Month: March 2008

Rogers users last week were delivered letters indicating the provider’s intent to start implementing usage caps of 60GB and 95GB for the two standard tiers, Express and Extreme. Their misinformation site contains some interesting usage calculations, but essentially muddies the waters by describing activities in an “or” context: for example, you could download 24 high-definition videos (at about 4GB each) OR download 24,300 songs.

I’m admittedly surprised at their references to BitTorrent and high-definition movie downloads, but frankly that’s what their target audience is with this particular site: heavy users that they hope to coerce into keeping under a specific 95GB point.

The problem for consumers with this approach is that it’s no longer just the top 10% of users being targetted – a 95GB cap means that the top 10% of users will be using close to that amount, and it would be trivial for the ISP to reduce the figure in the future, even as more bandwidth intensive applications emerge.

Good news, though: extra bandwidth usage charges top out at $25 extra per month, which is a fee I’ll likely be paying part of every month upon my next move. (I also have full intent to purchase a TekSavvy unlimited account as well.)

From a network management perspective, I understand the need to keep subscribers and abusers of the service under control. There have always been provisions in every Internet contract for disconnecting people based on overuse, even back when dialup connections were standard. I’m irked that something previously touted as “unlimited” has gotten to the point where a hard cap and extra charges are necessary. Having heavy users on your network comes with the territory of having users like Granny checking her email once a week.

Admittedly, my Internet usage patterns tend to encompass newsgroup downloading and hefty SCP/SFTP transfers – on a regular basis working for IBM, I’d have to prop the latest Eclipse builds from Ottawa down the home line. Combined with the rest of the mandatory software suite, the nightly package could be 5GB.

One thing that will be interesting to see is Rogers’ deep packet inspection and rewriting – the usage message that caused issue back in December. They have an example image shown on one of their magazine property websites.

As soon as they start to insert HTML arbitrarily into webpages, that’s where they’ve crossed the line.

Are you going to change your internet usage patterns as a result of these developments? How much bandwidth are you using on a monthly basis?

Facebook’s finally heard the hue and cry from all of those kids whose parents insist on “friending” them. You’re now able to restrict access to profile features and content based on specific users and groups of people, which I’ve promptly employed to sequester elementary and high school acquaintances away from viewing specific adventures.

I’d suggest you go ahead and update your settings, mostly because I could swear mine were more restrictive before the update was pushed.

As the two most commented posts on my site show, people are really interested in getting their high-definition MKV files to play on the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, the existing GOTsent utility isn’t working out as a complete solution, and complicates the situation by trying to cater to PlayStation 3 users. 😉

I’ve developed a tool in VB2005 that automates the conversion process. It doesn’t transcode the video – just the audio so that the file will properly play. While the tool isn’t complete at present, and probably won’t work for files above 4GB, it’s served my immediate needs. I’d encourage anyone interested to check out the XenonMKV site and download a copy if interested. There’s also a support forum for people that run into issues with files.

From Boy Genius Report:

Deutsche Telekom has been pre-approved for a financing and protocol agreement which will allow them to introduce T-Mobile to the Canadian market (subject to restrictions in all provinces except Ontario during a 6, 12 and 18 month trial period that expires in 2010), and also pre-approves them for testing roaming, cell tower reception and international data agreements.

More details from the source, but the information seems credible – and after all, isn’t another wireless player in Canada what we’d like?

The most common complaint I hear about T-Mobile in the States is their lack of coverage compared to AT&T or Verizon, but realistically, another GSM carrier would really only give people options. The ability to roam on Rogers towers for brief periods of time – especially if government mandated cooperation occurred – could also improve the coverage situation drastically.