May 03, 2010 by sharky
This article isn’t so much about filesharing than it is about my frustration with the megalomaniac service provider Rogers Telecom. Wondering where I’ve been? Blame Rogers - they inadvertently cut off my Internet access last week. It’s no secret that anyone in Ontario (and probably anywhere else that Rogers is offered) who subscribes to a High-speed Internet service is also able to receive a free TV cable signal with all the channels up to CH72 (called the "VIP" package). Users were/are able to simply put a splitter onto their incoming hi-speed coaxial and feed one end of it directly to the back of a television. Sweet deal, while it lasted - although I didn’t anticipate it to take down my Internet.
Literally scores of my acquaintances in both real-life and online have been hijacking free cable for as long as I can remember; I personally haven’t paid a single penny for cable in over 5 years. Well, it looks as though Rogers is finally putting the brakes on us freeloaders, and if it hasn’t happened to your neighbourhood yet - look out, it will soon. Rogers is installing a new generation of "filters" to block out the analog TV signal on high-speed subscribers. With millions of customers, users can expect some degree of technical problems associated with the upgrade, as witnessed by yours truly.
Rogers’ tech-support is actually quite good, at least from a telephony standpoint. But good luck getting them to come out to your house or apartment to take a look into that grey cable box in order to undo their own fuckup. Here I sit in a public kiosk, outlining the details and timeline of the events:
Day 1 - Wednesday, April 28th (18:00 EDT)
Returning home from work at around 6PM, I turned on the TV. I’m not a big fan of television in general (I can certainly survive without cable) but I am an avid hockey fanboi. What did I discover? My cable signal was gone. Instinctively I turned my attention over to my PC, where I noticed that my Internet connection was also down. Curiously, my Rogers ‘home-phone’ was still fully functional (it’s on the same coax line).
I immediately called my friend, who also happens to be the superintendent of the apartment complex. He confirmed that the Rogers truck was here today, and that they were messing around in the grey box. I knocked on the door of another buddy in the building (who was doing the exact same freebie thing I was) and, yep, his free cable had also been shut down, but his Internet was peachy keen. Hmm, time to call Rogers’ techie team.
Rogers tech-support ran me through a series of diagnostics (Control Panel, Networking, checking cables, rebooting the modem & PC) - all of which proved fruitless. Absolutely nothing on my end had changed, and "Alex" would neither comfirm nor deny that Rogers had even been out to visit my building earlier that day. I’m not suggesting he was blatantly lying to me; rather, he simply didn’t know or have any records on hand for that. I was suggested a final thing to do on my end - return my modem for another one.
Day 2 - Thursday, April 29th
I swapped the old modem for a new one - which, you probably guessed, did absolutely nothing to resolve the problem. I even took down the LAN and hooked it up directly to the PC itself through a single ethernet cable. Nothing worked - just those 4 dumb LEDs flashing in tandem on my modem.
OK, time again to call on the tech team. After explaining the events from the call the night before, I received confirmation that Rogers had indeed visited my building. That’s a start, I guess. However, the tech support worker still vehemently assumed the problem to be on my end and that it has absolutely nothing to do with the work conducted at ground level. When I mentioned, "what are the astronomical chances that things went wrong in my apartment at the exact same time in which you installed these new filters?" - his response was - and I quote - "it’s just a really, really bad coincidence". What utter bullshit.
Moving forward, he scheduled an appointment for a tech worker to come over and check out the situation. The date of such an appointment? - wait for it - Wednesday May 5th at the earliest - a full week away.
Day 3 - Friday, April 30th
Unhappy with having to wait an entire week for Rogers to come and fix their own mistake - at the advice of a friend who used to work for them, he instructed I contact "Customer Relations" via telephone. I did this, and was patched through to the head of their Internet Tech Support Department - apparently the scheduled date was to be bumped up to Saturday or Sunday (between 5 - 8 PM) if in the event a slot were to open prior to May 5th.
Day 4 & 5 - Saturday/Sunday
No contact from Rogers either day. I did not bother to contact them.
Day 6 - Monday, May 3rd (today)
No contact from Rogers. I called tech support again, only to be told that an earlier appointment could not be established. The appointment still stands for May 5th (I’ll be at work; they won’t have access to my apartment, only to the box outside). I’ve been told to come home and check to see if my access has been restored - if not, I’ll need to set up a new appointment (the earliest date would be this coming Saturday, May 8th in which they can actually come into the apartment). Whether or not this timeslot will still be available once Wednesday comes around, I won’t know until then.
So, if you live in Canada and subscribe to Rogers high-speed and STILL have free cable, enjoy it while it lasts. And God help you if you need them to restore your Internet access if they fuck it up by installing a faulty filter or the wrong one altogether (ie - if your line wasn’t marked with a red "high speed" tag, which is exactly what I suspect occured in my case). Rogers’ four main branches are so unequivically disconnected from each other, one could almost conclude that they’re 4 different companies.
Rogers can go suck a big dick. See you all in a few days, in a best-case scenario.
—Regards, Sharky
Archived by FSFmirror
