Rogers Hi-Speed Internet
Encyclopedia
Rogers Hi-Speed Internet is a broadband
Internet service provider
in Canada
, owned by Rogers Communications
. Rogers previously operated under the brand names Rogers@Home
, Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet, and Road Runner
in Newfoundland
. It is currently the second largest Internet provider in Canada, after Bell Internet by customer-count.
to offer Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet to its members. This included service offers unlimited e-mail storage, plus access to Premium Yahoo! Services at no charge, including a Flickr
PRO account. Customers with websites previously hosted by Rogers were offered the option of transferring to ca.geocities.com addresses. (Unike regular GeoCities websites, these were ad-free for existing accounts, although those for new customers had drop-down ads.) All such websites were discontinued with the closure of GeoCities
on 27 October 2009. Although still partnered with Yahoo!, Rogers dropped Yahoo! from its services name in 2008.
In mid-2009, Rogers discontinued giving free Flickr Pro accounts to all Rogers customers and switched all accounts to the free version while allowing old pictures and videos to be stored even though it was over the allowed limit.
Bandwidth cap
Rogers has been reducing monthly data transfer limits for their lower-tier services. The Ultra-Lite package has gone from a 60 GB limit to 2 GB, and the Lite package has gone from a 60 GB limit to 25 GB, then (as of July 21, 2010) capped to a 15 GB limit.
Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet users are now sometimes being warned through their browser via Rogers-injected code that they have reached 75% of their limit and again at 100% of their limit and will be charged for additional usage at the time of the 100% warning. If the limit is exceeded, the customer will be subject to additional charges. The overcharge fees are charged on a per-gigabyte basis (rounded down to the nearest gigabyte) at a high rate for cheaper plans, and a lower rate per additional overdraft gigabyte for the more expensive plans. The Portable Internet bandwidth cap is not enforced.
, Rogers switched to offering Rogers Online Protection. It contains anti-virus/spyware, parent/privacy control and firewall features. A cutoff time of June 30, 2009 was set for people to switch from their previous protections to this new one.
The security suite is distributed for free with basic services, such as antivirus, antispyware, firewall, and parental controls, while premium services, at an additional cost, include PC optimizing tools, identity theft protection, wireless security services, and backup services. The security suite only supports Microsoft Windows
operating systems.
to identify and throttle BitTorrent traffic. and use website address errors (failed DNS lookups) to redirect traffic to their search portal. They have also made a controversial move to display advertisements in webmail even though users pay for the service.
, Bell Aliant, MTS Allstream, Rogers, Shaw
, SaskTel
, Telus
, and Vidéotron
announced "Project Cleanfeed Canada" in November 2006; this involves the blocking of access to a blacklist of sites suspected to contain child pornography. The blacklist is compiled from reports by Internet users and investigated by the independent organization Cybertip.ca
.
using equipment from Sandvine
Inc, which has caused complaints as users feel Rogers is overstepping their bounds as a service provider and despite Rogers advertising their service “for sharing large files and much more”. Rogers has previously denied such allegations, despite widespread reports of the issue. Further controversy arose when in May 2007, Rogers began throttling all encrypted file transfers allegedly to combat BitTorrent traffic, but affecting all encrypted transfers regardless if they are BitTorrent traffic or not.
In January 2011, the CRTC issued a letter to Rogers stating it was breaking CRTC policy by actively throttling download speeds while Peer-2-Peer (P2P) was active without notifying users 30 days in advance of the change, and without updating its Network Management policies page on their website.
Despite the letter from the CRTC, Rogers still had not updated their policy pages as of February 4th, 2011, and had in fact begun throttling all internet traffic (no longer just P2P) for up to 15 minutes after P2P had been disabled. Several games have been caught up in this more restrictive throttling as Rogers is incorrectly detecting them as P2P, and has also been slow to fix it despite offers of assistance from customers, and game manufacturers.
Since early December, 2007, Rogers has been injecting their own content into other companies' websites without permission. Rogers users who are close to the maximum download limit are seeing red text appear above the content of every website they visit. The notice continues to appear on every page until the user either clicks a link acknowledging that they have seen the message or chooses to opt out of the notification.
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, owned by Rogers Communications
Rogers Communications
Rogers Communications Inc. is one of Canada's largest communications companies, particularly in the field of wireless communications, cable television, home phone and internet with additional telecommunications and mass media assets...
. Rogers previously operated under the brand names Rogers@Home
@Home Network
@Home Network was a high-speed cable Internet service provider from 1996 to 2002. It was founded by Milo Medin, cable companies TCI, Comcast, and Cox Communications, and William Randolph Hearst III, who was their first CEO, as a joint venture to produce high-speed cable Internet service through...
, Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet, and Road Runner
Road Runner (ISP)
Road Runner High Speed Online is a US Internet service provider which provides cable Internet service over DOCSIS-compatible modems. A division of Time Warner Cable, it also contracts its service to other cable providers, often in competition with ISPs owned by local telephone...
in Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
. It is currently the second largest Internet provider in Canada, after Bell Internet by customer-count.
Relationship with Yahoo!
In 2004, Rogers partnered with Yahoo!Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
to offer Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet to its members. This included service offers unlimited e-mail storage, plus access to Premium Yahoo! Services at no charge, including a Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
PRO account. Customers with websites previously hosted by Rogers were offered the option of transferring to ca.geocities.com addresses. (Unike regular GeoCities websites, these were ad-free for existing accounts, although those for new customers had drop-down ads.) All such websites were discontinued with the closure of GeoCities
GeoCities
Yahoo! GeoCities is a web hosting service, currently available only in Japan.GeoCities was originally founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet . In its original form, site users selected a "city" in which to place their web pages...
on 27 October 2009. Although still partnered with Yahoo!, Rogers dropped Yahoo! from its services name in 2008.
In mid-2009, Rogers discontinued giving free Flickr Pro accounts to all Rogers customers and switched all accounts to the free version while allowing old pictures and videos to be stored even though it was over the allowed limit.
Bandwidth capBandwidth capA bandwidth cap, also known as a bit cap, limits the transfer of a specified amount of data over a period of time. Internet service providers commonly apply a cap when a channel intended to be shared by many users becomes overloaded, or may be overloaded, by a few users...
s
Rogers has been reducing monthly data transfer limits for their lower-tier services. The Ultra-Lite package has gone from a 60 GB limit to 2 GB, and the Lite package has gone from a 60 GB limit to 25 GB, then (as of July 21, 2010) capped to a 15 GB limit.Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet users are now sometimes being warned through their browser via Rogers-injected code that they have reached 75% of their limit and again at 100% of their limit and will be charged for additional usage at the time of the 100% warning. If the limit is exceeded, the customer will be subject to additional charges. The overcharge fees are charged on a per-gigabyte basis (rounded down to the nearest gigabyte) at a high rate for cheaper plans, and a lower rate per additional overdraft gigabyte for the more expensive plans. The Portable Internet bandwidth cap is not enforced.
| Service | Download speed | Upload speed | Monthly bandwidth limits | P2P bandwidth limits | Over Usage Charge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra-Lite* | 500 kbit/s | 256 kbit/s | 2 GB (was 60) | 80 kbit/s (10 kB/s) upload speed | $5/GB |
| Lite* | 3 Mbit/s | 15 GB (was 60, was 25) | $4/GB (was $2.50/GB) | ||
| Express (DOCSIS 3.0)* | 12 Mbit/s | 512 kbit/s | 60 GB | $2/GB | |
| Extreme (DOCSIS 3.0)* | 24 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 100 GB (was 95, was 80) | $1.50/GB | |
| Extreme Plus (DOCSIS 3.0)* | 32 Mbit/s | 150 GB (was 125) | $1.25/GB | ||
| Ultimate (DOCSIS 3.0)** | 50 Mbit/s (75Mbit/s in Atlantic Canada) | 2 Mbit/s | 250 GB (was 175) | $0.50/GB | |
| Rocket Hub (Ericsson W35)*** | 7.2 Mbit/s | 5.76 Mbit/s | Flexible: 3 , 5, or 10 GB | $9, $6, or $10/GB (after exceeding 10 GB/mth) | |
| Rocket Hub (NetComm 3G25W-R)*** | 21 Mbit/s HSPA (7.2 Mbit/s otherwise) | ||||
| Portable Internet* | 3 Mbit/s | 256 kbit/s | 30 GB | not currently enforced | |
| Portable Internet Lite* | 512 kbit/s | 128 kbit/s | 10 GB |
- Peer to peer upload bandwidth limits are area dependent, thus not all Rogers customers have this limit
- Rocket Hub plans are tiered: 0 GB-3 GB, 3 GB-5 GB, 5 GB-10 GB. Users are automatically moved to the next tier when they exceed their current tier's usage. Over use charges are capped at a maximum of $50/month. Usage over 50GB/month is considered abusive and subject to account throttling or termination.
- Lite (excluding Portable) download cap was lowered to 15 GB (from 25 GB) and the over usage charge was increased to $4/GB (was $2.50/GB) to a maximum of $50/month (was $30/month). If signed up before July 21, 2010, customers will continue to have the old cap limit, usage allowance remains at 25GB and additional usage charges remains at $2.50/GB to a maximum of $30/month. Additionally, customers in the Atlantic provinces will continue to have the old cap limit, usage allowance remains at 25GB, and additional usage charges remains at $2.50/GB to a maximum of $30/month.
- For High Speed Internet (delivered over cable) and Portable Internet, the maximum upload speed for P2P file sharing traffic is 80 kbit/s at all times. There are no limits on download speed for any application or protocol.
- Please note that these numbers are currently being rolled out by rogers. The changes are: Express - download speed is being increased from 10 Mbit to 12 Mbit providing a DOCSIS 3.0 modem (the wireless N gateway router) is present. Extreme - download speed is being increased from 15 Mbit to 24 Mbit and download cap increased from 80 GB to 100 GB. Extreme Plus - download speed is being increased from 25 Mbit to 32 Mbit and download cap from 125 GB to 150 GB. Ultimate - Increased download cap from 175 GB to 250 GB. .
Security
While previously offering Norton Internet SecurityNorton Internet Security
Norton Internet Security, developed by Symantec Corporation, provides malware prevention and removal during subscription period and uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features include a software firewall, e-mail spam filtering, and phishing protection.Symantec distributes...
, Rogers switched to offering Rogers Online Protection. It contains anti-virus/spyware, parent/privacy control and firewall features. A cutoff time of June 30, 2009 was set for people to switch from their previous protections to this new one.
The security suite is distributed for free with basic services, such as antivirus, antispyware, firewall, and parental controls, while premium services, at an additional cost, include PC optimizing tools, identity theft protection, wireless security services, and backup services. The security suite only supports Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating systems.
Controversy
Rogers has been criticised for traffic redirection and inspection. They use deep packet inspectionDeep packet inspection
Deep Packet Inspection is a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a packet as it passes an inspection point, searching for protocol non-compliance, viruses, spam, intrusions or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can...
to identify and throttle BitTorrent traffic. and use website address errors (failed DNS lookups) to redirect traffic to their search portal. They have also made a controversial move to display advertisements in webmail even though users pay for the service.
Project Cleanfeed
Internet service providers BellBell Canada
Bell Canada is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Including its subsidiaries such as Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for telephone and DSL Internet services in most of Canada east of Manitoba and in the northern territories,...
, Bell Aliant, MTS Allstream, Rogers, Shaw
Shaw Communications
Shaw Communications is Canada's largest telecommunications company that provides telephone, Canada's fastest Internet and television services as well as broadcasting and soon Wifi. Shaw is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta...
, SaskTel
SaskTel
Saskatchewan Telecommunications is a provincial Crown Corporation operating under the authority of the Saskatchewan Telecommunications Act. It is the only remaining Crown Corporation in the Canadian telecommunications industry....
, Telus
TELUS
Telus is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video, and satellite television. The company is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver...
, and Vidéotron
Vidéotron
Vidéotron GP is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Currently, the company primarily serves Quebec, as well as the francophone...
announced "Project Cleanfeed Canada" in November 2006; this involves the blocking of access to a blacklist of sites suspected to contain child pornography. The blacklist is compiled from reports by Internet users and investigated by the independent organization Cybertip.ca
Cybertip.ca
Cybertip.ca is Canada's official tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children. The tipline is owned and operated by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, a charitable organization...
.
Throttling
BitTorrent traffic is restricted through bandwidth throttlingBandwidth throttling
Bandwidth throttling is a reactive measure employed in communication networks to regulate network traffic and minimize bandwidth congestion. Bandwidth throttling can occur at different locations on the network. On a local area network , a sysadmin may employ bandwidth throttling to help limit...
using equipment from Sandvine
Sandvine
Sandvine Incorporated , in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.Sandvine network policy control products are designed to implement broad network policies, ranging from service creation, billing, congestion management, and security...
Inc, which has caused complaints as users feel Rogers is overstepping their bounds as a service provider and despite Rogers advertising their service “for sharing large files and much more”. Rogers has previously denied such allegations, despite widespread reports of the issue. Further controversy arose when in May 2007, Rogers began throttling all encrypted file transfers allegedly to combat BitTorrent traffic, but affecting all encrypted transfers regardless if they are BitTorrent traffic or not.
In January 2011, the CRTC issued a letter to Rogers stating it was breaking CRTC policy by actively throttling download speeds while Peer-2-Peer (P2P) was active without notifying users 30 days in advance of the change, and without updating its Network Management policies page on their website.
Despite the letter from the CRTC, Rogers still had not updated their policy pages as of February 4th, 2011, and had in fact begun throttling all internet traffic (no longer just P2P) for up to 15 minutes after P2P had been disabled. Several games have been caught up in this more restrictive throttling as Rogers is incorrectly detecting them as P2P, and has also been slow to fix it despite offers of assistance from customers, and game manufacturers.
Injection of content