Switch to Tekksavvy, their cap is 250, or if you pay a little more(40 bucks in total) you get unlimited:
http://www.teksavvy.com/en/resdsl.asp?ID=7&mID=1

Its time versus money here, so with a bit of work, you'll save some money. Your call I guess.

Originally Posted by dsahota

If your landlord is on Cogeco, you could suggest to him / her that they switch to the business package from Cogeco. The business starter package is only +$15 / month more and doubles the monthly data transfer limit to 120 GB. The SOHO standard package is +$50 / month and gets you 200 GB of data transfer per month plus and increase in download/upload speed as well.

If you do rack up big internet bills don't be surprised if your landlord asks that you and your roommates split up the overuse charge. Typically landlords would argue that the over data transfer charge is not part of normal use, etc etc.

The Cogeco business packages are here:

http://www.cogeco.ca/cable/on/en/bus.../forfaits.html

It probably depends on the terms of your lease.

If it says internet use is included and doesn't stipulate any terms or conditions for that then they would have a case that they are allowed to use as much bandwidth as they want and its included in their rent as per their lease. If there were terms and conditions in the lease about that type of thing the landlord might be able to ask them to pay overage fees.

I used to live with 8 people and had the 60 GB limit and we'd always reach it. Cogeco would typically just shut it down and you press a link acknowledging that you've reached it and you get your internet back in 24 hours.

At the moment I'm with 6 people and we're with Cogeco again but we went for the "Pro" package, a lot faster than the 60 GB one and we get 125 GB a month. A little more expensive though but not much choice when you're in hamilton, either you get Cogeco or the other one's with more bandwidth but sacrifice speed and share the slower speed among 6 people. To the best of my knowledge, we've gone over our limit a few times already, around 6 GB and one month 17 GB and Cogeco hasn't charged us, kinda weird but I'm not complaining.

I know Rogers doesn't provide in hamilton, I think Bell does however I'm not sure if it's any better or worse.

When you guys say Teksavvy is slower, do you mean just downloading speeds or the internet in general?

We're all plugged into the wall, and some of my friends were on wireless... by the way they were talking, it sounded like their wireless was faster than our plugging into the wall. (just in general, not necessarily download speeds).

I dunno, our internet seems kinda slow to begin with. o_O

If I went with teksavvy, I/we would get the DSL High Speed Internet with unlimited bandwidth for 39.95/month (which is exactly what we're paying now for 60 gigs/month). I mean, how slow can DSL be? o_O

Also, what about leaving MSN on overnight? Would that add up after a month? Anyone know/guesstimate a general number for it?

Cogeco $39.95
Limit 60 GB
Speed 14 Mbps

Tekksavvy $39.95
Unlimited GB
Speed 5 Mbps

Cogeco Pro $76.95
Limit 125 GB
Speed 16 Mbps

I'd say Msn is pretty negligible to be honest. If you're not sending anything or using audio/video chat not much bandwidth is being taken there. Using text is pretty insignificant so you're safe with that.

Originally Posted by Furgs

Cogeco $39.95
Limit 60 GB
Speed 14 Mbps

Tekksavvy $39.95
Unlimited GB
Speed 5 Mbps

Cogeco Pro $76.95
Limit 125 GB
Speed 16 Mbps

Right, but are those download speeds only? Or is that actually gonna be the difference between just the general internet speed (like loading a page, or streaming a youtube vid).

Cuz I mean... if that's 5megs/second downloads, that's still really fast (considering I had dial up back at home in the summer). >_<

There would be a difference when downloading a video or streaming something for sure since 14 Mbps and 5 Mbps is a pretty big difference. Loading pages might not be too bad, might have to wait a bit longer.

The speed really isn't that big of an issue I would say but considering you have 6 people that you're living with, then that might make things a little....slower. Since having the dial all to yourself at home and having 6 people use it might make a difference.

you can use a software like ISP Monitor to check your bandwidth usage

Originally Posted by lawleypop

Right, but are those download speeds only? Or is that actually gonna be the difference between just the general internet speed (like loading a page, or streaming a youtube vid).

Cuz I mean... if that's 5megs/second downloads, that's still really fast (considering I had dial up back at home in the summer). >_<

You won't noice a difference in everyday use but downloading movies will take a bit longer. Since you all download alot it's worth getting slower speed to get unlimted downloading.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

Right, but are those download speeds only? Or is that actually gonna be the difference between just the general internet speed (like loading a page, or streaming a youtube vid).

Cuz I mean... if that's 5megs/second downloads, that's still really fast (considering I had dial up back at home in the summer). >_<

I went from Cogeco to my parents 5 Mbps DSL for a few months, and it was a noticible difference. I gave up watching my youtube subscriptions, stopped playing most games, and generally did nothing other than surf forums, use facebook, and IM people because the loading times made my want to put my foot through my tower. But comparing it to dial up, you'd probably be in heaven

Originally Posted by Furgs

Cogeco $39.95
Limit 60 GB
Speed 14 Mbps

Don't you have to have some other Cogeco services (Digital Home Phone or Cable TV) in order to get that rate?

I was paying almost $50 a month for Cogeco without TV/Phone, dropped it for Teksavvy. The speed was nice but not worth the hassles of bandwidth restrictions.

Cogeco is now charging for overages and it looks like Teksavvy will no longer be able to provide more than 60GB without huge charges due to changes at Bell's end (they piggyback off Bell's infrastructure in a way). So the party's almost over...

Originally Posted by reeves

I went from Cogeco to my parents 5 Mbps DSL for a few months, and it was a noticible difference. I gave up watching my youtube subscriptions, stopped playing most games, and generally did nothing other than surf forums, use facebook, and IM people because the loading times made my want to put my foot through my tower. But comparing it to dial up, you'd probably be in heaven

I really don't think it could be that slow. If I could load youtube videos on my almost dial up, then I think they would load just fine on high speed dsl o_O