Rogers → [Extreme] Horrible Service

I'm now of Day 3 of no internet. Last tech that was at my place said we could be down for a while. I'll start off with a little history.

We joined Rogers last year, shortly after we got the service, our internet went down. The techs on the phone were not the brightest, trying to get me to check settings etc on the computer, meanwhile I'm telling them the moden is not synced, and keeps cycling. I'm a technician of 13 years, I know when there is a problem with the modem/service and when there is a problem with my computer. They finally agreed to send a technician out to check, advising me I'd be getting a bill if it was something in my house. Meanwhile all the cabling from the street to the modem was all recently installed by Rogers a couple weeks earlier.

After 2 days, we get a call from a tech saying that the problem was resolved, was something on their end. I tell him no, our internet is still down, the modem still is not sync'd. He tells me he shows that I'm online. Finally, after arguing for a few minutes, says he'll have to schedule a technician to come to my house, which I thought he was already supposed to be that day. Anyways, Day 3 rolls around, Saturday morning. Tech comes onsite, verifies everything in our house is fine, swapped modems, still wasn't working. Tried directly from the green box, still nothing. Said there was nothing further he could do.

Me, being a tech myself, wanted to diagnose a bit further. The way the docsis 3 dropped out so fast, it seemed to be some kind of network issue, so I asked him if he had a docsis 2.0 modem, and he did. So he went to his van, brought it in, and it instantly went online. So that technically could have solved the problem at that time, however when he calledin to put the modem onto my account, the Rogers rep wouldn't add it, said for docsis 2, could only use Rogers Lite. Meanwhile I already knew that Rogers was trying to phase out the older modems, used any excuse possible not to give someone an older one. I was only using Express, and knew Express could use Docsis 2.0 no problem. So I went down to my local Rogers store, had then give me a Motorola SB, and all was good, after 3 days, I finally had our house back online.

Fast forward a year later, with netflix and everything else that we do, 60gb just wan't cutting it and we were going over limit. So I was forced to have to upgrade to Extreme, swapping the reliable SB modem for a cisco docsis 3.0 gateway. I prayed Rogers had fixed whatever was worng with the docsis 3.0 network over the last year.

After 2 weeks, at exactly 10am, last wednesday morning, my i lost the internet again. Lights flashing on the modem. I called up tech support, at least these guys were a bit smarter, as soon as I told them the modem wasn't syncing, they didn't try to make me diagnose anything on the PC, and had me do the usual resetting of the modem to try and resync. They agreed that the internet was down, and would have to schedule a tech to come to my house to check the wiring, even after I explained to them this had happened last year, nothing in the house has changed, and all the wiring was tested sound to the street, only a year old. They said its the way it has to be handled, especially since when they checked my neighborhood and I was the only one offline. Add insult to injury, again, earliest appointment again was over 2 days away. I said whatever, book it.

Meanwhile, I went ahead to attempt the troubleshooting, and swapped the cisco modems, of course a new modem did nothing. So I went back to the rogers store and asked for my old Motorola SB back, and they said they couldn't give those out anymore, she even showed me her screen that showed the available modems/gateways, could not get one.

I went back home, called up tech support, asked them if I buy a SB5101U surfboard modem, if they could add it to my account. He put me on hold, asked his manager, and said yes they could add it, but would have to downgrade my service to lite. At this point I didn't care, its the beginning of my billing cycle, as long as we got internet in the house, I'll live with Lite as I knew it would be a long time before they fixed the Docsis 3 problem.

So I buy the new modem, get home and begin the long ordeal of trying to add it, I was on the phone for probably 2 1/2 hours, speaking with some guy from customer fullfilment trying to find the serial number. I'm not familiar enough with Rogers system to know exactly how that works, but a modem bought 3rd party, how are they expecting to find the serial number on Rogers systems? Why not just add the MAC address?? Regardless, 3rd hour rolled around, and he couldn't do it. So I was stuck waiting for the techs to come down in a couple days.

Friday afternoon, yesterday, rolls around. and a tech and his trainee show up. Tests the line at the modem, checked all the new lines in the house, swapped modems, and tried running the modem directly from the green box on the street.

He tells me, this is the second one he's seen today, exact same setup with just high speed internet and home phone, with the docsis 3 modem not syncing, said its at the hub, needs a bigger amp, or area may not be ready for docsis 3 yet. Have to wait for maintenance to look at it. I'm beside myself at this point, I'd already known nothing was wrong at my place. Had to wait 2 days for someone else to say the same thing. No one could take the time to check our history from a year ago and see it was the same issue. He sees the docsis 2 modem on my table, the surfboard and asks if we could use that. I told him unfortunately customer fulfulment at rogers couldn't figure out how to add it, he said thats to bad.

So he says he spoke with his supervisor, and that if I was experiencing this kind problems, their would be lots of complaints, and the more complaints, faster maintenance would get to fixing it. When I told him that when I spoke with tech support on the phone, that when they checked the neighbourhood, I was the only one offline, he said "oh" could be waiting a while then, sorry.

So here I am, 4 days without internet ($2/day), tethered to my rogers cel phone which is probably now over cap, no eta when its going to get fix, and no one ar Rogers even cares. They know that I'm stuck with no choice cause its their lines that are down. Only alternative is to switch back to dsl, which takes 5 days to get the phone lines reconnected. I work from home, my job requires the internet. My family lives on the net.

I don't like to use the word, but I actually "hate" the company Rogers. Lack of compassion or concern. I look forward to the day when I can completely get rid of all Rogers products, which is Oct this year when my Cel phone contract is up.

Sorry for the vent, but its needed to be known the level of service you can expect from Rogers. Being a tech myself, running my own business, I'd never dream of treating a client like they do, I'd be out of business so fast. They're just lucky they got a monopoly.

Common comment for just about every company in existence is "if I ran my business like that, I'd be out of business so fast", and yet they're still in business. Imagine that?

Another common comment is "they just don't care". Why should the person being paid minimum wage actually care about the customer who assumes they're a moron? This, again, is a common thing with every company in existence. Sure, some people can feign just about anything, but that doesn't mean they actually care.

Being a tech of 15 years, I don't understand why any of this comes as a shock to you. These simple facts should be common knowledge. Also, being a tech for 15 years, you should know that most companies have certain procedures that should be followed. Disregarding those procedures is likely going to count against the person that disregards them. With enough points against them, regardless of how good they are, could very well cost them they're job.

Anyway, it sucks that this shit happened, but as you pointed out, you can easily switch to another provider that may work I little better. You're offline right now, and there's no guarantee you'll be back online in a week anyway, so why not switch?
Or better yet, since you get rogers (and i'm assuming bell, since they usually offer dsl), why not try to find a reseller? They are fairly prevalent these days. Hell, there may even be a local indi company in your area..

I saw on the Rogers community forum that a Rogers rep sent you a PM. Any good development based on that communication?

Rogers owns the lines that are down, switching providers will do nothing. I have to get sync'd to Rogers network before I can trunk into another provider. Other than dropping the ball and reconnecting the phone lines, which would take another 5 days.

Rogers rep just wanted account/contact info to see if there was anything he could do. As its sitting in NOC waiting for them to figure it out, highly doubt he can do anything, but who knows. Waiting until Monday afternoon before making decision whether to reconnect the phone line.

You "need" the net, why sir you should switch to your business plan (even though it;s the shit we charge more for).

The concept of "Customer Service" doesn't exist at Rogers.

My suggestions is go through the escalation process (it's on the website), and when push comes to shove, contact the CCTS (and copy this story to Ellen Roseman, she usually gets good results).

When you control the market, and it's set in a way to not allow any competitor, it's not hard to stay in business. If there was any real competition, Rogers would either have had to provide better service, or it would've gone extinct.

It is fairly obvious that there is a problem somewhere from the tap to your internet modem. Have another tech come out and diagnose the problem. They all now have test modems & spare cable (test lead) which they can run directly from the tap to a test modem (which are docsis 3 btw) and use them to determine where the problem is.

You had a lazy tech who didn't want to do a drop, drill out a new riser or find where the actual problem lay.

I'm actually surprised how a D3 modem won't work.
Sounds like they are putting a excuse.
»Is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem compatible with DOCSIS 2 tiers?
DOCSIS 3 modems are backwards compatible with DOCSIS2 modems.
Only thing is that they have channel bonding that helps with congestion and etc.
It might be a possibility that you might need a AMP since with my Cable Service I wasn't able to get connection to my Internet w/o a AMP.

~~Could be the warm weather affecting the signal quality.

Of course a Docsis 3 modem will work with lower tiers. When I added a D3 modem to my internet they didnt even ask me if I wanted faster speeds, I could have stopped the call right there when the modem was activated and surfing the web, but the whole reason I got the D3 modem was to upgrade to a faster tier.

It's got NOTHING to do with it being backwards compatible, if the CMTS supports DOCSIS 3 the modem will sync DOCSIS 3 before the speed profile is even applied.