Start.ca → Frustrating support desk experience

I want to report my very frustrating support desk experience. For last week my modem starts reconnect couple of times per day. Some time it come back in 5 min some other time it takes 1 hour. My wife use internet for work from home. Her job depends on quality of internet connection. Today it went down again for 1 hour. We called to support desk and all we get is some useless attempts to reboot modem, which I've already done. We didn't do any changes on our side with our house and cables or network configuration. I work with IT and have perfect understanding of networking. From my experience it must be problem with rogers hardware. Support desk don't try to solve my problem they sound like they try to teach me what is networking is. And in end they say it is going to take 2 business day instead just call to Rogers and find what the problem is. Don't you understand that it is unacceptable to hide your own incompetence and put it on customer.

I'm sorry you're having issues, unfortunately there isn't a way for us to "just call Rogers and find out what is wrong", rather we need to trouble-shoot the problem first and capture the required information where a ticket is needed to be booked in the case of a line issue. Ie, this isn't a matter of us "hiding incompetence", rather it's a process that is required to determine the problem first, then submit a ticket when the problem requires a field dispatch.

edit: Also, it's important to understand the difference between rebooting a modem and factory resetting it, I hope that you did the later as that resolves 99% of the problems. If you need assistance with how to do that, there are detailed instructions on that and the other trouble-shooting steps at »FAQ: Trouble-shooting (Cable) Thanks.

Just to add to what rocca said, the process that Rogers uses (and abuses) and was approved by the CRTC was this ...

Rogers will accept install, problem reports, disconnects by email from the TPIAs (like Start, TekSavvy etc)
Rogers will respond within 48 hours

The TPIAs and the CRTC didn't expect what Rogers really meant by this.

Rogers will ONLY accept those things by email and NO OTHER WAY. Attempting to contact Rogers management often results in a response ... "Use email"

The team that Rogers designated appear to be the same team that does their own customer support by email. These people have demonstrated in the past that they aren't particularly competent even when dealing with their own customers.

Note that they said respond within 48 hours ... that's not fix ... and they have the habit of only responding to TPIA emails until close to that 48 hour window has expierd.

They want a record of full troubleshooting results for every problem, so they want a record that modems have been reset, that connectors checked, power checked ... every dumb thing imaginable that clearly has NO relevance to the actual problem. If they AREN'T demonstrated as checked they will bounce the support request as "insufficient information: ... and when you have provided it and it's resubmitted, it will take up to another 48 hours to read the update. The fact that it's been looked at before is irrelevant to them. So, once they finally report acceptance of the ticket ... it's typically another 48 hours to action the problem! And if they need further info, they tell start, who contact you, you provide the info, and it goes back ... 48 hours to read the update, and probably another 48 hours to do something.

That's how it was last summer especially ... Rogers did everything imaginable to put TPIA customers to the back of the queue! Things have improved ... presumably because of threats of being dragged before the CRTC for self preferential treatment.

It's one of the prices we pay for less costly service with more bandwidth (although Rogers is doing its best now to make their services cheaper than TPIAs especially at higher speeds!) When things work, service is excellent. When things go wrong, it can get a bit frustrating.

I would hazard to say not everything is irrelevant, for example with an intermittent connection, a bad AC adapter or faulty/overdrawn power bar could causing power resets on the modem instead of sync loss.

Just for example.

I've done troubleshooting. Reboot, factory reset doesn't help. Modem reconnect itself if you just leave it. And modem powered up from 1000 Watt UPS, so there is no power instability issue. And I have to say it used to work very stable, I only had modem reconnect at night. So it must be some problem somewhere that need to be resolved and that is your responsibility, because I pay for service

Well, yeay that's true enough type s ... sometimes problems are solved by some things that seem most unlikely. It kind of helps people co-operate when they know the process.

I can remember several times when with Rogers being asked what browser I was using when there was an RF issue (no lights on the modem other than power!) This was before DOCSIS, so no good going to a web interface! Such things remove credibility of the support process.

Yes, start is responsible for getting it fixed, but the actual people who do the fixing are not particularly co-operative and there's very little that the TPIA can do since the incumbents provide NO access at all to the network and systems used to form your connection.

So, what are the signal levels on your modem (from the web interface 192.168.100.1)

Forward Path:
Channel Frequency Power SNR BER Modulation
1 657.0 MHz -4.1 dBmV 40.8 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
2 615.0 MHz -7.4 dBmV 38.3 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
3 621.0 MHz -6.6 dBmV 39.0 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
4 633.0 MHz -5.4 dBmV 39.8 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
5 639.0 MHz -4.5 dBmV 39.9 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
6 645.0 MHz -4.3 dBmV 40.3 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
7 651.0 MHz -4.3 dBmV 40.6 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
8 663.0 MHz -3.8 dBmV 40.4 dB 0.000 % 256 QAM
Return Path:
Channel ID Frequency Power Modulation
7 23.7 MHz 48.5 dBmV 64 QAM
5 38.6 MHz 50.0 dBmV 64 QAM
6 30.6 MHz 50.0 dBmV 64 QAM
0 0.0 MHz 0.0 dBmV QPSK

i know there's frustration on your part, but you chose to go with a TPIA and it really doesn't matter at the end of the day if you or your wife works from home or if you're an IT expert or can barely use a computer. all of that makes 0 difference to Rogers when they look at the ticket they receive from a TPIA.

that being said, i'm sure if there's a line issue it will be escalated since it's usually pretty obvious from modem stats. however be warned that if it is intermittent it will be pretty hard to catch it, especially if the stats look great when it's not having issues.

just take the 5-10 minutes to go through the process next time you call in.

OK, your upstream signals are starting to become marginal and there's certainly a slightly broad difference in power levels between the various channels downstream (forward path). With a good SNR, this may not be a problem.

Just to check ... where your cable comes into your house, it should go to a splitter ... one side of that splitter should go to your modem and ONLY your modem. The other side should go to TV (or TVs through another splitter). There should be no more than a single split in the modem's path.

Yes, that is what I have, only one splitter.
Lost connection again

Is anybody going to do something? I've lost connection again.

Could you please PM me your account # so I can take a look what action has already been taken?

Thank you for the PM.

I have checked and this is definitely being worked on, a ticket as been submitted with our cable network vendor in your area to investigate your intermittent connection.

Once we get an update back from our vendor as to their findings, we will contact you right away.

Does it mean that if you are Rogers customer support respond time will be better than 48 hours?

Rogers generally troubleshoots with you on the phone and if a problem is escalated they will nominally fix within 48 hours. But here's the rub ... if an escalated problem is NOT solved, they have the habit of closing calls NFF (No Fault Found) and don't let you, the customer know! What is saved is the 48 hour two step, but it's still not very good as support goes.

Thank you for information. Saved 48 hours could be critical decision key to choose your internet provider.

Since, if push came to shove, I could do most of what I REALLY want on the internet with a slow dialup connection, or by a trip to a starbucks or timmies a few miles away, I figured that I could risk the inconvenience of the unfortunate behaviour that Rogers creates. It's not really that much worse than Rogers themselves.

IF I had to rely on internet for business purposes, then I might have to consider something else as a backup.

I have a friend whose business internet is currently down. Goodness knows HOW long it will take to get it repaired. The fortunate thing is they have me to call to update their web page on a hosting service to say "Phone us" and to read their emails to them. It's surprising that you can actually be enterprising enough to survive.

It is good that your friends have you

But in general, you want it or not, there is no really the choice. In the end in case if you get in problem you will have to deal with one evil corporation or another, Bell or Rogers even if you are with any other TPIA.
So, may be you just need to be brave and deal with evil face to face without putting TPIA in middle

Well, I like the price and lack of heavy caps ... of course now Rogers is being nasty and being TOO competitve to the point of trying to undermine the the TPIAs ... Don't they remember what happened to airlines that tried that trick????

But I prefer to support the TPIAs ... so I use them and will put up with the inconvenience. Remember I had Rogers before moving to TPIA and got tired of price increase after increase after increase.

+1

Yep, I actually pay for both Rogers and Start. The 48 hour round-trip means that I could easily have days of no Internet if I go through Start's support. To me, its worth paying for the additional Rogers Internet service (mine is part of a bundle actually) just to be able to talk to their support directly. Most of the time, any problems with Start connection will also surface with the Rogers connection, at which point I would be able to engage their support. I've reported a number of issues in the past that they confirmed as area issues right there on the phone (results in a higher priority ticket) and resolved in only a few hours. If I had to go through Start, it would probably take days. Sadly, if the problem is specific to the Start connection, then I have no choice but to go through their support. Again, really not any fault of Start, but rather the ridiculous 48-hour rule that was imposed on TPIA.

I started out with Start as a trial run to see how well it performs, but it quickly became my main connection. Quite honestly, the only thing that kept me from switching from Start to just a "better" Rogers plan all together was the amazing support I got from Start staff on this forum in the past (rocca in particular). To me, having that is worth a lot and if I have to pay extra to "bypass" the support issues then so be it. Even though I'm doing this, I can obviously see how others definitely would not - especially after learning about the 48-hour response, which is not really "advertised" anywhere...

You could get the lowest Internet tier from Rogers or one of their bundles if you watch cable TV if you want to do what I'm doing - I doubt it would cost much more just for the support option, but I don't see many people doing that... I really hope this could be brought before CRTC, so there is a more reasonable response time.

Well, there's the thing, it's not a rule ... They said to CRTC "We'll respond within 48 hours" ... nobody expected that they'd push all the calls TO 48 hours! It's a max time for a response. But they are treating it as the norm.

Apparently recently they've been a bit better at responding quicker, but the TPIAs have been stating the 48 hours to avoid setting expectations that may not be met.

For what it's worth, we haven't seen them pushing replies to 48 hours since our submissions for QoS and EoI. The system definitely has a lot of room for improvement to bring symmetry for competitors which we've detailed in those submissions, but for the past few months we're seeing most acknowledged next day, and resolved in a 2 day window from first contact.

edit: But as you mention, we still set expectations for what the regulations currently afford.

I've had a few times when I am pretty sure its a wider issue than just me, so I have actually talked to some helpful Rogers support staff who have been more than happy to report an outage for my area (but not me specifically), since even though they cant pull up my account, they can look at my area and see if the other modems are online or not

You may get similar reps if you try calling in, however don’t be surprised if they say call your provider

Yes, that is the point and sometimes you start understand things like that after you get in the trouble. Lean on your mistakes. Unfortunately this is not mentioned in Terms of Service on Start Communications website but it should be there from customer perspective. In my line of work as IT we provide SLA(Service Level Agreement) to our customers which include things like support response time and it is granulated by type of issues. I understand in this case it is not Start communications fault because they depend on other vendor, but it must be stated in Terms of Service.

It is good to hear that Rogers still have good employee
But unfortunately I don't have time to play Russian roulette trying to find good Rogers employee to solve my problem.