Crawling back to cable

May 2, 2010 6:47 PM

Does Rogers Canada's high-speed Internet service currently engage in traffic shaping? If so, what exactly does it do? (i.e. what caps does it set, and at what times?) An easy question that is surprisingly difficult to find an answer for.

When I Google "Rogers traffic shaping" or "Rogers torrent throttling" I guess a whole mishmash of answers dating back several years. I know that years ago when I did have Rogers Internet they throttled torrents, which is why I switched to DSL.

DSL lines in Toronto, unfortunately, have frustrated me to the point where I'm thinking of going back to the big bad cable giant. If anyone knows, could they please tell me the following:

- Does Rogers shape traffic? More specifically, do they throttle torrents?

- If so, what hours of the day do they do so? What sort of download caps can I expect?

I think Rogers have never come clean on their traffic shaping practices, but surely current information must be out there.

I'm in midtown Toronto, if that helps. Thanks!

posted by hiteleven to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

CBC story from a little less than a year ago. I've seen no evidence that things have changed.
posted by the dief at 6:57 PM on May 2, 2010

Really? Right now, as far as I can tell, Rogers lets torrents run full-out and they charge you if you go over some limit, which I think is 100/month.

Bell might be offering Fiber in your area, you should check that as well.
posted by mhoye at 7:02 PM on May 2, 2010

100 gig/month, I should say.
posted by mhoye at 7:02 PM on May 2, 2010

Usually dslresports forums (not just DSL-related) have been a good source of assorted info. There's one for Rogers high-speed you can trawl through, but I linked one level up in case you're not aware of all the potential alternate providers, in the event you get really annoyed by Rogers, which is understandable.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 7:21 PM on May 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

My experience with Rogers is that they do, on occasion, throttle torrents, but not all the time. The throttling literally seems to move around the city (if you check DSLReports.com as already suggested, you'll see it happening as people mention it).

I had Rogers at King & Bathurst for two years (until November last year) and never saw throttling there, but did see it occasionally at Danforth & Broadview. Your bandwidth caps will depend on the tier that you sign up for, but Rogers has recently increased their maximum excess bandwidth charge to $50.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 8:17 PM on May 2, 2010

I'm a Rogers customer. The upper limit of bandwidth is 95 gb per month (they used to have an unlimited plan, but it's gone now). I've never seen any evidence that my torrent traffic has been slowed down recently or ever. But if I go over my limit I get charged. A lot.
posted by wabbittwax at 8:26 PM on May 2, 2010

Rogers user and no throttling here. I have been getting over 1 MB/s when it's a popular torrent.
posted by SNACKeR at 4:39 AM on May 3, 2010

Another option would be to get a bonded pair of DSL lines. My understanding of the filtering Bell does (even with resellers) is that it can't deal with bonded pairs, and therefore lets everything through unscathed. I know that TekSavvy sells this service.

MeMail me if you decide to go that route, I'd love the referral bonus! ;)
posted by lowlife at 11:12 AM on May 3, 2010