps service with rogers and a 175GB monthly cap. If you were to download for 9 hours at your 50Mbps speed you would reach your cap. My second issue is now they have started offering these Rogers on demand streaming services where you can stream HD content on your internet connection. If you are going to office this service to your customes then this traffic should be exempted from the god damn cap limit. You watch 10 movies online and your over your limit. It is a pure money grab and a way for them to charge you twice for the service you already pay for.

Teksavvy for life!

 

[e9088152]

Why not just get Teksavvy? It's so fucking simple.

 

[splooge]

very easy to do with my new rig... I've been downloading and ripping multiple netflix shows simultaneously (because I can with a SSD and a i7 980x) until I got my last Rogers bill

d/l of blue-ray is obese for bandwidth too...

which is weird- I remember Rogers bragging in a commercial that you as a customer have bandwidth to d/l 8000 movies per month?? wtf?

 

[bobbydigi]

Get rid of Rogers, more choices now in GTA

Rogers:
$59.99 - 15 Mbps download / 1 Mbps upload / 80 GB cap
$46.99 - 10 Mbps download / .5 Mbps upload / 60 GB cap (I pay $37.59 with 20% off)

Acanac:
$39.95 - 15 Mbps download / 1 Mbps upload / No cap
$35.95 - 10 Mbps download / .5 Mbps upload / No cap

TekSavvy:
$42.95 - 15 Mbps download / 1 Mbps upload / 200 GB cap
$36.95 - 10 Mbps download / .5 Mbps upload / 200 GB cap

3Web:
$37.95 - 15 Mbps download / 1 Mbps upload / No cap
$32.95 - 10 Mbps download / .8 Mbps upload / No cap

 

[Bif_Butkiss]

Why are you complaining about an overage of ONLY $1.25 per gig? Try using one of those internet stick thingies where they'll charge you an overage of $10 per gig. AND where I live (there is no high speed internet service available) I see people paying a monthly fee of $200 for only 15 gig.

 

[Anynym]

Google's DNS - 8.8.8.8 - Works great for everything I access on the internet. I simply set my public side DNS settings to this (or forward to it from my internal DNS servers) and life is good. Give it a try.

Details available from Google; http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html