Rogers Internet download speed increase

wprager wrote:Nooooo!

Rogers wrote:
Our records show your household has reached 100% of the 60 GB monthly usage allowance provided with your Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Express service.

For each additional GB that you use, you will be charged $2.00, until you reach the maximum charge of $50.00 per billing period.

Couldn't find the "Rogers are crooks" thread (not what it's called) so this'll have to do.

Apparently when he "goes to bed" at 10PM my kind watches YouTube on his iPod until midnight (then complains about being tired and how unfair it is that his bus comes at 7 and the rest of the kids just walk to their primary school at 9). They also watch a couple of hours of Netflix every day. I guess it adds up. At this rate of consumption I'll be 12 GB over by the end of the month.

We got the same message last month, but they didn't actually charge us anything more.

The weird thing is that Rogers Express is now 70GB usage and yet my usage is capped at 60Gb, I need to call them about that. Could've sworn they bumped it up to 80.

I'm on Primus with 7MBPs and unlimited downloads for $38.95

How is Primus ?

Everywhere I looked (dslreports etc.) people say to stay away from Primus.

Hoags wrote:How is Primus ?

Everywhere I looked (dslreports etc.) people say to stay away from Primus.

It's only been a month but I've had no issues other than they seem a bit disorganized.

Rogers has boosted the upload speed as well a while ago... I now get 3Mbps up... which is very nice for when I'm connecting to my home network from anywere else...

Hoags wrote:The weird thing is that Rogers Express is now 70GB usage and yet my usage is capped at 60Gb, I need to call them about that. Could've sworn they bumped it up to 80.

Back in January they said speeds will increase from up-to-12 to up-to-18 Mbps, and caps will increase from 60 to 70 (yeah, up to 50% increase in speed and a 17% increase in cap); but that announcement also said this was for customers with DOCSIS 3.0 modems. Don't see at all how modem type should influence cap, so perhaps that's why they didn't charge Evan. Thing is, at this rate I'm still going to be 2-4GB over. I guess I'll see.

wprager wrote:

Hoags wrote:The weird thing is that Rogers Express is now 70GB usage and yet my usage is capped at 60Gb, I need to call them about that. Could've sworn they bumped it up to 80.

Back in January they said speeds will increase from up-to-12 to up-to-18 Mbps, and caps will increase from 60 to 70 (yeah, up to 50% increase in speed and a 17% increase in cap); but that announcement also said this was for customers with DOCSIS 3.0 modems. Don't see at all how modem type should influence cap, so perhaps that's why they didn't charge Evan. Thing is, at this rate I'm still going to be 2-4GB over. I guess I'll see.

They'll find any excuse to Diddle people over.

I got an email once threatening to cancel my service because my computer was pinging their server too much or something (WTF?) Since I don't have a clue what the Diddle that means I called and they basically told me to figure out what the problem was on my own... OR ELSE!!!

wprager wrote:
Back in January they said speeds will increase from up-to-12 to up-to-18 Mbps, and caps will increase from 60 to 70 (yeah, up to 50% increase in speed and a 17% increase in cap); but that announcement also said this was for customers with DOCSIS 3.0 modems. Don't see at all how modem type should influence cap, so perhaps that's why they didn't charge Evan. Thing is, at this rate I'm still going to be 2-4GB over. I guess I'll see.

Probably if you upgrade to a DOCSIS 3.0 modem you have to sign a contract for 3 years..

I have my modem on a "rent-free-for-life" deal. Not sure what that's worth anymore. I wonder if my modem "broke" if they would replace it with a DOCSIS 3.0 capable one.

Big Ev wrote:

wprager wrote:Nooooo!

Rogers wrote:
Our records show your household has reached 100% of the 60 GB monthly usage allowance provided with your Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Express service.

For each additional GB that you use, you will be charged $2.00, until you reach the maximum charge of $50.00 per billing period.

Couldn't find the "Rogers are crooks" thread (not what it's called) so this'll have to do.

Apparently when he "goes to bed" at 10PM my kind watches YouTube on his iPod until midnight (then complains about being tired and how unfair it is that his bus comes at 7 and the rest of the kids just walk to their primary school at 9). They also watch a couple of hours of Netflix every day. I guess it adds up. At this rate of consumption I'll be 12 GB over by the end of the month.

We got the same message last month, but they didn't actually charge us anything more.

I haven't seen my bill for this month, but I checked out online and it looks like they *are* charging me. I ended up at 70 GB (what a conveniently round number, actually). And I'm already up to 21 GB just 7 days into the next billing cycle. What the heck is driving the usage so much? We went from 45 GB the month before (and some months earlier it was even less than that) to 70! Are we really using 25GB worth of Netflix?

I've got to give Rogers a call. Remind the that my "entertainment" budget is limited and that I will simply have to cancel something else.

Checked my daily usage and we shot up to nearly 5.8 GB Saturday, as compared to 3.7 the day before and under 1.5 the previous two days.

Thing is, on Saturday we went to Montreal for the day to visit my folks. Left at 10AM and got back after 8:30PM. Couple of hours of Netflix (SD) between the boys and us, checked my e-mail in the morning. Would have been like a regular work week, except less. For Wednesday and Thursday the usage was under 1.5 GB each day. Also our upload for Saturday was 249, which is more than 5x the usual amount.

I'd say someone is leeching our internet. Any ideas? I guess next time I leave I'll just turn off the wireless router.

The router logs show repeated "Xmas port scan attack from WAN (ip:205.150.8.7) detected" and others that I've googled and they appear "normal".

My router isn't fancy, but I'm looking at the MAX Filtering Rules page and I see:
- my desktop
- my laptop
- my BB (hmm, even though I've disabled the home network profile on it)
- my son's ipod
- my other son's desktop
- my HP network printer

Then I see two other devices -- one is "0009978Q" and the other one has no name (blank or empty string). One of these is probably my wife's laptop (it's off and she doesn't know its name off-hand) but not the other one. I've also got a Wii but it's got a name (can't remember it now but it incorporates our family name in it, so it wasn't in the list -- it's been off for a while).

So there was some device -- either the unnamed one or "0009978Q" -- that I suspect was leeching significant b/w from use.

Edit: Continuing this post from last night (I started playing with my router settings and buggered things up -- had to re-set it manually). Checked the cap again and we used up another 5.6 GB on Sunday. I'm now at 27 -- close to half my monthly cap just 8 days into the billing period.

What I've done now is enabled MAC address filtering and only have my laptop, printer, desktop and BB in the list. I'll have to add the rest later when I have time). I realize that this wouldn't stop an experienced hacker but I'm hoping that's not the case here.

Still, it makes me wonder. This isn't someone accidentally signing on to a network that has nothing enabled. Sure, I'm only using WEP but it's still password protected, so someone would have to go way out of their way to crack it (using WEP because one of the devices -- don't remember which one -- couldn't do better than that).

Should I invest in a fancier router that has more options (such as time of day rules?) or plug my router in through a Cristmas light timer to turn it off during the day? Any way to try and catch this person? I've got 2 MAC addresses -- I suspect one of them is the guilty party.

I'd post here about how Teksavvy has 300GB and unlimited plans, but then I'd just be repeating myself.

Edit: Oh, that stinks if someone is leeching. I don't know enough about networking to correct that problem!

tim1_2 wrote:I'd post here about how Teksavvy has 300GB and unlimited plans, but then I'd just be repeating myself.

Edit: Oh, that stinks if someone is leeching. I don't know enough about networking to correct that problem!

Yep, made that switch about a year ago myself, and no regrets. All the internet I can use + a land line for about $80 a month. Saves me about $30 a month in comparison to Rogers, and I never have to worry about internet usage amounts ever again.

Rogers, btw, is notorious for "pinching" their internet users, so that it takes a LOT of time to download larger files, which in turn eats into your monthly usage allowances. The first thing I noticed when I switched to Teksavvy was how much more quickly files downloaded.

Prager - you can also disable broadcast of your SSID (keeps your router hidden).

You should look at deploying WPA2 encryption with a lengthy pass phrase. WEP can be bypassed very easily. What device does not support WPA2? Can it be hard wired? MAC address filtering ends up being more annoying than anything else. But a good move for now while you figure this out.

Worst case is you have some sort of trojan or infection on a computer and it's become a "drone" that's using your internet connection for nasty activity. Check your systems, do some full scans.

You could look at the OUI of the MAC addresses, first 3 octets could tell you the manufacturer of the device, see if it's any of yours.

If the leeching happens when no one is home I say you've got an external intruder, unless one of your PCs is on running BitTorrent or some other download.

You need to get off WEP, might as well have your AP wide open, WEP is so easy to crack.

rooneypoo wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:I'd post here about how Teksavvy has 300GB and unlimited plans, but then I'd just be repeating myself.

Edit: Oh, that stinks if someone is leeching. I don't know enough about networking to correct that problem!

Yep, made that switch about a year ago myself, and no regrets. All the internet I can use + a land line for about $80 a month. Saves me about $30 a month in comparison to Rogers, and I never have to worry about internet usage amounts ever again.

Rogers, btw, is notorious for "pinching" their internet users, so that it takes a LOT of time to download larger files, which in turn eats into your monthly usage allowances. The first thing I noticed when I switched to Teksavvy was how much more quickly files downloaded.

Don't be so sure about it. TekSavvy still have to pay Rogers (I assume it's over cable) and once Rogers/Bell get the CRTC to agree with them (and I'm sure that's coming) then TekSavvy will have no choice but to charge/limit you.

shabbs wrote:Prager - you can also disable broadcast of your SSID (keeps your router hidden).

You should look at deploying WPA2 encryption with a lengthy pass phrase. WEP can be bypassed very easily. What device does not support WPA2? Can it be hard wired? MAC address filtering ends up being more annoying than anything else. But a good move for now while you figure this out.

Worst case is you have some sort of trojan or infection on a computer and it's become a "drone" that's using your internet connection for nasty activity. Check your systems, do some full scans.

I don't broadcast my SSID. That and the WEP password is all I have, though, and it's clearly not enough. A friend at work who knows everything (and I *don't* mean that in a sarcastic way) said there is a program (called "Find Free WiFi) that you can d/l for free (if you don't mind the viruses) that will do all the work for you. I was using WEP because some devices (probably my kids' DSs) weren't up to snuff. But he's reasonably sure that they will work on WPA. So by changing to WPA and also using MAC address filtering I should be OK. You can spoof your MAC address, of course, but unless they knew enough to write down the other MAC addresses in use they'd have a tough time finding one that would work.

I also have the MAC address -- pretty sure it's the one with no device name, but I'll double check with my wife about her laptop name. If I have the MAC address my friend says there are ways to find the IP address, and from that you can track it down pretty easily. We'll see.

I think I'm going to type a quick letter and post it on the mailbox, saying how someone was leeching my wifi to the tune of $20 last month and who-knows-how-much this month. It would have to be someone withing a couple of houses of us since my wireless router is not very strong (I have trouble on my front porch).