Mobile Internet

[northofbolton]

My bill for Portable Internet is $56.44 a month which includes tax.

[leedelee]

What is Explorer Net? Rural Net?

[cocobolo]

I wonder why you are only getting 50-55 kbps?  I don't know what my actual speed is, bit it's way faster than the new hub they sent me.  That has been downloading at between 100 and 196 kbps, and the old modem runs rings around that no trouble at all.

[cocobolo]

I just received a notice in the mail from Rogers that they will be discontinuing the Portable Internet service as of March 1, 2012. They want me to me to switch to the Rocket hub so they can charge me exorbitant rates for what amounts to mediocre service. Living in a rural area we have few other options. Rogers already told me months ago that a Rocket hub would be too expensive and costly to use for anything other than mild internet service and email. Forget my son playing xbox live or my daughter viewing youtube. Anything that a city kid would normally do would be cost prohibitive with a Rogers Hub or the Bell equivalent. This is nothing more that extortion by both Rogers and Bell. I already have a Bell hub which I use solely for my work/office connection. No movies, no music just plain email and program maintenance etc via a vpn connection. Even with that I usually go over the 3 gb first tier which takes me from the minimum $45 per month to $55. If I let my son and daughter go online an do what most kids do I will be paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars per month. How do they get away with this. Where's the gov't now. What happened to affordable internet service for all. My tax dollars helped put up those towers for Bell. Why are they allowed to do this?

At least you got a letter from Rogers, which I more than I can say.  I found out from a friend of mine who happens to have a cabin on this island here, but who lives in Victoria.  I have had the old modem for over 4 years, and it has been good.

Thanks for noting your usage, I have been asking about that...and yours is the first number I have seen.  However, I also have read that Rogers has been adding 75% to 100% to one customers bill and he isn't happy about that at all.  If they do it to one person...

[cocobolo]

There is a maximum overge of $50 Rogers will charge on the Rocket HUB so your bill should never be > $110/mo.

Still overly expensive but better then nothing.

So:
Level 1 - $35 (up to 3 GB) 
Level 2 - $45 (up to 5 GB) 
Level 3 - $60 (up to 10 GB) 
(Overage: $10 per GB over 10 GB up to maximum of $50)

and FYI , I've downloaded music and watched hours of UTube and never exceeded 10G,in facct my total useage since Aug3/2011 is slighly over 34G and that's incudeing some Netflix movies.


When did you get this pricing information?  It seems that Rogers must have changed this recently as now they want to gouge, I mean charge, a maximum of $100 over and above the first $95 which covers you up to 15 gigs.  So a total of $195, plus miscellaneous nonsense plus taxes, so you're looking at $220 or so.

[cocobolo]

how were u paying $55/mo for portible internet? i was paying way less?

Pauly, how were you paying less?

Originally Rogers told me they were going to charge $29.95 a month for the first 6 months.  Of course, they reneged on that and my first bill was over $200.  True, it really was, and despite my best efforts I couldn't get any sort of refund.  It seems there was some sort of mistake. 

They made the same mistake again when I was convinced to try that useless rocket stick, only this time I caught it.  First bill for that came in at $163.  Another mistake it seems.  The stick got cancelled before one month but they still ended up charging me over $220...why?  Because Rogers refused to believe that the stick was cancelled in less than 30 days, was returned to the dealer, and my old modem was in fact running again.  I had to cancel it three times due to Rogers total ineptitude.

I have since found 6 other Rogers customers locally, and every one of them has experienced a heavy overcharge on their first bill any time a new piece of equipment has been added or changed.  So I will be awaiting the first bill on the new hub. 

[RogerC]

I had Portable Internet on a boat in a Richmond, BC, marina.  I didn't get any notice at the house address (locked Canada Post super mailbox).  I heard nobody in the marina got notice either.  So on March 1 without notice, I got a rude awakening.

I'm not happy with the Rocket Hub (Netcomm).  It doesn't come with a public IP address (which I had with Portable Internet) and I need that for my security camera DVR.  I had to pay an extra $5 for that, on top of the extra $10 (to go from $50/30GB to $60/30GB as I use a lot of Skype with my fiance at home in a different city).  Also, there seems to be a DNS problem which I solved with the help of @skinorth and @Chris.  But now the 3G side is cutting out as if the SIM card isn't working (maybe I should try the toothpick solution somebody else had).  While there are problems with any new technology, I'd like to see the Portable Internet system re-activated in the meantime.

As of today, I noticed that the Inukshuk network is still running although I can't access it.  I'm going to suggest that people write to the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services.  Do a Google search for the complaint form.

Also, I wasn't very happy when the Rogers tech support told me to call the premium tech support (at my cost) because he couldn't figure out my Netcomm problem.  I switched from Telus Mobility to Rogers because of Telus's deceptive practices and Rogers' ability to give me service credits with initial poor service with the Portable Internet.  In this day of social media, I still hope that Rogers listens to their customers.

Cheers!

[RobF]

They must have missed that part when they billed me $335. I've sinced dropped rogers like a hot potato and now have faster, more reliable DSL, 75 GB a month for $29.95 and no surprises.