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Rogers Ripoff: Will Double Maximum Overlimit Fee to $50 for Broadband Customers

Phillip Dampier January 6, 2010 Broadband Speed, Canada, Data Caps, Editorial & Site News, Rogers 14 Comments

Just like the credit card companies, once a broadband provider wedges its foot in the door with Internet Overcharging schemes like consumption billing and usage allowances, they can push it open further and further, allowing your money to fly out the door into their pocket.

Rogers Communications, the dominant cable broadband provider in eastern Canada has quietly planned to double the maximum overlimit penalty customers pay for exceeding their usage allowance.  Effective this March, Rogers will confiscate up to $50 from you for daring to cross their arbitrary allowances, which range from a piddly 2GB on their “Ultra-Lite” plan to 175GB on their $100 “Ultimate” plan.  That’s double the old maximum penalty of $25 a month.

It appears many Canadian broadband customers simply took it for granted that unlimited broadband, regardless of the tier they selected, would cost an additional $25 a month.  Many begrudgingly paid it, knowing in many areas all of the alternatives had Internet Overcharging schemes of their own.

Broadband Providers Limbo Dance: Lowering Your Value With Internet Overcharging Schemes

As Stop the Cap! has warned repeatedly, once broadband providers establish such schemes, they can begin a limbo dance with their customers, reducing the value of the service they receive by either increasing the penalties for exceeding usage limits, or simply reducing usage allowances to expose more customers to profit-padding fees and surcharges.

Rogers is taking a page from companies like Time Warner Cable that wanted to implement their own Internet Overcharging scheme in April 2009 with a maximum overlimit penalty of $100.  For broadband providers in Canada like Rogers who double such fees, there is plenty of room to grow them further.

Rogers charges customers trying to keep to a broadband budget some stunning overlimit fees as it is.  Their Ultra-Lite plan exposes customers to a future bill up to $76.00 a month, all for 500kbps service, and that’s before taxes and surcharges.  That’s because Rogers charges customers exceeding 2GB per month a whopping $5 for each additional gigabyte of usage.

Most Rogers customers end up on plans like “Express” which charges $46.99 a month for 10Mbps/512kbps service, with a 60GB usage allowance.  But with Rogers’ new overlimit penalty fee, customers opening their bills could find that service costing them $97 a month instead.  That’s a bill only a credit card company could love.

All this, when Rogers’ costs to provide broadband service continue to decline.  Rationing broadband is profitable and and shareholders love it.  Considering the  regulatory agency that is supposed to watch out for Canadians, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), more closely resembles a cable and telephone industry lobbying group, there is nothing to stand in the way of even greater fee increases in the future.

Oh, and they get to throttle your broadband speed down… way down, for any online application they feel consumes too many resources on their network, so customers can’t even use the service they pay good money to receive.

Nadir Mohamed, president and chief operating officer of Rogers Communications Inc., admits it’s all about the money.  In June 2008, he told the Canadian Telecom Summit, “Usage-based billing is a reality for wired and wireless network,” he said. “The capacity is exploding, and we need to be able to monetize some of that.”

A person representing themselves as a Rogers social networking rep, “RogersMary” told customers Rogers had increased the value of their broadband service:

We always want to offer our customers great quality of service for the best value. In the last year, we have made network and technology investments that include improvements in download speeds, expanding our network in other parts of Canada and launching Rogers On Demand Online free to all customers that subscribe to any Rogers product. In terms of pricing, we have reduced higher tier services such as Extreme Plus ($69.99 from $99.95) and Ultimate ($99.99 from $149.99). Based on our research, the vast majority (90%) of Rogers Internet customers do not go over their usage limits each month and will not be impacted by changes to overage charges. If you do, I would suggest calling Care to discuss which plan best suits your Internet use.

If you call, ask Rogers which plan doesn’t include an Internet Overcharging scheme.

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jr
jr
14 years ago

Nadir got a 1.4 million dollar bonus in 2007. Customers have to pay for the ceo’s lifestyle

Ian L
14 years ago

Well, the maximum charge for residential internet service did go down; Extreme and Extreme Plus prices were reduced enough that the maximum charges for those tiers (including overages) is less than the plan + overage price before. That said, the pricing still sucks, especially with the subpar upload speeds Rogers is trying to foist upon its customers. I mean, come on, 2 Mbps up on the highest-speed plan? Even TWC does better (2 Mbps on the local area’s 15 Mbps plan, 5 Mbps where 50 Mbps DOCSIS 3 is available).

Ian L
14 years ago

Also, the caps are crappy across the board. 175GB on a $100 plan is just as disgusting as 2GB on a $26 plan. The overlimit fees are also out of whack; 50¢ per GB is where they should be across the board, if not lower; $1.25+ per GB is insane.

FWIW there are ISPs who are trying to combat this model, particularly a new one or two: http://gorillanet.ca. Caps are still around, but overlimit fees are reasonable and if you want to do heavy download there’s a period where they don’t count against your cap.

shane
shane
14 years ago

Seriously there is no excusing this! I already pay their flippn’ $25 overcharge crap and I was sick of that. Right now I am also conveniently in an area that by chance only gets rogers and no one else. We all just sit back and take it but it’s not right. The second that I can get a private company with unlimited bandwidth (even if the speeds are lower because bell rents to them) I’ll be gone from rogers and be a very happy guy. Thanks for the article.

Mojo man
Mojo man
14 years ago
Reply to  shane

WTF!!!! I CURRENT PAY 25.00 FOR 60 GIGS A MONTH, MARCH 1ST IT WILL BE 2 GIGS!!!! REALLY? 2 GIGS, NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WILL PAY FOR 2 GIGS A MONTH, IF I WANT TO KEEP MY CURRENT 60 GIGS, MY MONTHLY RATE WILL DOUBLE TO 50 BUCKS, ARE THEY ON CRACK, THIS IS THE BIGGEST RIPOFF IN CONSUMER HISTORY, THEY ARE GOING TO LOOSE TENS OF THOUSAND OF CUSTOMERS, THIS IS SO DISGUSTING, UNBELIEVABLE!!!! F U ROGERS, YOU SCUM SUCKING LOW LIFE PIECES OF CRAP, YOU MAKE ME SICK, GOVERMENT NEED TO STEP IN HERE AND REGULATE… Read more »

rogersripoff
rogersripoff
14 years ago
Reply to  Mojo man

i agree mojo…. its insane, not caring for the common man.

Mojo man
Mojo man
14 years ago
Reply to  rogersripoff

My mood has really improved dramatically since that last post, i found THIS!! http://www.acanac.ca/DSL.html $18.00 !! for much faster internet with 100gigs of data, hmm thats a tough choice, 28 bucks for 2 gigs a month at rogers or,or 18 bucks for 100gigs, um I think I will have to go with acanac at 18 bucks a month, or one of many other providers for superior service, changing service providers allows you to take advantage of new customer deals, so canceling my ROGERS account has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. so THANK YOU ROGERS FOR TRYING TO… Read more »

ziccy
ziccy
14 years ago
Reply to  Mojo man

http://www.acanac.ca/DSL.html best company out i would recommend this over rogers

rogersripoff
rogersripoff
14 years ago

thanks for the tip!! see ya Rogers,!!
finally i can be free of their hold on me

rogersripoff
rogersripoff
14 years ago
Reply to  rogersripoff
Chuck
Chuck
14 years ago

Hahahahahaha….I got rid of Rogers! They’ve always been pond-scum, just like Bell. I have a new provider and I see no difference in speed. I DO however see a difference in service. My questions are answered in a friendly and timely manner. I’m not billed ahead a month now either. I pay for the time I’ve used. In the past if we were a few days off in paying the bill, we’d receive 6-8 phone call reminders per day from an automated system = Pond-sum! Right back to the days of negative billing, ALWAYS expect Rogers to come up with… Read more »

Denis Gregoire
Denis Gregoire
14 years ago

I worked for Rogers as a customer retention Rep. there are more and more of the 90% there are going over the overage thats why they are increasing the price. Reason is more and more people are looking at internet TV Bell has in in Montreal now it takes more bandwidth and People are also Buying there movies like think about it more of us are really looking at Ipad and if we all started to download and own are tv and Movies why pay for Cable. its only a matter of time before we all get charged for it… Read more »

gmc
gmc
14 years ago

I cancelled all cable 3 years ago. Tired of the monopoly and they have there system set up. Example with all the cr-p they have on TV today there were only maybe several I would watch. Though these several would never be in the same package. So it could cost me $100.00 plus a month. They have to be kidding to watch TV. Recall many years back when the UHF – VHF turners were compulsary on all TV’s. This was back when Rogers near first strarted or close. We were to get all these free channels down the road. Well… Read more »

cabrals
cabrals
14 years ago

what i the f*** u gonna pay 25 dollars for 2 gigs? u got to be kidding me rogers just lost it bastards they will lose everyone i hope that happens

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