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Review by sbrook See Profile

  • Location: Ottawa
  • Cost: $49 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 12 days
Speed
Customer Service
OK for connectivity, Useless for P2P, Useless for Support, Advertize too much
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

They finally completed connection to our semi-rural area right in the middle of the transition between @home and @rogers ... so they made a dogs dinner of setting up my account, with wrong passwords, and web presence not set up properly. This was a continuation of the customer service disaster that Rogers had with their cable TV customer support.

It worked from the moment I connected the NIC to the TeraPro modem at 1.2 Mbits/sec downlink 340 Kbits/sec backlink.

When Rogers "upgraded" by putting in speed throttling, my upload dropped to 170 and download maxed out at 700K, but usually was in the 300-400 range. I complained and complained and complained and got tired of the run around. I found out more and discovered an interesting problem with some TeraPro CMTS/Modem combos limiting speeds to 4* the upload. I demanded to speak to a manager who agreed that there was something wrong since my download speed should not have fallen. They offered me DOCSIS, and a tech came out and replaced my modem with a PipeRider.

They forgot to cap it for the first month, so the speeds were great at 3500 down! They put in the speed cap and the speed came down to about 1.1 Mbits/sec, but consistent, although spikey. Eventually, in Nov. 2002, they did a CMTS upgrade and the speeds went up to about 1.45 solid.

Since the change to DOCSIS, I've not had the opportunity or need to call Rogers, except for a major outage and all I got was ignorance. So CS remains abysmal. If it was possible to give a neg. number for support, I'd give that.

As for communications from Rogers ... they treat the customer seemingly as something to barely be tolerated so to show that, the pre-sales category is the only place to rate it, so it also goes to the bottom. Rogers seemed to think that they could cut speeds without telling their customers and providing a reasonable justification.

Update Jul 23, 2003 - Everything's pretty much unchanged. When it works, it's great.

Update Jun 2004 - I upgraded to Extreme without a lot of hassle, although as usual Rogers phone people just don't seem to know what happens in the real world and they sent me to the wrong place to pick up a modem. I changed from an Ericsson to a Toshiba 2600. Since then, I've zoomed along at speeds consistent with the new profile.

Update Jul 2004 - Rogers Yahoo! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! As usual, Rogers tells the clients NOTHING until it's done and things stop working properly. All our mail is now with Yahoo! servers. I refuse to register because of Yahoo!'s "Lack of Privacy" Policy. So, I cannot manage my account. The amount of false positives on "bulk" mail was high to start with but is settling down. The accounts have got a LOT more spam since moving to Yahoo! even though it's a Rogers.com address ... go figure. I'm moving all my mail off Rogers because of this and the fact that the US Dept. of Homeland Paranoia can tamper with my email and even go so far as to put out warrants for my arrest in absentia if they find something in my mail they don't like! Sure I'm paranoid. I don't trust Rogers, I don't trust Yahoo! and I don't trust government agnecies.

Update Mar 2005 - Rogers Geocities ... useless since Geocities monitor traffic by the hour. Rogers Giganews ... great retention but dreadful speeds, even for text groups. Now caps ... even though they don't affect me, they're a pain. Performance issues that yet again took invoking management to resolve. Customer service is utterly useless.

Update Nov 2006 - Well, here we are over a year and a half later and nothing much has changed, although I've had the fortune to need CS only once in that time. The only mail I get through my Rogers address is some of the posts from Rogers and SPAM ... I no longer use Usenet after Rogers turned it off altogether.

Speed is consistent ... the price bump for Extreme was annoying considering that we get so little more compared with Express but I upload enough that the slower speed of Express upload made me stay.

Same old - same old for cable TV and internet drops - nearly daily for a few minutes. The new 74.*.*.* IP has been assigned and routings end up a little screwy.

Rogers is proving to be a REASONABLE connectivity provider, but as an ISP (remember the word SERVICE) they're poor. They keep trying to get me to go with home phone "from a company you trust" every few days there's something in the mail. But they've done nothing to earn my trust and with a cost of under $1 per month less than Bell, no way.

Update Feb 2008

Nothing much has changed apart from prices and the threatening of byte caps ... although that doesn't affect me. The speed is now 10/1 Mbps and my connection comes more than acceptably close. The last call to tech support to report an outage was answered by an automated system with a relevent reply and an estimated time to repair.

Services ... Rogers mail ... I try not to use it since all it gets is spam.
Yahoo! Launchcast Plus ... It's OK, if a bit limited for the kind of music I like.
Flickr ... useful for sharing photos with family abroad.

Having experienced Bell tech support, I'll lift that off the basement and give Rogers a 2.

Services, I'll lift off the basement and give that a 2 ... but no higher because a lack of usenet and a horrible mail service.

Update July 2009

Again, changes to the service involce speed, although not significant improvements to the Extreme service.

More Rogers Yahoo cobranded services bite the dust ... this time Launchcast has been blown away. Geocities web space has gone (never used it because I have my own service - thank goodness)

Due to cost several cost increases in Rogers services in the last 18 months, I've downgraded to Express.

Update Mar 2011 ... No real changes since previous review. Very Occasional congestion speed sag appearing. Don't know whether this is the cable segment or the connection to/from Fallowfield ... suspect the latter since they did have a problem there and stopped taking on faster speed customers.

member for 22.3 years, 10334 visits, last login: 22 days ago
updated 13 years ago


emmpeethree
Twizzling Flagella
Premium Member
join:2001-04-13
Richmond, BC

emmpeethree

Premium Member

glad to hear

glad to hear your ok with rogers

but i'm still thankful i have shaw now!

matradley
Premium Member
join:2003-07-03
Ottawa, ON

matradley

Premium Member

Hi-Speed

I used to have Rogers Hi-Speed. It was great when @home was around but when Rogers took over, they dropped the lines to, roughly, 4 mbit/360 kbit... then, all of a sudden, they drop the lines to 1.5/192 without telling anyone. I called and asked about the speed and they told me that they had announced to the media about the speed drop... I never even knew a thing about it... >.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

Update Aug 2008

Little has changed apart from very short outages every other day at random times for both internet and TV (esp digital). They still can't locate the problem of the periodic pixellation (which probably is related to the outages). I don't have the energy to deal with the level of stress to push Rogers (major surgery in your chest cavity will do that) and the randomness just isn't intense enough to worry about right now.

The continued stream of advertising for RHP and Home Advantage is annoying. I wouldn't get digital phone if they paid me!
sbrook

sbrook

Mod

Update May 2010

I had a need to save cash, so downgraded to Express ... getting 10/512 and the speeds are "as advertised". Random outages continue out here in the sticks. Often enough to be a nuisance, but not so often as to go on an antiRogers rampage... especially for TV and internet these days.

Contemplating going over to TSI when the contract expires.