High Speed Internet Smackdown: Rogers vs Teksavvy
An Angus Reid study released this week found that 46 per cent of Canadian respondents would give up watching television before they would ditch using the Internet or their phones.
Thirty-five percent said they would rather give up their phone in order to continue their online and television access, while only 20 per cent would give up their Internet access. The research shows what many Canadians already know, internet access is no longer a luxury in our present day western society, it’s an essential.
Unfortunately for internet users, it appears that Canadian cable companies know this as well and have spent the last few years jacking up internet pricing at rates well in excess of inflation because they know Canadians won’t cancel their service.
Yesterday Rogers Cable in Ontario announced new higher bandwidth caps for some of their subscribers, which was great until you realized the bandwidth caps were simply going back to similar levels Rogers had in place in 2009. In 2010, shortly after Netflix announced its entry into the market, Rogers substantially cut its bandwidth usage allowances and is only now beginning to restore them.
Like readers, the Digital Home is always trying to rein in costs so six months ago, I decided to check out Teksavvy as an alternative to Rogers Cable for internet service in Ontario.
Founded in 1998 in Chatham Ontario, Teksavvy is a third party internet access (TPIA) provider which has been popular among Digital Home readers for several years for its DSL internet service. Just over a year ago, the company announced it was doing for cable internet service what it had previously done for DSL service, lower prices and expand bandwidth caps.
In the middle of January, I decided to sign up for Teksavvy cable service. Here was my comment to readers after signing up that day
Just signed up with TSI today for the $36.95 a month Express package.
I phoned them, rather than sign up over the web, because I needed to clarify a few things. On hold for about 3 to 4 minutes then dealt with a very well trained sales representative who was friendly, articulate and helpful. After answering my questions, we set up the account, I gave her my modems MAC ID etc, she read off all terms and condition, took my credit card number and completed the sale. Once my questions were answered she completed my order in about five minutes.
A very positive customer experience.
In six months of daily usage with Teksavvy, I have found the service to be every bit as good and reliable as Rogers High Speed internet. In that time, I have had two significant disruptions of approximately four hours and three hours. That downtime was shared by Rogers users on my street so I was in no worse shape than if I had been with Rogers.
So in six months, I have had great customer service and cable internet service as good as what I would have received from Rogers. Moving from Teksavvy to Rogers does not mean you have to sacrifice on quality.
Plan Pricing
Simply speaking, pricing at Teksavvy is superior to anything Rogers offers. If you are currently a Rogers high speed internet customer and wish to lower the cost of internet service then I recommend you call Teksavvy internet right after you read this article.
The chart on the next page ranks the ten internet plans offered by Teksavvy and Rogers on a price per gigabyte basis. The internet is all about data so I think the best way to measure the cost is by how much you pay for the data. The price per gigabyte cost has been calculated by taking the plans monthly cost and dividing it by the monthly plans bandwidth cap.
Pages: 1 2
I switched to teksavvy when execulink added a bandwidth cap and I would never go back. They have great local tech support.
Why don’t you have the updated Rogers prices here? You published this after their announcement right? Of course Teksavvy still wins even with Rogers’ new caps. No getting around that.
Beware of people posting positive comments for Teksavvy! Most of them are Teksavvy employees masquerading as consumers. Terry Yeo posted in response to this article that Teksavvy has great local tech support. Anyone, and I mean anyone, that has ever dealt with Teksavvy support knows that this is an out and out lie. Techsavvy support is amongst the worst I have ever dealt with. The support people range from untrained and clueless to rude and arrogant. Teksavvy offers high speed internet services at a great price but that deal is only good so long as you never have any type of technical problem. If that happens you will quickly realize what a nightmare you have gotten yourself into. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
There are plenty of satisfied TekSavvy customers who are not employees.
TekSavvy has two call centres, one in Chatham and one in Sudbury. Generally speaking, the guys in the Chatham call centre are more experienced than the ones in Sudbudy, but you can get good support from both. The big weakness with TekSavvy is they’re limited to relying on Bell and Rogers for last mile, and yes, last mile support. Rogers in particular does not have a good wholesale relationship setup.
You are an idiot! Are you sure you’re not a Rogers employee?
I’ve been a Teksavvy customer for 3 years after almost 7 years with Sympatico and I have found their customer service to be amongst the best I have ever dealt with. It has been the polar opposite of my experience long, long ago as a customer of Rogers (something I’ll never be again).
You must have your head up your ??? everytime i had a problem me being 58 yrs old with basic computer exp. they walked me threw and sorted things out for me while on the phone and treated me very well and i found them well informed at the Chatham office. Dave Anderson.
Macguy, that is totally not true. I have been a Teksavvy customer for over 4 years (DSL and now Cable). And they are fantastic. I just gave Rogers my walking papers for TV (going OTA) and I’ll be glad when its all done.
Beware of people posting (NEGATIVE) comments for Teksavvy! Most of them are (ROGERS) employees masquerading as consumers.
I agree with themacguy completely and wholly. And let’s not forget to mention that, Teksavvy is a wholesaler of Bell services. Why would anyone want to give money to a company where a prortion of these fees goes back to Bell?
Teksavvy’s cable service is delivered through Rogers’ network, not Bell’s.
You don’t have another option. You either pay Bell or Rogers more or you pay them less. I prefer to pay them less so I have TekSavvy where I ultimately pay Rogers less and get more than I did by paying Rogers directly for their cable internet service.
I switched from Rogers in early July, and so far I’ve been satisfied with the result. Speeds have been comparable to the package I was using with Rogers, and the unlimited bandwidth is great. I also got rid of my cable tv, and stream video online to make up for it. The internet alone, I’m saving $20 a month (from the extra bandwidth), after a few months I’ll have saved enough for the higher start-up fees and hardware (which I own, not rent).