The following letters have been received in response to Jack Kapica's blog item on Rogers Cable Internet policy, Return of the cap (2) (Feb. 10):
Dear Editor:
I find it interesting that Rogers claims it's doing this out of necessity. I'd like to know how many of its Extreme customers have been complaining that their speeds are too slow. I, for one, have been getting about 600KB/s consistently. Trouble is, at those speeds you can get 1GB in half an hour, which means if you're grabbing a lot of stuff you're out of luck after about an hour a day. Granted, that doesn't affect too many people, but if you're not a big leecher, why in the world would you sign up for Extreme?
And isn't it somewhat unfair to advertise unlimited downloading for Extreme users, and then bring in a cap? And Rogers' excuse is that it stopped advertising that three months ago — what about people who signed up four months ago?
Rogers should realize Bell doesn't have caps any more — and hasn't for quite a while now — so all those teens and geeks who do a lot of downloading will switch ISPs in a hurry.
I hope Rogers suffers a lot of pain for this, and will once again lift the cap.
David Lisogurski
Dear Editor:
As one of the people affected by Rogers' new bit cap, I have a few points that I have brought up to Rogers.
I have asked, and also suggest it to all Rogers users, that they no longer allow Rogers to bill them via e-mail. Emailed billings do use up a small percentage of my bit cap.
It's a small point indeed, but one that has a direct impact on Rogers. By forcing Rogers to do this by post, it will have to pay for the paper and postage.
I have also asked that monitoring of my usage be made available via software from my house. I understand that Rogers has tools in place for monitoring the usage, but by having to visit the Rogers website to view that usage, I am using up a percentage of my bandwidth, therefore using a portion of my cap every time I visit the page. This also requires that the information be accurate and honest.
Realistically, can we trust a company that is actively trying to curtail usage to deliver accurate statistics without some form of monitoring?
A senior support person told me that this page is cached on my hard drive and does not reload each time. However, for security reasons, I and many other users regularly clear our browser caches. This means a 1 or 2 megabyte hit each time I check my usage.
Rogers told me to get software off the Net to do this, but this will cost me to buy the program(s). I believe Rogers should provide this to me because they are implementing this policy shift.
Rogers also told me that it has no mechanism in place to deal with disputes over usage amounts. So we have no ability to contest their accusations.
I therefore asked to have monthly Internet billing include a complete breakdown of my usage. I point out to you that cellphone users are provided this service free of charge — I buy 50 minutes of air time for cellphone, which is analogous to my 60 GB cap. I'd like to know what I'm using. On my bill.
Rogers should also do a better job addressing spam. So far, it's highly inadequate. Each piece of spam uses a portion of my bit cap. Rogers is not doing enough to eliminate spam, which in turn cheats me by a small percentage each month of my 60GB limit.
Rogers should also change all of their Web pages so the graphics are at a minimum. Each time I have to visit a Rogers page, I use up a portion of my bandwidth/bit cap downloading unnecessary graphics.
I believe all users who subscribed to Rogers' Extreme service and paid the extra cash for the high-speed modems should receive a rebate or credit on their accounts, because they are now no longer useful. We bought this service based on expected usage.
The person I spoke to at Rogers even went so far as to suggest I curtail my usage of services such as newsgroups, streaming Internet radio, on-line gaming and downloading software updates to conserve my usage. I asked him then what was the point of having high-speed then? He avoided answering.
We Rogers users are fed up. We need a change, we need support and we need it fast.
Barrie Jones, Pickering, Ont.
Dear Ediotor:
Needless to say, I didn't find this news terribly thrilling. I have a fundamental problem with the imposition of such caps. I need to find a way to add my reaction to this so that Rogers is aware it is making another mistake.
I hope other Rogers customers will do the same.
Joseph Belec
