Copyright Law

Candian ISP: Overage Fees ?Not About Making Money?

By soulxtc

Ontario-based Cogeco responds to criticisms by customers who soon face download caps as low as 10GB and charges of up to $2.50 for each GB of data downloaded that exceeds it.

Data caps are becoming all the rage among ISPs these days, but usually they’re limited to amounts well above an average subscriber’s reach, at least without downloading BRRips.

Many ISPs also charge “overage fees” to encourage people to be mindful of their data limits, but rarely is customer feedback solicited before instituting such a policy.

Such is the case with Cogeco, apparently the largest ISP in Ontario, who has announced that beginning June 1st it will charge customers who exceed their data caps up to $30-$50 p/mo ($24-$41USD).

Data caps range from 10 to 100GB depending on the package, and customers will be charged between $1 and $2.50 ($0.80 and $2.06 USD) for each GB of data over their limit.

In its defense, Cogeco says the plan isn’t about making money, but rather about customers “responsible for their usage.”

?We?re doing this so we can give the best service to all of our customers,? said Marie Carrier, Cogeco?s director of corporate communications. ?This is not something we?re doing to make money; it?s to better manage our service.?

But, isn’t it bad enough you pay for a connection speed that can only be used up to a certain point?

Not to Cogeco who insist that a few bandwidth hogs are using more than their fair share and thereby slowing the speeds for others.

?We?ve found that 1 per cent of our customers are using the majority of our bandwidth,? Carrier said. ?They use the majority of our service to the point where service is getting slower for everyone else.”

?The only people who will pay these overcharges are those who download movies a lot,? she added. ?We want to make the customer responsible for their usage.?

Carrier talks about customers who download “a lot” of movies as though they’re breaking the law. The lowest cap of 10GB means one could only download around 7 movies or 20 TV shows depending on the quality from legal download services like iTunes.

Nevermind the streaming of movies and TV shows from sources like Hulu.com or network outlets like ABC and NBC. Is streaming also an abuse of their connection? If so, what it’s really for? E-mail only?

Are a minority of users that much a problem to the whole network that an entire ISP’s subscriber-base must suffer?

I think not.

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on April 15, 2009 (boomark / email).