High-Speed Internet = High Prices in Canada
There used to be two facts about high-speed Internet access that Canadians used to boast about: we had the highest penetration of broadband users in the world, and prices were reasonable.
Well, neither of those are true anymore. In terms of access, we’ve fallen out of the top-10 as the digital divide in Canada takes hold. (I mean, there are still more than three million dial-up users hanging around!). And when it comes to high-speed prices, they continue to creep up as the cablecos and carriers focus on ARPU (aka squeezing more money from their customers).
Rogers, for example, will be raising prices for three of seven high-speed packages - claiming the new rates are being introduced “so we can continue to bring you improvements through innovation, now and in the future”. (Rogers is also raising the price for many of its cable packages, while increasing the “system access fee” for its telephone service by more than 30% to $5.95/month from $4.50.)
If you’re a Rogers Yahoo Hi-Speed Extreme customer, you’ll now be paying $54.95 a month rather than $52.95, while Hi-Speed Ultra-Lite customers will pay $23.95 rather than $21.95 (a 10% increase). For Extreme customers, the silver lining is download speeds have been bumped up to 10mbps (Warning: If you’re using a P2P service, throttling bandwidth management may apply.)
Sure, there’s competition if you want to switch to a carrier like Bell or Telus but they’re also looking for ARPU bumps. Meanwhile, everyone keeps talking about WiMax but the Inukshuk network is owned by Bell and Rogers so don’t expect any bargains there either.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Its no wonder there is such a high rate of media piracy in Canada. Who can afford to purchase movies and music when we pay such high prices for the television and internet mediums. Between my 70$ monthly satellite bill and the 56$ internet bill I should be able to watch what I want and listen to what I want when I want.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
My Rogers extreme still shows as 5.9Mbps down and 700kbps up so it looks like they haven’t increased speeds yet, at least not in my neighbourhood.
Are they increasing the upload speeds as this is becoming more of a bottleneck to me to use placeshifting software like WebGuide for MCE or Orb.
January 12th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Replace “…continue to bring your improvements through innovation, now and in the future” with “…because there is so little competition in the Canadian marketplace, we are going to stick you with higher prices to maximize return to our shareholders. Bend over”.
January 12th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I wouldn’t make too much of the league tables…I’m not sure how much I should care that Monaco or Macau has a higher broadband penetration, or Iceland for that matter. It’s way more important that we’re ahead of the US, because it improves our ability to attract companies with our education & computer literate workforce.
As for my cable bill…I know Rogers bashing is a national sport, but I don’t see this particularly onerous. They haven’t done a major price increase in a few years, and a lot of the prices actually went down when they repackaged everything a while back. I “upgraded” last year from an old “pick 10 digital channels” package to a “get all the digital channels” package for $3 more…and probably added 30 channels in the process.
At the same time, the flagship internet product, Express, is more than double the speed it was when I first got it 9 years ago, and the network is much more consistent…all for basically the same price. They’ll be doing more and more channel bonding to deliver higher speeds under DOCSIS 3.0…which in fact does increase their cost, since channels are a valuable asset / scarce resource.
I’m a quad play customer with cable, internet, phone and wireless. My regular bill for all of that is about $200 + tax. This increase for me is $6.50/mo…or 3.25%…or somewhere just north of inflation. All in all…I’d say cut them some slack.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Just a note to add to Erik’s comments. Last summer Rogers increased the download speeds from 6 Mpbs to 8 Mbps with no rate increase. So, relative to a year ago we have seen a 67% speed increase for a 3.6% price increase.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
There is too little competition in Canada and Roger’s position on a variety of issues illustrates a disadvantage for Canadians:
Why is there a Rogers fee for Tivo?
Why do I need a Rogers box for HD content (both a Rogers and regulatory issue - somewhat intertwined).
etc.
Rogers makes an inordinate amount of money for a satisfactory service and their excessive returns are not commensurate with their products and services. It seems pretty clear that Rogers would be acting differently if there was viable strong competitors. There aren’t and consumers, as a result, suffer. Too bad really.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:17 am
[...] of its contemporaries and actually increasing prices. Also see Mark Evan’s blog for a good piece on [...]
March 10th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Here in Victoria we have Shaw inflicted on us instead of Rogers but the same BS applies. As for the comments asking us to please give the poor little old cable company a break………I would bear in mind that it is a very common practice for employees of companies to be “encouraged” to respond online to name and shame blogs, etc.
My sister works for Shaw Cable here and although I don’t believe she has been encouraged by them to pose as a satisfied customer, still the brainwashing is something else. My sister is not an untelligent woman but hearing her automatically trot out the company line whenever they are criticised I can understand what a short step it would be to an online crusade posing as a satisfied customer.
Fact: companies are in business to make profits, the bigger they get, the less realistic competition, the greater the profit maximisation. Value for money, customer service, fairness do NOT enter into it at all. They don’t fatten the bottom line. That is the free enterprise facts of life, whether there is a better alternative or not is another subject that I’m not getting into.
May 25th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
OK let’s really look at this issue. I personally have been looking for hi-speed internet for my small business. Here in Edmonton Telus is the bully. Several years back, I had them hook-up phone service…I ran top of the line networking, hi-speed, etc, wire in my building. I switched from them a year later to save 33% on 3 lines. Turns out, I can get hi-speed from the little guy but Telus WILL NOT give me dsl access on my lines unless they are providing the line service. Translated, this means I have to give up my 33% savings and they now want over $100 more than my other provider to get hi-speed with my business lines. Absolutely ridiculous. The second an internet company sees ‘business’ they automatically charge at least 100% more! To tell you the truth, I use my home hi-speed way more than at work soooo why the high prices…not that I’m getting any deal at home either $41.95..I see the prices for hi-speed in the states being $19.99 WHY? The bottom line of profit..period.
June 7th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hi,
I am on rogers from nov 07 and I’m very disappointed about them:
1. bad customer service (it was more then 24h, maybe 48h spent waiting at the phone and talking with an operator, in 6 months)
2. right now is a download limit (60giga) and it wasn’t from the beginning, from that time when I choose Rogers, or whatever wasn’t specified in the rogers offer…
3. very slow upload
4. they has put on my bill services that I never chose before (in 2 months I payed more than $200, and the regulary bill is around $100…)
5. there is an option they can take the money directly from my visa account, I’ve select this bills payment option and they never send to me a bill, through my mail. When a was to the bank they told me that I need to talk with Rogers if I want to change the payment method. Wtf? It’s my bank account and I expect to have total access to.
…and so on, there are many more problems with rogers internet provider