In a house with 4 highly tech savvy (no pun intended) students, one tends to use a lot of bandwidth. A LOT.
Having had good experience with Teksavvy at home (and the fact the they have unlimited plans) meant the logical choice was to go with the Teksavvy Cable 28 plan, which offers 28Mb/s download and 1Mb/s upload. This plan costs $61.95/month, which comes to exactly $70 a month with tax included.
In this comparison I will demonstrate how whichever way you look at the issues Rogers does not make financial sence. The two plans I will be comparing to our Teksavvy plan will be one of comparable speed and one of comparable price. On the speed side that means the Rogers Express Internet plan which offers 25Mb/s download and 2Mb/s upload speeds with a 80GB monthly cap and a $2/GB overage charge. The plan of comparable cost is the Rogers Extreme Internet plan which offers 35Mb/s download and 3Mb/s upload, a 120GB monthly cap, and $1.5/GB overage charge. Both of the Rogers plans limit the overage charges to $100/month.
The following is a chart outlining the calculations I have done for this comparison. This comparison runs from when we first ordered the internet in September through the completed month, February. Bandwidth is listed in GB.
| Months | Teksavvy Bandwidth | Teksavvy Monthly Cost | Rogers Price Comparison Overage Charges | Rogers Price Comparison Monthly Cost | Rogers Speed Comparison Overage Charges | Rogers Speed Comparison Monthly Cost |
| September | 692.199 | $70.00 | $858.30 | $186.44 | $1,224.40 | $171.75 |
| October | 476.708 | $70.00 | $535.06 | $186.44 | $793.42 | $171.75 |
| November | 1247.894 | $70.00 | $1,691.84 | $186.44 | $2,335.79 | $171.75 |
| December | 639.057 | $70.00 | $778.59 | $186.44 | $1,118.11 | $171.75 |
| January | 888.713 | $70.00 | $1,153.07 | $186.44 | $1,617.43 | $171.75 |
| February | 908.429 | $70.00 | $1,182.64 | $186.44 | $1,656.86 | $171.75 |
| Total | $420.00 | $6,199.50 | $1,118.63 | $8,746.00 | $1,030.49 | |
| Difference | $5,779.50 | $698.63 | $8,326.00 | $610.49 |
As we pay a flat rate for unlimited Teksavvy internet we only ever pay $70, bringing the total to $420 so far.
Rogers Price Comparison Overage Charges uses the equation ((Teksavvy Bandwidth-120)*1.5) to calculate the overage charges by subtracting the monthly cap from the total usage and then multiplying the remainder by $1.5/GB. This is a calculation which ignores that overage charge cap to demonstrate the potential costs.
Rogers Price Comparison Monthly Cost uses the equation (64.99 + IF(Rogers Price Comparison Overage Charges>=100, 100, Rogers Price Comparison Overage Charges))*1.13 to calculate the total cost each month. The conditional statement checks if the overage charges are above $100, and if true sets it to $100, otherwise it is left as is. This overage charge is then applied to the monthly plan fee , in the case of the Rogers Extreme Internet plan $64.99, and 13% sales tax is then applied.
Rogers Speed Comparison Overage Charges is the same as Rogers Price Comparison Overage Charges except that it uses a overage cost of $2/GB.
Rogers Speed Comparison Monthly Cost is the same as Rogers Price Comparison Monthly Cost except that the plan costs only $51.99.
This leaves us with 5 important numbers. $420, the cost of our Teksavvy connection thus far. $1118.63, the cost of the Rogers Extreme Internet plan with our level of usage. $1030.49, the cost of the Rogers Express Internet plan with our level of usage. These numbers are insane, and are near criminal, and there is no way one should be paying over $1000 for only 6 months of internet. This level of overage capping is really just discuraging people from accessing media (the main bandwidth hog) online, and instead subscribing to a Rogers Cable TV plan (though that debate is something for another day). The kicker though is when you consider the disparity between what one pays on Teksavvy (which is running on the same network) compared to that on Rogers. For the Extreme plan you would be paying almost $700 more, while on the Express plan you will be paying just over $600 more. These number are completely unreasonable, and there is no reason one should be paying almost twice as much on Rogers.
So the conclusion here (for rlight and heavy usage users alike) is that there is no rational reason to purchase your internet through Rogers as you can get the same service, on the same lines, for a fraction of the cost through the likes of Teksavvy.
