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chdude3
join:2003-07-29
Oakville, ON

chdude3

Member

Cogeco phone out - THURSDAY until a service call?

I happened to be at my parents house today when their internet (and by extension) Cogeco home phone went out.

The internet came back up after I left. Phone did not. They called from their emergency cell, tech walked them through a few things, couldn't fix it, said the soonest a tech could get out is Thursday.

TV or something sure, you can get by without for a few days. But they, and probably moreso myself, are upset that it's going to take that long to get someone to come out, let alone fix whatever might be the issue.

I'm still trying to get ahold of them through alternate means to see what I can do, but this is disappointing.

If there are any Cogeco techs around, this is in Grimsby near West Lincoln Memorial Hospital. Apparently the entire street was out during the issue. Don't know if any neighbours are on Cogeco phone that's now working (again, haven't been able to contact my parents directly yet).

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

I don't believe they're allowed to leave a phone not functioning for that long. Did they attempt to get the issue escalated?

chdude3
join:2003-07-29
Oakville, ON

chdude3

Member

Thanks Gone; please understand I won't solely take you on your word for it, but if a Cogeco employee confirms this is the case, I will tell them to call and have the issue escalated.

I did finally get ahold of them. They contacted tech support as mentioned. Tech support remotely rebooted their EMTA and had them plug a phone directly into the unit. No dial tone.

I unforunately can't do a lot for them that being the case - if rebooting the EMTA and plugging a known working phone directly into it doesn't fix it, I don't know what else they can do without Cogeco intervention.

At least their internet is up; I got Dell Voice setup on their laptop so they can at least make some calls without using what's left on their cell (they went from about $40 to $30 on their prepaid just in waiting on hold and dealing with Cogeco).

I've told them to make damned sure they get a credit for this at the very least for all of this.

And they normally wouldn't care so much, but they've got their granddaughter over - something she was looking forward to (a week at grandma and grandpa's). So in an emergency they're now dealing with their cell. But also co-ordinating a bunch of the planned activities for the week has become a little more complicated without their regular phone service.

(They are self admitted techno illiterates. In the 2 years they've had this cell, this is easily orders of magnitude the most they've ever used it. Mom couldn't figure out how to get to the Contacts menu to find the one we set up for checking their prepaid balance.)

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

I believe it is a CRTC requirement that they have someone out there within 24 hours of a report of no service due to 911, but don't quote me on it.

I know that when my wife's aunt had non-working Cogeco phone service but functional Internet they had someone there the same day.
exseven8
Premium Member
join:2003-05-23
L8E0G6

exseven8 to chdude3

Premium Member

to chdude3
I've poked a few people, i always thought it was a next day service call as well...

Anyway i took a quick look at the emta (been a while for that, i fairly certain its the right one) and sent it to the voice guys to maybe fix on this end as well as to the call center to confirm some things.

Cogeco_Aaron might chime in from the call center point of view.

Cogeco_Aaron
Premium Member
join:2011-07-11

1 recommendation

Cogeco_Aaron to chdude3

Premium Member

to chdude3
Hi there,

Can you confirm if the service is working for your parents and if not, can you possibly PM me their address, account number or MAC?

Thanks

chdude3
join:2003-07-29
Oakville, ON

chdude3

Member

said by Cogeco_Aaron:

Hi there,

Can you confirm if the service is working for your parents and if not, can you possibly PM me their address, account number or MAC?

Thanks

I'll follow up with a PM, thanks Aaron.

I just finished speaking with my parents. Now that they had the DellVoice number set up and weren't burning their pay as you go cell minutes, they called back to tech support earlier this morning. They got a gentleman who they said was a lot more personable and helpful, so kudos to "Nick" from phone support for his patience with my parents as well as the actual tech support.

They ran through a few things -confirmed that with the house wiring connected to the RCA EMTA, no phones had service. Confirmed that connecting a phone directly to the EMTA, still no dial tone. I don't know what Nick did on his side; my mother said he said he "would try a few things".

Whatever he did, after that they WERE able to get a phone working connected directly to the EMTA after that, but apparently when connecting the house wiring back up to it, no go. Perhaps a wiring problem or hardware problem? Things were working fine until the outage Monday afternoon however, so it's not as though my parents did anything in particular.

So they have a cordless base plugged in which gives them a couple handsets in the house with service. This is acceptable for them until the tech can get out there on Thursday and get everything all running again.

Nick confirmed that Cogeco will compensate for the lost service as well as their cell phone usage. As long as things do get fixed on Thursday, and this compensation does happen, then that seems reasonable to me and I believe they'll be satisfied. They were originally quite upset, but again it seems Nick did well to both get service at least partially restored as well as assure them they can be compensated.

Thanks again exseven and Aaron.
chdude3

1 recommendation

chdude3

Member

This is just a followup because I didn't want to leave this open-ended.

exseven was right on top of things, and Cogeco_Aaron was fantastic. Between them and the tech my parents spoke to this morning, things are satisfactory. My parents have at least got the port on the EMTA going so they have phone service, and a tech will come out Thursday to get everything back to full working order.

And I'm sure my parents will monitor their bill to ensure everything does work out, but they have been given a two week credit for their phone service for the issue.

My parents words - the technical problem here has "been a nuisance", but in the end "Cogeco has been fair".

My thanks to Nick the tech support phone guy, exseven, and especially to Cogeco_Aaron.
cog_biz_user
i ruin threads apparently
join:2011-04-19

cog_biz_user to chdude3

Member

to chdude3
cogeco tried pulling that thursday stuff with my mom's voip too. we unplugged the modem for the night and it fired right back up in the morning. ymmv, of course.

dillyhammer
START me up
Premium Member
join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer to chdude3

Premium Member

to chdude3
The tech folks on this forum are superb. Haven't always agreed with some of their opinions, but they're all top notch when it comes to helping out.

Mike