FIGHTING BACK ON THE COSTS OF LIVING - INTERNET PLANS COMPARED.

INTERNET

I have had it with the behemoth media corporations that are gouging the average ill-informed consumer for their basic media services (internet, cable, land-line and mobile phones). It seemed every month I was getting additional charges anywhere from $50-$200 in addition to my base rates.

My bills for cable TV, Internet, home phone and 3 cell phones, which were supposed to be saving me money due to "bundling" everything, were more than I could handle when they went from about $350 a month, to suddenly I was paying $600/mo. I just thought, "This can't be! Why is this costing me so much money?" 
 

I was with Rogers for quite a number of years and as I was quite busy with multiple music projects, as well as other work commitments, ie. jobs, concert bookings, graphic design, web-site building and on-line ticketing, I had had enough and decided I would do some research.

My first thought was, I can't be the only person with this problem, so why not ask my Facebook community about other options. I posted a request on my Facebook page for suggestions HERE and got tons of great responses and ideas.

Finally having some time to dig into all of the suggestions, I discovered that Rogers was charging me some of the highest fees on each of my services in the entire industry, and the services were bundled, one of their selling features to SAVE MONEY!

I was angry, but more than anything I was embarrassed that I let it go this long without doing any investigating and doing something about it.

So, now I am on a mission. Rogers cost me about $70,000 (about $40,000 more than I should have been paying) in the last 15 years since switching from Bell, who was also basically and similarly over-charging me for their services. At the time, Bell's customer support was absolutely so dreadful (I think I was on the phone with them once for something like 4 hours), that I blew a gasket and made the switch to Rogers.

The one thing I would say about my time with Rogers, is that I've not had bad experiences with their customer service other than wait times, the averages which is typical for call centres I've run in the past, so I know about drops, wait times, etc.. They weren't nearly as bad as what I had experienced with Bell, but I digress.

So, I've delved into a few questions here. First of all, I've noticed that the most popular plans are in the 30-50mbps range. So, I needed to find out more about the need for speed. Is 50mbps really necessary for what two adults were doing at home on two computers, an iPad, two cell phones (my daughter no longer lives at home and hasn't for 5 years) and internet TV viewing (basically Netflix once in awhile). Neither of us would be streaming simultaneously or at least not very often.

So I did a DuckDuckGo search (a search engine that doesn't track you) and I stumbled upon this site, which I found VERY informative. You too should read it. It may change what you think you need regarding internet speed.

 

HOW TO DECIDE WHAT INTERNET SPEED YOU NEED


After going to all of the Internet Service Providers web-sites and seeing what they were offering, I put together this chart below to give you an idea of what's available out there. I will never purchase a limited data internet plan again. So, I've listed mostly "UNLIMITED" internet plans and some that are strictly in my community of Stratford, Perth County and Southern Ontario.

 

I hope it helps you decide if what you have is worth it, or if you need to make a change. I know that I will be saving about $3,000 per year once I make the changes not only to my internet account, but also to my mobile plans, the comparable rates which i will post about shortly below. We are discontinuing cable and landline phone accounts and will be purchasing a digital antenna to get free basic major network channels, which is all we watch anyway.

 

Good Luck to you in finding the right solution.

 

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with any of these companies. If you find any errors or omissions, not including "promotions", please inform me with verifiable proof, i.e. a web-site with posted rates and I will attempt to update the chart as quickly as I possibly can. I have included offerings from each company from lower speeds of 5-20mbps up to 100mbps to show their range. If you are a family of 4 you will mostly likely need something in the 50mbps range for multi-device streaming and gaming. One to two adults probably somewhere in the 5-20mbps range according to the article above. Also, you can negotiate rates with most companies, but they all have minimums and can't budge after that. When Rogers offered me $120 for unlimited 50mbps internet and basic cable, I laughed, because I can get 20mbps unlimited internet (Rhyzome for $35/mo) and basic cable for $14/mo (from Execulink) for a total of $49/mo. And Rogers wouldn't match it. That $120 rate was Roger's incentive price and "bundled" to save money, to keep me as a customer. It was laughable.

 

Company Name Speed Limit Cost
TekSavvy 5mbps Unlimited $25/mo
Rhyzome (Stratford, ON Only) includes city-wide wifi 20mbps Unlimited $26/mo
TekSavvy 30mbps Unlimited $47/mo
Vmedia 15mbps Unlimited $40/mo
Acanac (2 yr term promo, 1st yr @ $19/mo) 15mbps Unlimited $39/mo
Start.ca 15mbps 300GB $40/mo
Vmedia 15mbps Unlimited $40/mo
Vmedia 25mbps Unlimited $44/mo
Mornington (Stratford, ON and area only) 20mbps Unlimited $44/mo
Wightman (Stratford and area) 50mbps Unlimited $65/mo
Acanac 75mbps Unlimited $50/mo
Start.ca 30mbps Unlimited $50/mo
Vmedia 50mbps Unlimited $50/mo
Virgin 25mbps Unlimited $50/mo
Mornington (Stratford and area) 50mbps (fibre) Unlimited $55/mo
TekSavvy 75mbps Unlimited $60/mo
Virgin 50mbps Unlimited $60/mo
Execulink 50mbps Unlimited $65/mo
Wightman (Stratford and area) 50mbps Unlimited $65/mo
Mornington (Stratford and area) 100mbps (fibre) Unlimited $70/mo