Rogers Communications wants you to watch television on your broadband service, but not too much.  The Canadian cable company’s On Demand Online service was previewed Monday at a media event with plans for a public launch on November 30.

On Demand Online will showcase specific television shows as well as the entire lineup of certain channels.  The service has more than a dozen partner networks providing programming, among them TVOntario, Treehouse, Citytv, SuperChannel, and Sportsnet.

Premium programming will be available to Rogers subscribers who also receive those networks as part of their cable television package.  No cable TV package?  No access for you.  (Update: Rogers says it will offer the service to customers of any Rogers service.)  For now, company officials say the service will be available for no additional charge, but will be ad-supported.  Using On Demand Online will count against your usage cap/consumption billing allowance.  The service offers two speeds for viewing – a low resolution 480kbps feed and a higher resolution 1Mbps feed.  Rogers intends to increase the quality of the high resolution service to 2-2.5Mbps in the near future.

Rogers rations your online TV experience with usage allowances that make sure you don't spend too much time online watching shows you should be viewing on your Rogers cable TV service.

Rogers’ usage allowances, a part of their well-established Internet Overcharging scheme, will make it difficult for those already spending a lot of time online to enjoy the service.  Watching the current high speed, higher resolution feed could exceed 1GB of usage in just over two hours according to Digital Home.  That drops in half when Rogers upgrades the quality of the feed.

Customers who blow through their allowance face overlimit penalties and fees on their next bill.

Qualified subscribers will access the service through Rogers’ broadband web portal using established account names and passwords.  While the service will work “on-the-go,” Rogers says it will be keeping an eye out for password sharing and will also impose any viewing limitations required by content producers.  That could mean what is okay to watch in Ontario is not okay in Alberta, due to licensing issues.

Stop the Cap! reader Ibrahim in Toronto wonders how Rogers expects to get a lot of customers excited about a service that will help erode their monthly usage allowance.

“Isn’t is fascinating that Rogers wants to effectively charge you for every hour you watch online when you’ve already paid for the channel on your monthly cable bill?  What’s next, a meter on top of the television set demanding a quarter for every 15 minutes of viewing?” he asks.

Susan in North York wonders why she’ll have to pay for every ad.

“When I read about this service, I thought we were finally going to get something like Hulu here in Canada, but with usage-based billing, who is going to use up their allowance watching shows with ads all over them — ads I am now going to pay to watch,” she wonders.  “I guess it’s newsgroups for me — I can download my shows without ads and pay less.”

While the program content can be fast-forwarded or rewound, commercial advertisements on the service cannot be skipped or hurried through.  Initially, the service is expected to show just one ad per program, but Rogers intends to eventually run the same number of ads consumers would find if watching the program live on television.  With up to 12 minutes of advertising per hour, that also helps slowly eat away your monthly allowance.

What are the monthly usage allowances for Rogers Hi-Speed Internet service?

Ultra Lite – 2 GB
Lite – 25 GB
Express – 60 GB
Extreme  – 95 GB
Extreme Plus – 125 GB

Please note: The grandfathered Ultra Lite and Lite monthly usage allowance is 60 GB. Also, Rogers Portable Internet and dial-up services do not have usage allowances at this time.

Will I be charged if I go beyond my monthly usage allowance?

Yes. If you exceed your monthly usage allowance, you will be charged as follows:

Ultra Lite – $5.00/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Lite – $2.50/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Express – $2.00/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Extreme – $1.50/GB to a maximum of $25.00
Extreme Plus – $1.25/GB to a maximum of $25.00

Please note: the grandfathered Ultra Lite over-allowance fee is $5.00/GB with no maximum, and the grandfathered Lite over-allowance fee is $3.00/GB with no maximum.

Cogeco Cable, which serves customers in parts of Ontario and Quebec, today announced the launch of the “HSI Ultimate” broadband tier offering 50Mbps download speed and 1.5Mbps upload speed.

For customers in Burlington, Oakville, Milton, and Halton, Ontario, the HSI Ultimate package is available today for $144.95 a month with a cable or telephone bundle, $149.95 without, with a monthly allowance of 150GB, which equals $1/GB. The company throws in free cable modem rental and a security software suite.

Cogeco's Ultimate HSI Service Map - Service First in Communities Southwest of Toronto (click to enlarge)

Within five years, Cogeco expects to roll out the service throughout its service areas in Quebec and Ontario thanks to DOCSIS 3 upgrades, which permit cable operators to better manage bandwidth and create new tiers based on speed.

Company officials said in a statement that DOCSIS 3.0 is a technology of data compression that will allow a more efficient and economical bandwidth. Thus, Cogeco Cable will better meet the increasing bandwidth at a competitive cost; give access to a higher data rate, a better video configuration and an increased level of safety.

“This new internet package shows our constant concern to improve our network to satisfy our customers. They can benefit from a more efficient service. With technological advancement, we can offer better access to downstream and upstream Internet, which allows customers to take advantage of applications, available on Internet, more easily,” said Ron Perrotta, Vice President Marketing, Cogeco Cable.

Early customer reaction was negative, because of the pricing and the paltry usage allowance.

“Garbage. Cap is too low to make 50mbps useful,” said one Trenton reader on Broadband Reports’ Cogeco forum. “If my math is correct here you can blow through your 150gb cap in 6.83 hours. That’s a ridiculously short amount of time.”

“I know they are just following suit [with Rogers Cable], but $149.95/month is pretty expensive,” wrote one reader in St. Catharines.

Another questioned the mentality of Cogeco for offering an expensive, but highly limited broadband package: “Cogeco execs are disturbingly out of touch.”

Late last week, Rogers Cable announced the launch of an “Ultimate” tier broadband service for residents in greater Toronto, offering speeds of 50Mbps for $149.99 a month.  This morning, new details on a second tier of service, an adjustment to the usage allowances  for both tiers, and more.

New this morning:

• A second tier of service for greater Toronto residents has been announced.  “Extreme Plus” will offer 25Mbps/1Mbps service for $99 a month, with a 125GB monthly allowance.  A digital cable TV subscription is mandatory.
• Some corrected information about the “Ultimate” tier.  Despite what Rogers told one of our readers, this tier will offer 50Mbps/2Mbps service for $149.00 a month, with a 175GB monthly allowance (up from 150GB).
• The purchase of the Rogers Wireless N router for $200 is mandatory for all customers choosing the “Extreme Plus” or “Ultimate” tier.
• The overlimit penalty fee has not yet been established.  Rogers typically charges a maximum of $25 in penalties for exceeding usage allowances. As one reader put it: “What this means is that – IN REALITY – you are paying $124.00/month for an unlimited account at 25Mbps, or $199.00/month for an unlimited account at 50Mbps.”

Although many customers were excited by the initial news of higher speed service, the reality that the usage allowances are only incrementally higher, for a considerably higher priced level of service, reduced enthusiasm considerably.  Customers have also been underwhelmed by the upload speed, and by the news they will be required to purchase a router from Rogers for $200 just to obtain the service.

Rollout date for both services in sections of Toronto in August 17th, with other areas being added in mid-September.  We’ve obtained some preliminary specific dates for service based on Toronto metropolitan area postal codes:

August 17 is the date for implementation in the follow postal codes:

Toronto
M5X
M5J
M5W
M5C
M5G
M5B
M4Y
M5R
M4W (western section)
M4V
M4T
M4S
M5P
M4P
M4R
M4N
M5M
M2P
M2N
M2R
M2M

Markham
L3T

Vaughan
L4J

Richmond Hill
L4B
L4C
L4E

Newmarket
L3X
L3Y

Bradford / East & West Gwillimbury
L9N

September 18th is the targeted date for Phase Two of the rollout in these areas:

Aurora
L4G

All other areas surrounding Toronto (Pickering, Ajax, Brampton, Mississauga, etc.) upgrade is expected on September 18th + in these random postal codes:

L6E
L5W
L4T
L3Z
M5A
M4X
M1J
M1H

Thanks to Digital Home and a Rogers employee who remains anonymous for specific details.

Rogers Ultimate Speed Comes At The Ultimate Price of $150/month, Reportedly Capped At 150GB Of Usage

Rogers Cable today announced it was preparing to launch a DOCSIS 3-based upgrade to its cable modem service in parts of metropolitan Toronto this summer with a promotional router giveaway and the unveiling of a 50Mbps “Ultimate” Tier for $149.99 a month.

The first 50 customers who sign up for the company’s First 50 to 50 promotion will receive a wireless “N” router and be the first to get the Ultimate tier when it launches.

Unfortunately, company officials have confirmed there will be a usage cap on the service (all Rogers Cable broadband services are capped), but they have not officially announced the cap limit yet.  One of our Ontario readers contacted Rogers customer service and was told the cap was 150GB per month, which killed his interest in the service immediately.

“That’s $1 a gigabyte, which is completely ridiculous,” Jim Jensen wrote to us this afternoon.  “I currently subscribe to their 10Mbps service which has a ludicrous 95GB cap, and that costs me $50 a month,” he said.

“You’d think this greedy company would at least cough up three times my current cap for three times what they charge me now, but apparently not,” he said.

Jensen told Rogers he’s taking a pass.

“It’s bad enough I am stuck in a country that is in a race to offer us lower caps and throttled speeds for higher prices, but there is no darned way I am giving Rogers $150 a month for 50Mbps which could put me past the cap after two hours of usage a month,” Jensen said.

“What are these people smoking?” he added.

The Rogers representative did not not know what upload speed was provided with the Ultimate tier.