Review by Farshid420 
Posted: 1.8 years ago
member for 3.6 years, 567 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 North York,ON
 $52 per month
 "Customer service availability, it works when it works"
 "Customer service knowledge, time to fix issues, price"
 "They hold the monopoly on cable Internet services in most of the GTA"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Let me just start out for logistic reasons by stating that I live in the North York area and have had Rogers High Speed Extreme for as long as it's been available (although some of the stories will be pre Extreme times, they still apply to the company and its services).
Those who know me from the forums know that I've had an interesting history with Rogers. Having been with them on and off since around 1997 (WAVE @ HOME days), plenty has gone wrong and most of which has been fixed.
Two incidents that truly tested Rogers' ability to respond to the issues that I was experiencing with their service are as follows:
Incident #1: The super slow download incident:
Around Jan 2006, the speed of my connection dropped from the 5mbit that it was supposed to be (and had been up to that point) to around 1-2mbit. I called Rogers techs on a regular basis for an 8 month period regarding this issue. Tickets were made and escalated, and I decided to stick with them until the issue was finally fixed in the 9th month (twas my baby, and the experience with Rogers was much like going through labour...). The most interesting part of this experience was the different conversations that took place depending on the customer service reps that I spoke with. I truly believe that had it not been for the final three techs that I spoke with over the last few months of dealing with this issue (who actually told me to ask for them specifically when calling back to follow up with the issue) that the issue would have never truly been escalated, and I'd be having the same problem now.
Incident #2: The above ground wire that took 3 years to bury:
Having moved about 4 years back, we had to get a reinstall to the new location. Even though there was already a connection to the house for cable, a new wire was pulled for the high speed Internet (which I understood and appreciated). The only problem was that the wire from the street box to my house was above ground, and in addition to harsh weather conditions, we have raccoons in our area. We called Rogers about it and continued to call them every few months, and they told us that we'd be contacted back about when they were going to come to bury it. 3 years of calls later, and we finally got a call about when they were coming to do the job. Interesting part about this story is two-fold. When the guys came to bury the line, they noticed that our worries about the raccoons weren't just in our heads, as the wire had been almost completely stripped. However, even after noticing this, and burying the line, they neglected to replace the connection that was actually connected to the box at my house from the old above-ground wire to the one they buried, which required several more calls for them to come and replace the wires (as the new one had no wire-head connected, else I probably would have tried myself, although I don't think I'd be able to open the box connected to my house without force).
What have I learned from these experiences? If you decide to go with Rogers, expect a love/hate relationship, where things will go right for a period of time, but something going wrong is inevitable. If something does go wrong, complain, as otherwise, nothing will be done for you and nothing will change, as they expect you not to notice anything wrong and also not to complain about it if something does. If you do complain, don't stop at one time unless that fixes the issue. If you don't get results from a regular support tech, speak to higher ups (manager, supervisor, letter to the president, etc.).
As for me, I'm currently looking into DSL plans and prices. If speeds work as expected, I may have to end my long running relationship with Rogers, even for slower speeds, as their price hikes seem to never end and their bw capping seems inevitable as well (and considering how they consider 100GB to be enough for all users, and they may be lowering that to 75GB, and how we're not cookie-cutter people, that's just not good enough).
It took me long enough to write out this review, but this has been my experience thusfar with Rogers. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what their long term plans are. All we can do as consumers is wait and see.
Followup comments:  
anon343
@rogers.com | my experience I've had hi-speed since 1998. Less then 10 outages in 9 years and never a problem with speed. It all depends on a number of factors. I am in a good area and have never had problems. | |
|  | Farshid420
join:2006-03-24
North York, ON
 ·Acanac
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
| Re: my experience Glad to hear that anon343, and thanks for your comment.
I think it's important to recognize that I don't see my experience with Rogers as a negative one, but rather, one that could have been more productive considering the length of service with them, and the size of their company.
I have to admit that in my time with them, very rarely have I had any outages, and when I did, it's either been late at night or for a few hours at a time. However, you're usually never notified of any such outages, so that's another point of improvement that Rogers may want to consider.
I'd love to hear from everyone about their experiences, or feel free to add your own review, as an educated public is a powerful one  | |
| | | Farshid420
join:2006-03-24
North York, ON
·Acanac
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| Re: You're right on the money Thanks for the reply jackr! I completely agree that one of the main reasons why Rogers has gotten so cocky is because of the lack of competition in the Cable arena.
Even though I'm no longer with Rogers, I'm still keeping an eye on the news at the Rogers section of the forums. I'm interested to see when they'll actually implement the new caps and start enforcing them.
I for one am just happy that I no longer have to worry about bw caps and the such  | |
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