Rogers Continues to Throttle BitTorrent Traffic, Despite Contentious Pricing Scheme
Written by Ernesto on April 09, 2008The Canadian ISP Rogers recently introduced contentious hosting plans, which means that users have to pay for every extra gigabyte they consume. The problem is, however, that Rogers continues to throttle BitTorrent traffic, so most BitTorrent users will never reach their quota anyway.
Rogers‘ new pricing scheme (see image below) gets rid of the all-you-can-eat plans most ISPs offer, and charges customers for every additional gigabyte once they have reached their monthly quota. For example, customers with an “extreme plus” plan pay $99.95 a month for the first 95GB, and $1.25 for every additional gigabyte they consume.
Here’s what Rogers wrote in a letter to their customers: “With households doing more online every day - from downloading music and streaming videos to joining online communities - it’s important to have an Internet provider that evolves to meet your online needs. At Rogers, we remain committed to always providing you with the best Internet experience possible.”
Don’t get me wrong, a contentious pricing scheme makes sense. The more people consume, the more they pay, fair enough. What bothers most Rogers users is that, even with this new pricing scheme, their BitTorrent traffic is still being throttled.
Rogers was one of the early adopters of BitTorrent traffic shaping. The first reports date back to 2005, and last year Rogers even decided to block all encrypted traffic, just to make sure that BitTorrent protocol encryption didn’t work.
Nevertheless, Rogers plays nice to its customers, and says it is “committed to providing the best Internet experience as possible”, but how can this be true if their customers can hardly use BitTorrent?
In the letter they sent to their customers they mention that, with a monthly bandwidth limit of 95GB, users can download a whopping 24,320 songs a month. However, if Rogers continues to throttle BitTorrent traffic, it can take up to 67.6 months before their customers actually reach their quota.
In a response to the new pricing scheme, a Rogers subscriber told TorrentFreak: “Pretty funny actually, as with the throttling they are doing, I could downgrade my service considerably.”
Not to worry though, there are several tip and tricks to get around the traffic shaping devices rogers uses. For some, BitTorrent encryption is sufficient to circumvent Rogers’ throttling, others need to adjust a few extra settings to enjoy their torrents in full-speed.
Happy torrenting…
Rogers’ new pricing scheme
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77 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Good thing I’m from Canada where Telus can’t even enforce GB limits, let alone throttle traffic.
Welcome to Australia
In my area they seem to have backed off on the upload throttling since Comcast got bit recently (with no changes beyond settings needed).
They have never applied their policies equally across the nation. I was able to continue downloading/seeding normally for some time after many others got throttled.
Of course service was always les suck even without throttling.
Either way I’m onboard for the class action whenever someone gets enough evidence to launch one.
that should have said “beyond good settings”
I just got this letter from rogers, and that when I decided it’s time to leave
I had Rogers two years ago. The speed was terrible with torrents, I phoned them and they went on about file sharing making it slow for email and such.
I stopped using them and went with Bell, who were plenty better then.
They sent me the letter.. Tells me to visit http://www.rogers.com/keepingpace to monitor usage.. After registering and giving acct details I still can’t keep track.. Hopefully ill get emails.. i finally just started seeing decent speeds again recently..
ummm time for techsavvy.ca
Jesus, fucking expensive, I pay like $30/month for my 100/100 Mbps non-limited broadband…
Man its sad how these ISP’s are looking for ways to cut there customers out, reminds me of the IFPI/RIAA or whatever the hell they call themselves these days.. something stupid.
The plan is fair, but its useless if your going to throttle bittorrent, are these people this stupid.. geez.
Thanks for the info from Canada. I will soon be shopping for a new provider and clearly it will not be Rogers. Best bet is probably a mom & pop reseller. Same network, less bullshit.
Anybody know if Bell Sympatico throttles BT traffic?
\o/ 13th
I made the switch from Rogers to Bell a few years ago due to throttling. When I called tech support at Rogers to complain about the shitty speeds they denied they knew anything about throttling. All except for one very nice tech guy who informed me that they do infact do that. He then told me he has bell at home for this very reason.
Stupid corporations selling us lies… :)
~ DDK
Ya Sympatico throttles between 6pm-2am.
You people need to read up what’s going on in the isp world –>
dslreports.com
If your looking to Bell (sympatico) they have also been throttling recently and have had quite a bit press coverage due to them also throttling traffic from wholesale DSL providers such as tekksavy. So if you think you will use them, think again. Bell pretty much screwed the entire DSL market in Canada.
—–
http://www.sbytes.info
In Serbia there is no restriction of any kind :D for 15 euros (20$) per month you can download anything you want and nobody will ask you anything :p
I personally am using Rogers Express, and with the help of Netmeter i found out that in March i downloaded a total of approximately 260GB of data (upload + download). Too bad i corrupted the log, otherwise i could get more accurate readings.
I think this is pathetic. I agree that charing per GB once over the limit is the right thing to do, but what’s the point of that if you’re going to throttle our connections anyways?
hmm, seems like rogers is in full support of newsgroups then
“Good thing I’m from Canada where Telus can’t even enforce GB limits, let alone throttle traffic.”
I am from Canada and I use Cogeco (Nothing else in my area really) and they throttle traffic.
1: shut up before telus hears you! lol
Yhea, Bell is even worse, they throttle their Sympatico service **AND** its competition. And it’s not because the competing ISPs are using their network, most of them get their traffic from other companies. But Bell owns the last mile–wire that goes from your home to their office–so that’s where they throttle. They don’t have a justification for it since the traffic from their competition doesn’t necesarly pass through their routers, it’s purely anti-competitive.
Today I am switching to teksavvy.ca and urge any Canadians to leave Bell and Rogers.
To be honest, I’ve been on Rogers since 1994 and theres never been a problem. I download via torrents like mad and theres no problem at all…But the new limit is kinda dumb, but if youre extreme plus, the highest they charge extra us $25 and you can keep going over the limit….
With unlimited dial up, you can transfer more than 17GB …do the math!
[quote comment="339168"]Jesus, fucking expensive, I pay like $30/month for my 100/100 Mbps non-limited broadband…[/quote]
please dont say that. im paying $95/mo for a 1500/256k line capped at 25 gig… 10c for every meg over…
fuck i hate Australia
As a Rogers Internet customer, and where I am, I’m not affected by the Rogers ‘throttling’, nor is anyone else I know of. I’m still easily able to download to my full max. from BitTorrent, and fully seed the torrents afterwards, as well. They managed to ‘play around’ with my connection in early 2007 where it definitely WAS throttled, but it hasn’t been like that for quite some time. Perhaps they’re ditching the throttling, and just opting for a cap.
teksavvy.ca>bell+rogers
Ok, I’m in a country where 1Mbit/s is a pipe dream for most, and the majority still use dial-up, yet with 256 Kbit down and 128 Kbit up, and some independent bandwidth within the ISP’s users(about 384 down, and 198 up, or something like that), I manage to use well over 100 GB per month…
Giving 95 gigs at 10 Mbit/s, that’s just for one week :P
Download 3 seasons HD video of any series, and you reach the quotum…
I’m on DSL with 1023/8061kbps, and for the last year it’s been on average 500Gb/230Gb down/up/month… so I guess I’m using the pipe all out(at least as far as torrents go…)?
No throttling(as far as I can tell at least…)
Connection been down only a couple of times a year(for a few hours or so)
No caps(at least not mentioned anywhere…)
For that I pay 40 euro/month
Finland is such a nice place to live^^
One case where I can almost be glad to be under an American ISP. It seems as if Comcast is backing off a little in my area (semi-rural illinois) so I can enjoy pretty rough speeds. The only thing they do now is close a port when I excel 1.5 MB/s download for 5 mins+ or at least thats what it seems like.
You forgot to add to the article, max overcharge is $25 a month ;) I got the letter today in the mail.
bell does the exact same thing and switching to teksavvy is an honourable gesture but teksavvy gets their bandwith from bell so your still gunna get throttled. and im guessing teksavvy will have some problems soon that aren’t their fault at all.
take a look at http://www.supportcommunity.sympatico.ca/pe/action/forums/displaysinglethread?rootPostID=10145149&returnExpertiseCode=
im rob
Hey Sad: you can get unlimited adsl in australia for $70 / month. Look for buniness plans. Don’t bother with consumer plans.
In Canada we have the choice Rogers=Throttled+cap or Bell Pathetico=throttled+cap
Something has to happened we are getting scammed and extort by the month, but we have no choice to take it since nobody does anything about it. Pay more and get less.
Well, I just have to say. Thank God I live in Ca–oh wait nevermind.
Depressed!
in France (http://www.orange.fr/bin/frame.cgi?u=http%3A//abonnez-vous.orange.fr/default.aspx%3Fid%3D6773)
8mbs no limit
Phone
TV: all major stations
For how much! 40eur!
here: 30$ internet + 40$ phone + no cable it is too $%####@#% expensive!
Think about it, not so long ago we were laughing at them!
what ya all crying for here i have 448kbs limit for downloading havent gone above 100kbs for uploading yet $60 unlimited (the plan is no longer available because the service got over loaded)
$&%# Bell and Rogers!
Keep complaining to everyone, the government, your MPS, whoever! Don’t stop till this problem is fixed!
Who’s with me?
the prices are really very high
congrats guys. After all the inside tips abour rogers you choose this one.
Good!~~~~~~~~~
LOOK—> http://www.looskys.com
Seems like Rogers is run by some very intelligent managers. Removing Flat-Rates, blocking encrypted traffic, throttling bittorrent…
I mean c’mon are you serious. Who wants a provider like that? Do they still have any customers at all?
Seems a weird way of doing things, can’t say I understand the logic…
It looks like if the resellers can’t get their lines cleared of the involuntary throttling then Canadas’ screwed.
But hey, there’s always Imageshack!
I can’t wait for VDSL2 to become available in Australia.
Up to 100Mbit/s download speed and about half of download speed for upload speed.
Although Australia is lacking bandwidth.
And here Ukraine rocks again. 100Mbit unlimited channel, without any shaping in any way - and that’s just for $40.
Welcome to Australia. I pay $60 a month for 1.5mbit with a 25 gig cap. Our plan shapes us to 256k beyond the cap.
Soon to be upgrading to $50 a month for 24mbit with 25gig cap though. Maximum residential caps are about 55gig here….if you wna pay $90 a month.
I thought Rogers was throttling all
encrypted traffic, not just BitTorrent
@49 they were seem to have eased off for the time being.
@44 in many areas the only competition does as well (see #36). Which makes switching pointless. So yes many customers.
Rogers is a wonderful ISP. Basic header encryption such as what uTorrent offers is plenty enough to get full speeds and so I have a hard time keeping under the limits. Bell Sympatico does the same thing but is more expensive per gigabyte.
I see nothing wrong with this kind of throttling. Slows down the stupid people so I get more speeds!
10 MBps and dwnload limit of 95 Gb, what a load of crap
I’m on 2 Mbps but only allowed UL downloadin for 6 hours a day, still manage to cross 140 Gb
If you want DSL line try Acanac.com…was usin them for a while…unlimited…good support as well…and yeh…best to move over to a smaller provider…cheaper and unlimited tooooo…
I think this article is a farse. For people that download a lot of music on iTunes, video off places like BBC iPlayer, 4OD or the Canadian equivilent it is a good plan. If you want to use BitTorrent don’t go with their plan. Simple. You make out as if they will never be able to download 24,320 songs, but they could off the aformentioned iTunes.
1.25 for every extra gigabyte? what a fucking joke. flat rate ftw.
We have this in portugal for years already.
All ISP’s in Portugal have a pricing scheme like this.
I 60GB per month. the normal is about 30 GB ..
Its a sad country i know…
Price :
39€ for : “24Mbps”/512Kbps line cap at 60 GB + Phone
Rogers customers need to make a statement with their money, take your business elsewhere if possible… if not you might be encouraging other ISP’s to follow suit.
2gb/$25 +$5 for every GB over allotment is outrageous for an entry level package… might as well be on dial-up for those limitations.
gotta love shaw, 25/1mbit, $93.. 150GB b/w limit but i exceed that and go to over 350 on average, sometimes even over 500. also they dont block torrents like rogers does, so torrenting for me is fine. :)
Yurray for Portugal. Almost every ISP offers unlimited national and international traffic.
I am from Toronto, using Rogers. The dl speed had been terrific. Then I got the letter about the new pricing scheme. A few days later I got a message from Rogers when I opened the browser (a pop up thing) telling me that I had exceeded the monthly limit. I clicked the acknowledge button and the next day on, dl speed has been pathetic. That was the worse thing done in my life. If I did not click the button, I might still be getting good dl speed until Rogers enforced the pricing scheme in June. Paying accodring to the total amount of dl is fair, but as everyone has said, throttling the speed isn’t. Unfortunately, all these ISPs are in consort with one another and poor consumers like us really do not have any choice. They all throttle.
So what are our options in Canada?
Damn that is fucking expensive even for the lower end packs. 60 Gb for 40 bucks? I hit that just through basic (legal) music download services and with a voip.
Wow so f*cked up limits in CA :( Thank god i live in Finland with 10mb/3mb connection without any quota and paying for 33e /mth.
It’s stupid that they count both your download and upload usage. That simply defeats the purpose of sharing, that they advertise.
I’m not sure if they throttle bittorrent, I have decent speeds on public trackers and very good speeds on private trackers. What I hate them for is their stupid limit. Why only 100 GB for the highest service, with 18Mbps download!?! I have the 3rd option (Express) and the limit is 60GB! WTF!?!
Since April 1 to April 11 alone i used 161.17 GB, and according to them, I need to pay an extra of $202.00 :-/ . They say the maximum they will charge is up to $25, starting from June. But that’s $25 extra for doing exactly what they advertise … AND they have no plans to introduce Fibre Optic Internet anytime soon…(probably they will make it $200/mo) Bastards…
[quote comment="339165"]ummm time for techsavvy.ca[/quote]
Definitely man, I will switch to techsavvy. Thanks for the website!
[quote comment="339687"]Seems like Rogers is run by some very intelligent managers. Removing Flat-Rates, blocking encrypted traffic, throttling bittorrent…
I mean c’mon are you serious. Who wants a provider like that? Do they still have any customers at all?[/quote]
Yes they do, cuz they are the major ISP unfortunately…
TEKSAVVY is now throttled (use Bell lines, which throttle any resellers)since 2 weeks… jeez read the news at dslreports BEFORE switching to another ISP
It’s sad to say, but this is the norm in Australia. I’ve just been sent a letter from my ISP threatening to disconnect me because I consistently use more than my download allowance (which can only be described as 4 GB of fun!)
I live in Windsor and in my area the only choices for me are Bell, Rogers, and stupid Cogeco (which is the worse of the three!) It seems like there is no light at the end of the tunnel for a lowly bittorent user like myself. Something needs to be done. Any suggestions? There is no reason this should be happening. I pay for unlimited internet. I expect that product to be delivered.
Because Canada is freaking village. Monopoly is everywhere. No alternative and no competition. They do what they want with the customers, because they know you have nowhere to go. Even gas stations. Before they were selling all different prices. Now—all the same.I hate them, and I hate that I can’t change anything!
I would have quit Rogers LONG ago, but in Canada its basically an oligopoly/monopoly. Rogers has the best speed and charges big $$ for it, and is pathetic compared to other countries. Rogers owns the cable lines all around the city (Toronto). They can shaft their customers in every orifice and they would have little choice. Bell owns all the phone lines, and offers DSL with slightly slower speeds, with that whole painful dial up process (i think).
I am really hoping an American company like at&t, verison, or whoever, comes up here and lays some fiber lines and starts offering decent internet.
dropped bell today, they have shaped traffic for close to a year, broke my contract without telling me, throttled so called “unlimited” account and now they have introduced this new b.s. 60gb cap per month with traffic shaping. i am urging all canadians to drop the monopolistic companies and go with the small providers. bell and rogers are are anti-competitive, anti-consumer and anti-net neutrality conglomerates that need to be kicked in the teeth with our pocket books.
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