Videotron is rolling out a new ultra-super-mega-speed cable Internet service, 50 megabits per second, starting in Laval. Unfortunately there are two problems with it:
- It’s expensive. $90 a month ($80 with a 12-month subscription)
- There’s a 50GB cap (combined upload/download), $1.50/GB after that, with no upper limit on bandwidth-related overcharges. This cap is actually lower than their 10 megabit “Extreme High-Speed” service, which is only $75/month and has a 100GB/month cap.
According to my l33t math skills, it would take just over two hours at the maximum download speed to surpass the cap. In the theoretical (but practically impossible) situation where you were using that bandwidth non-stop for a 30-day month, the overage charges would amount to $24,225.00.
Roberto offers that you won’t be using the top speed all the time, which is true. At just about anything beyond 10 or 15 megabits, the bottleneck is going to be on the other side.
But if you’re not going to use the top speed, why pay for it? The 30-megabit service is $15 less per month, and still faster than you’ll really need unless you have a dozen people in your family downloading movies at the same time.
This service sounds good on pamphlets and in press releases, but the cap ensures that the people who would really find such service useful aren’t the ones they want using it.
UPDATE (March 15): Criticism of Videotron’s marketing campaign, which seems to be targetted at movie downloaders.
To me this sounds like the 10Mbit cap is going to come down to 50gb as well. probably about a week after your contract renews.
I wish instead of more internet options they would get up to speed with their HD line up or work on the reliability and quality of their current services.
50gb cap!? I pay $29/month for DSL service from TekSavvy and I have a 200gb cap. For $39 I could have unlimited bandwidth.
I guess this is worse than the $4,774 that you’d pay if you used if you somehow managed to use the Vidéotron Extreme High-Speed to its fullest capacity. That’s also supposing that you are only downloading, which at those nigh impossible volumes would probably make you one of the largest P2P leeches out there. (Because really, what else is a private person going to do with a series of tubes that big?)
Your argument of a potential cost of $24k is dishonest, yet valid; we know that it’s impossible to download that much consistently, but Vidéotron is equally cognizant of that when it attempts to sell that point to you.
That being said, you’re right that this package doesn’t make a lot of sense for most people. To be honest, I can’t see who this would really appeal to. Maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe they’re only offering a package for promotional reasons while they put the higher-bandwidth infrastructure in place for the future. Transfer rates is one of the marketing ploys ISP’s use (“OMG Now iz wit 3x teh speed of our competition!!!111one!”).
Okay, maybe the marketing copy doesn’t look exactly like that. At least, not the final product. Your 1337§¶34X reference inspired me. Now it’s off to icanhascheezburger.com for me.
I got screwed by Videotron for a few hundred dollars by being surprised by their semi-recent 100GB caps. They claim they sent me a letter in the mail, and while I don’t doubt they did send one, I never saw it, and I certainly never agreed to it. Don’t you think a service change that could (and did) more than double my bill should be approved by me PERSONALLY? Don’t you think that’s the least they could do when someone is paying them over $100 a month as it is, for a residential service?
I’ve very recently switched to b2b2c.ca and have been very happy so far in my interactions with them, and the service has also been reliable. Mind you it’s only been a week, but it’s been a bright new change from the rudeness, lies and dirty business tactics of Videotron. Plus there’s no transfer fee if you let them take care of canceling with Videotron — though if you’re in one of Videotron’s commitments, you could owe $240 or more if they f*** you over and change the terms of the service that they advertised to and sold you.
Way to show how loyal you are to your long time customers, Videotron.
it’s because they need some change to save Quebecor
Pissing off customers and mistreating them in order to save a business? That must be some new age strategy I haven’t heard of.
I pay 29.95/month with a local company called ZiD and have unlimited bandwidth. The customer service is great too because it’s such a small company. I called once when I was setting up my service and had to call back the next day. It was the same person I called the day before and she remembered me.
They recently charged me over $2000 in overages in 3 months. They have no sympathy. I was never sent ANY correspondance, including the contract in my mother tongue, English. Once I signed up for online billing, they were sending my email notices to the woman that used to live in my apartment, how the hell would I know her emaail address!!!. My most recent bill with them was approx $950 for ONE MONTH! They could care less about anything but the bottom line.
They have take 10% of my annual income for 3 months of internet service. When I asked if he thought that was reasonable and fair, he said YES.
My final point with them is that all they offered to do for me was upgrade me to the commercial plan. Too friggin’ late. The $120 cancellation fee sounded like the best deal I’d heard all day. I mentioned that when they called me a couple months ago to offer me phone service for the second time in six months, it would’ve been nice for them to say “by the way, your bill is high and we have a better plan for you”. The guy thought that was a bad idea.
I hope Videotron and all its employees, as well as Quebecor rot in hell.