Let me preface this by saying, I, in no way dislike Rogers as an ISP, and am I, in no way advertising for other providers. I have no issues with it (besides the topic at hand), and I would like to open a dialogue with Rogers employees and the community to get a better understanding of what customers want and what can actually be provided (and reasoning for it). Also note that different providers, provide services in different areas, they do not cover all of Canada, and your location may dictate which service providers are available, therefore when discussing this topic, when I refer to a company, I'm referring it independently of services available in a given location.
I would like to have a discussion regarding upload bandwidth. For as long as I can remember, us Canadians, have had the one of the worst upload bandwidth, which to me in 2017 is not acceptable any more. Many people have begun careers at home (whether for a business or entrepreneurial) or even just brick and mortar businesses. For a brick and mortar store, many offer free Wi-Fi to their client which ends up saturating their bandwidth. For stay at home careerists, they depend on upload bandwidth for various tasks, such as (and not limiting to): video conferencing, transfer files whether to clients or web/file servers and etcetera.
According to Speedtest.net Report, no provider is capable of anything over 30 Mbps. As this isn't necessarily true as Bell is now offering 100Mbps on their Gigabit Fibe plan (which might I add is cheaper than Rogers offering). I also know that there are smaller providers such as Beanfield that offer 1Gbps upload bandwidth (what the actual result is, I cannot say, but apparently it is close to advertised). There is another provider in Muskoka, Ont, that offers the identical connection bandwidth to Beanfield (both are less expensive than Rogers/Bell, and have a smaller footprint as well).
Seeing how 2 small providers that are turning a profit with such a small foot print, I don't see how the bigger (see wealthier) internet providers, provide lackluster upload speeds. It may be for the fact there is more equipment needed therefore costs will go up or there are to many people on the network, but if smaller providers can achieve surely bigger more successful ones can as well.
Rogers offers 50Mbps upload to business, but some providers, offer identical packaging to businesses and consumers, the price may vary as business will get static IPs, dedicated lines and/or service agreements. In a CBC article from 2014 Why internet upload speed in Canada lags behind world average, Rogers stated that upstream usage only accounted for 13% of all traffic on its network and they expected it to increase 40% year over year. This was 3 years ago, if I remember correctly Rogers internet service plans were called Hybrid Fibre and the fastest connection was 60/10.
One of the limitations I believe is the infrastructure itself, as many cities in Canada capable of being developed as the costs are high, but that should not deter a higher upstream. Personally I would prefer the Canadian government to spend money on developing communications in Canada rather than spending money on other infrastructure projects (that will amount to money wasted). Rogers experienced an 11% growth in Internet revenue in the 2016 Annual report (seen here), Cable (Internet/TV) accounts for 25% of total revenue while, Business Solutions accounts for only 3%, yet according to the CBC article mentioned above, "Part of the problem lies in how telecommunications services have historically been sold in Canada. Many new innovations – think BlackBerry – have generally been aimed at businesses first, with mainstream consumers eventually following along," why would the focus be on business first when the gains in consumer products are higher?
According to BCE, Rogers racing to new frontier in high-speed Internet, Rogers has completed it's DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade in Toronto (no word on other cities/municipalities), and the cost to achieve this was roughly $250-300/home (est by Desjardins Securities Inc). BCE (Bell) is currently investing $1.14B in fibre services in Toronto and according to Barclay's Capital the cost is $400-700/home using aerial infrastructure (using hydro poles to run fibre vs burying underground). With DOCSIS 3.1 downstream capacity is 10 Gbps, while upstream is 1-2 Gbps. In full duplex (which I believe is not the case with Rogers), upstream capacity is 10 Gbps. The difference between BCE and Rogers, gigabit networks is one is cable the other is fibre. Fibre will always be faster and more efficient as outside interference does not affect it, and it is able to travel further distances. BCE is offering gigabit speeds with 70% more upstream for a cheaper price, and much more future proof with their fibre network.
What I propose is Rogers to offer a much higher upstream either to match competitors (BCE) or surpass them as many Canadians are doing more on the internet, and not just downloading "stuff." Sure there are people that will abuse it but provisions can be made to thwart that. Many Canadians are now using cloud storage and moving large amounts of files currently can be painful (I have had to upload gigs of data to clients/co-workers), more data is being shared then ever before and will only grow as more people being switching from physical data to digital (paper vs computer).
Thank you for listening/reading and I hope other Rogers customers will agree and we can get a good discussion going on here.
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