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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@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!
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