Rogers To Increase Internet Overage Fees…. Outrage Ensues Online
The news has hit several websites such as DSLReports and Digital Home that Rogers plans on increasing the maximum overage fee that they charge when you go over you data cap (The amount of surfing that you’re entitled to when you do anything on the Internet measured in gigabytes) from $25 a month to $50 a month. Keep in mind that Rogers charges $5 per gigabyte when you go over your data cap, so that means that you’re only on the hook for a maximum of $50 instead of $25. That doesn’t sound too evil as long as you don’t go over your cap. Right? That’s not how it’s being viewed. Take this opinion on DSLReports:
While carriers often claim these billing models are about fairness to lighter users, you’ll note that Rogers lightest customers are offered a 500 kbps tier with a 2GB monthly cap for $26 (plus fees), and users are billed $5 per additional gigabyte. Should grandma simply choose to download one very large file, she faces a monthly bill that could potentially exceed $70 — for a 500 kbps connection! The entire Rogers model isn’t designed with fairness in mind, it’s designed to drive the customer base toward ever-more expensive product. It’s designed to get customers to pay more money for the same (or less) service.
Rogers doesn’t see it that way of course. In fact, “Mary” from Rogers stopped in to the DSL Reports forum where this is being discussed to say the following:
Hi Everyone. This is Mary with Rogers. I appreciate everyone’s voicing their concerns and suggestions. Let me try to add to this conversation by helping clarify the situation.
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.
To help monitor usage, we have put various communication tools in place. When you reach 75% and 100% of usage, you will get notification via your browser or email. As well, you can keep track of usage throughout the month on our online portal.
I hope this helps address some of your comments above.
Thanks,
Judging from the responses on the forum, it hasn’t helped to calm things down. But at least Rogers tried. Here’s another sign that this isn’t going over well. I’ve gotten three e-mails from consumer customers of mine who have Rogers as their ISP asking me whom they can switch to so that they can avoid fees like these. I’m not sure if this is a sign of a backlash over this issue, or just the “disgruntled few” who are using this as a reason to bolt from Rogers. That falls under of category of wait and see.
In the meantime, here’s my take on this: There are people out there who stay within their data cap because they don’t do much of anything. However there are people who do online gaming, watch YouTube videos, download stuff, and do a lot of other bandwidth intensive activities which would have them flirting with their data cap at the very least. ISPs have to account for both because bandwidth isn’t free. I get that and I also get that this is the reason why caps exist. However I’m not entirely sold on the fact that most customers wouldn’t go over their caps and thus won’t be affected by this. If that were the case, I don’t think that people would light up places like DSLReports and Digital Home with anger. Nor would I have Rogers customers asking me whom they could switch to.
I guess the only way to know for sure if this is really an issue is if ISPs like Teksavvy and Acanac start picking up business in large numbers, combined with news that Rogers is shedding consumer Internet customers via their Q1-2010 report. Which means that you should check back in a few months to see how this turns out.
January 27, 2010 at 6:44 pm
I received a letter from Rogers to notify me of the increase in cost and reduction in allowance on my Ultra-Lite plan. I presently have an allowance of 60 GB per month and according to Rogers letter, I only use 4 GB per month. They are reducing my allowance to 2 GB per month and increasing the monthly rate by $2. I would have to cut my use in half or pay an additional $2 plus $5 per gig over 2 GB which means an increase of $12 to $17 per month. I could of course go to the next plan and pay more money. I think I will just terminate my internet service for March 1st, when the new rate kicks in.
January 28, 2010 at 11:50 am
though I have other thoughts on some small details I have to to agree for a nicely written post. Keep up the verynice work.
February 16, 2010 at 4:29 pm
After getting this letter I immediately started to search for an alternate ISP. Rogers will lose $200+ I spend monthly over this.
I will continue to look for the best performance and usage plan I can find.
Any time bandwidth gets more expensive… something is wrong.
I encourage ANYONE who reads this to consider leaving based on principle alone.
February 16, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I just checked out Acanac mentioned in the article… and from everything I can see, I would /immediately/ switch to them as my ISP. Unfortunately, I don’t have that choice where I live.
I can only hope that one day I will have not just 2 choices as a consumer, but perhaps dozens.
March 2, 2010 at 4:24 pm
THERE IS NOT ENOUGH COMPETITION- COMPLAIN TO THE CRTC
IF A CARRIER CAN DEMAND A 3300% effective cost increase like that
THEN THERE CANNOT BE ENOUGH COMPETITION>
I got the letter. Rogers add further insult by calling us to “TALK” to us.
ACTION speaks louder folks. Bottom line is on a cost per GB basis this represents a 3300% increase.
FAIR- what is fair is stick to the costs and services we agreed to.
They say they want to treat us all the same.. but they are reducing our service dramatically and nobody else. THats NOT the same.
They say they CANT ( they used the words cant) have some people with 2GB and others with 60GB. That’s incorrect as they have already been doing for several years.
This is a money grab. Force us up to higher plans by making the bottom tier plan so useless its financially dangerous to us little guys. If you use more than 2 GB then costs will be userous.
IF I AM GOING TO BE FORCED TO PAY MORE.. I WONT PAY ROGERS
I WILL GET ANOTHER CARRIER – I WILL GO TO THE SMALLEST HUNGRIEST CARRIER
March 24, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I just got a popup message:
Our records show your household has reached 100% of the 2 GB monthly usage allowance provided with your Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Ultra-Lite service.
I go on the Internet a lot and I’d never seen this message before.
My dad’s paying the bills, but anyway.. F**K ROGERS!
August 4, 2010 at 4:18 pm
you should monitor your internet usage because lately I’ve been checking my internet daily use and I’ve noticed every day they keep adding more GB to my monthly usage. I had to up grade from 25 GB to 60 GB because I had gone over my monthly usage last month, even though I was keeping track of my bandwidth. I stopped downloading items on purpose to keep a better track of my internet usage, yet I’ve managed to collect 5 Gb in 4 days by only looking at youtube videos… makes no sense. I complained but like I thought it might happen, it’s my burden to prove that Rogers is monitoring my internet usage inaccurately, I got into an argument with the tech support lady. I knew no matter what I would say it’s up to me to prove they are wrong.
August 4, 2010 at 4:22 pm
one more thing… the day I checked my internet usage that said I was 5Gb over my monthly limit, the same day I got an automatic pop up from Rogers warning me I was up to 75% of my monthly bandwidth.
Numerous times I’ve gotten contradictory information from Rogers representatives, and or web site. But in the end no matter who’s wrong we the costumer end up paying for it one way or another.
Go to Roger.com and sign up for an online account, then click on MY ROGERS to be able to track your monthly usage.
June 22, 2010 at 9:07 am
This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Rogers has infuriated us so many times I cannot even begin to recall them all. Previously, TekSavvy did not have cable service in our area, and now they do! We’ve already begun our journey switching to them.
Screw you Rogers!
We need more competition like this in many areas like wireless, internet, and television!
August 3, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Rogers slowly takes your money some way or another… I had wireless
Sympatico..I move in with my aunt for a few months and she has
Rogers, so I made it all nice for her, gaver her firefox, set up the
wireless modem, all that. Last month I was doing something and by
accident I deleted it, so I had to get it back from the internet. I did my
math, I get 25 Gb per month, I have currently used 7 Gb, this will take
me 10Gb…yes I can do it !!!
WRONG… somehow I go over by 5 Gb, I go to call and let my aunt know
and she says.. but I just got a warning saying our internet usage is up
75%. Well it can’t be near 75% and be 5 Gb over our limit. I call get my
chain yanked, and up graded to the next tier 60 Gb per month.
Now I carefully monitor the remaining of July since I went over the limit once. August 1st comes along and my usage is still from the previous month wich i left it at 57.65 Gb to not go over I stopped downloading, and I have not downloaded anything since yet July 2 I had 2.75 Gb used and this morning I have 3.65 Gb used in total out of my 60 Gb. I did not collect 1 Gb watching youtube.. each video is like 30 Kb that’s not even 1 freeking Mb .. so I watched 1 000 youtube videos in 1 day?? no.. is my neighbour stealing my bandwith.. no my connection is secured.. then maybe Rogers is adding charges… well no way I can prove that and in fact my call this morning did not start nor ended well because I was furious.
When I had Sympatico I was unaware I had a monthly limit of 25 Gb, so why did I ever go over with Sympatico by accident like I have done with Rogers?? …. Something is not right … Rogers is taking a lot of people for a ride.
November 29, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Just to add to this usage issue… I just discovered that in 72 hours I had 57gb added to my usage on Rogers! When I first got the 75% of usage notice I would have almost 24gb left on my monthly allowance of 95gb. But in 48 hours that was used up and I got a notice saying I was at 100% usage. I logged in to check the Rogers usage meter that same day and it wasn’t at 100% (95gb) it was 15gb over that at 110gb for the month! The crazy thing is there’s no way for me to have downloaded that much in 48 hours nor did I even. So I set up a bandwidth meter of my own on the system and do no downloading the next 24 hours aside from check email and browse the news sites. Anyhow, next day my meter shows less than 300mb used, but Rogers meter shows I used 18gb more overnight! I was now at 128gb and just three days earlier I had the 75% of limit notice. I contacted Rogers of course seeing this. The Rogers tech guy was questioning my wireless router but wireless is disabled I told him and the computer is hard wired r45. Then he said the wireless could still be on even though it shows off. I said oh no it isn’t! … cause the home network doesn’t show on any wireless device! They are opening an investigation and so they should. There is a breach on there in or someone is doing something illegal and tacking on bandwidth usage to my account. ALL ROGERS CUSTOMERS BEWARE!! Monitor your usage and keep track with a third party as well. Something is up and it’s scary cause you have to fight with them even though you did nothing wrong.
April 25, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Thank you for posting. I too have been cheated by Rogers. I have been using internet for the last ten years and have never gone over the limit (95 Gig). My usage has been always around 50% of the limit. But all of sudden Rogers started chaing addtional $50 for extra usage for several months. I just can not understand – it does not make any sense to me. It started to make some sense when my neighbors told me they are experiencing exactly the same BS !
March 8, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Great site, sorry to hear that I’m not alone with my struggles with Rogers. I’ll be checking back to read yur updates.
March 29, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Same thing happens to me every month. I get the 75% email and the next day or 2 I am 10 gig over. Last night I was almost to 100% so I turned off everything….now tonight I am 7.5 gig over. The computer was off…yet I’m now over? Of course Roger’s tells me that the data is a couple days behind when I see it online……yeah right.
April 25, 2011 at 7:34 pm
I am not convinced that Rogers usage charge is nothing but a scam !
October 17, 2011 at 11:26 am
Rogers new high-speed boost is the problem.
Like Andrew IV never gone over for 5 years, nothing has change in terms of my 2 boys playing online games or watching Youtube. But I did notice the waste with the videos getting higher and higher resolution and file size along with it. My son would click on a video to watch he did like what he was watching so he click on the next video, now here it is and net flicks has some part in this my download speed can be as much as 10gb when i pay for 1gb the high speed boost makes it so my kids can download a 5 min 500mb file on Youtube in 5 seconds give or take and the watch 20 seconds of the Video then click and click. Net flicks is a wonderful thing second rate movies for 8 bucks mouth and download so fast with my new magical 10gb download speed I just can’t get enough till I get the bill. I call Rogers begging them to stop bagging my money and remove the high speed boost, explaining I like to control me cost and I got told that I need to control my kids, those mother fuckers (not my kids) Rogers I mean.
A trip to the Rogers store and had talk with the wiz kid behind the counter, he tells me people are coming in and increasing there usage by guess how increasing there packages. Ginny pigs where all Ginny pigs trap in a maze,
I don’t give up easily ones I bit I don’t let go
I found a solution to the problem one that Rogers would never suggest buy a new Router with the ability to cap your speed to anything you want so your out control basted kids as Rogers would put it cant Hog the usage and life will go back to normal and no surprises I mean ya sure it will cost you cost $50 paying for a new Router but that what its costing me each mouth in extra usage fees anyhow. Game over Rogers
August 15, 2012 at 3:58 pm
The overusage charge with Rogers High SPeed internet is a problem with Rogers database system . Tech support admitted this after spending hours on the phone back and forth and raising a few tickets. I am disputing my overusage charge for the month of June, July and Aug 2012. I cannot be using 40 G in a day when i am out for the whole day. That happened last saturday and this is it. I got really pissed and ticked off.
Rogers has not been able to fix the problem associated with oversusage bandwidth and they are still working on it.
February 20, 2014 at 9:59 pm
I have seven different bills from Rogers this month all different. They have no idea why. They are very stupid people
November 21, 2014 at 9:59 pm
I hae only one lap top one person senior IA never download or transfer any file I have 120 GB LIMITATION never have had overusage but this month rogers charged me 140 GB 160$ OVERUSAGE UNBLIEVALE I a m a senior I can not tolerate such big misstake from rogers.
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