This is a short story of how Rogers acted inappropriately, shutting off my TekSavvy Internet connection on purpose.
Many of you regular readers know that I ditched Rogers cable Internet last year to move to TekSavvy. It was all about the bandwidth cap. I get 300 gigs now, for a few bucks less than I paid Rogers for only 60 gigs. I’ve been loving TekSavvy. Only a few minor outages that were mostly related to Rogers RF issues in Toronto, so all Rogers customers were affected by these same issues too.
Up until a few weeks ago I only had one Rogers service. It was my home phone line. I left it in service after cancelling cable Internet because I planned to move it to VoIP.ms and just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I finally made the switch in November, and that ended my relationship as a Rogers customer.
On Friday, November 30th just after lunch time, my Internet went down. I figured it was another RF issue in Toronto and waited. After four hours I got in touch with TekSavvy via Twitter (they’re great and reply fast). They told me I must have a signal issue at my house. Since there had been construction on the sidewalk in front of the house, I thought a cable got damaged. So I filed a trouble ticket, and waited. I really thought it was due to the road work, and I was totally wrong.
On Saturday I spoke to my neighbours on both sides of me. They reported no problems with cable. That made me realize the problem was likely at my house, and Rogers must have come by to shut down my connection. Perfectly honest mistake, right? They see me as having deactivated my last remaining cable service, so they disconnect me at the secure box stuck to the side of my house.
I don’t have a way into the house-mounted grey box, but I can see inside (from below) with a flashlight. I notice what appears to be a terminator on my line. I consider the possibility that it’s a filter, but dismiss it because I’m a tech geek and I’m pretty sure Rogers doesn’t use filters for the setup that I had previously (home phone + cable Internet but no cable TV). I’m suspicious at this point, but I can’t be positive it’s a terminator, and I can’t be positive that it wasn’t in place before the outage.
Looking inside the box with my flashlight, There is also a very clear, bright orange TPIA tag on my cable line. This stands for “Third Party Internet Access”. It’s a signal to a Rogers tech that my line is in use through a third party like TekSavvy, and to not disconnect. Rogers is the one that puts those labels on the cable!
Anyway, long story short – I was right. Rogers came by and disconnected me by installing a terminator on the line. A terminator is a small silver cylinder that accepts a male RF cable at both ends. It looks like it just joins the two cables together, but there is no electrical connection for the centre conductor, so it effectively acts as a disconnection device. The terminator is supposed to be difficult to remove without a special tool, and prevents people from stealing Cable TV service. Unfortunately, when you put it there on purpose despite knowing the customer has a valid third party Internet connection, it’s called being an a$$hole.
The terminator has been removed. I am not saying that I removed it myself. I would never say that.
The bottom line is that Rogers dispatched a tech to shut down my cable, which could have been an accident. But the tech then carries out the job after clearly seeing the bright orange TPIA tag. Tell me that’s not a broken operation. As it turns out, after doing some research, I learn that these techs are paid by the job. So they’d rather carry out the disconnection knowing it shouldn’t be done. This gets them paid even if the home owner is now without Internet for several days until some other tech gets dispatched to come back and reconnect the cable.
As a customer, I do not trust Rogers.
As an investor, I feel it is a broken business.
I fully recommend TekSavvy as an alternative to Rogers.
UPDATE: Once the terminator was removed from my line, I sent a Twitter message to TekSavvy to close my ticket. They did. On Monday morning at 9am I got a nice call from TekSavvy to check in with me, making sure everything was resolved to my satisfaction. Talk about good service from them (at least in terms of what they can control).
Hi, I'm Chris Umiastowski. I'm a 10-year veteran of sell side equity research and this is where I come to connect with friends on all things related to tech investing.
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish I had seen this post earlier. Out techsavvy internet went down about a week ago. Techsavvy said it was a Rogers issue. Rogers gave us the run a round. So we cancelled our Rogers business phone line and techsavvy internet (via the Rogers cable) and took it all to Bell.
Hi Kent – I definitely wish I had been able to save you the trouble earlier too. How long was your outage at the time? You’re still on the Danforth right? I think las week Rogers had a city-wide RF issue. I was down for about 2 hours, but maybe it was longer? Maybe worse for you?
I think for business phone service – you’ll save a ton by using VoIP.ms, especially if you’re comfortable either configuring a SIP phone or using a terminal adapter and doing router-like setup. Pretty easy.
This idiotic comment, written by an idiot has been edited by the idiot police. Gotta love it when idiots come to insult other readers using nonsense language laced with prejudicial idiocy. As I’ve always said, you can’t fix stupid.
- Chris
Teksavvy is a wonderful example about how a tech utility company should be run. I have nothing but good things to say about them. I have been with them for 3 years now and only have outages twice for 5 days and 4 days, 1 day apart, which turned out to be Roger’s fault. Thank God for being able to tether from my iPhone (now at 20Mbps on LTE) and a major reason I will never let go of my 6GB cellphone data plan. I even get $1/mos off my Teksavvy invoice because I referred someone to them that took the plan (that’s available to everyone btw).
I think you’re smart to hang onto that 6GB plan. I have a pretty pathetic 200MB limit right now, which is way more than I actually need considering I work from home and use Wi-Fi most of the time. But with my weekend outage, imagine if I had tethered? Talk about being screwed in short order. When I make a change to my cell plan I’ll opt for one of those Fido / Virgin $57 unlimited plans with 2Gigs data. That’s a good fallback for a down cable Internet connection. At least for a few days. There are always nearby Starbucks and the local library if I’m really stuck.
Oh, and several people have emailed me to tell me that they’ve suffered the same Rogers bullsh*t when it comes to being shutoff inappropriately. Their customer service + backend technician operations disgust me.
Just so you know, that $57 plan is a temporary promo and offered by Telus as well as Virgin. Fido is the best of the three I think as it’s the only one that has visual voicemail for the iPhone (I think you’re on BB though right?). Also, Telus does not include call fowarding (it’s $3 extra). With the others it’s included. Telus charges $20/GB for overages, while Fido and Virgin charge only $10/GB.
The 6GB plan is offered at least once a year when the new iPhone is released, but I think you might have to sign a 3 year contract to get it. The $57 plans are available month-to-month. With either plan, at least with Fido, as long as you keep renewing the price and features stay the same.
There are actually people who have unlimited data Fido plans, but they do not work with LTE.
Keep in mind when picking your cell phone provider, that Fido is Roger’s Little sister. Signing a contract with Fido is still supporting Roger’s.
I have nothing against being a customer of Rogers or their subsidiaries but am using their internet because you pay more for less with poorer customer service than Teksavvy. I am using their cable TV service as there is no better option if one wants cable TV in Toronto in the first place.
I have no problem with Fido’s service or prices. I’ve been with them since the Microcell days for 11 yrs now and there is no better deal out there. With unlimited anytime voice, text & picture messages, an entirely free iPhone 5 16GB because of my Fido Dollars credit and a $100 credit because the iPhone arrived 28 days later than they said it would, all on a 3-year contract for $66+HST monthly I can’t complain (all the while collecting 4% of my pre-tax invoice monthly to use against a credit on a future iPhone).
I’ve been on Fido for the past 3 years, but am about to switch to Public Mobile. The Christmas specials that Public Mobile and Mobilicity are offering just can’t be beat.
Edit: I meant to say I DON’T use Rogers internet.
(Damn you can’t edit a post on here!)
Thanks for sharing a great story, Chris. As for “As an investor, I feel it is a broken business”, I’d just point out that Ray Dalio initiated a position in Rogers and Bell in the latest quarter. He’s been one of the best-performing hedge fund managers in the past few years. Rogers and Bell, with ownership of a lot of content, are likely among the best-positioned carriers anywhere in the world.
So here is my story, I decided to get rid of bell basic service and use ooma(voip), so I had to move to cable from dsl. After some research and a friend’s recommendation I switched to Teksavvy but my internet wasn’t working properly, with intermittent outages so I called the tech support and he figured it is a signal issue, so a ticked was issued and the cable guy came the first time and did a signal test and said everything is good, but if I were to ask him anything about the modem or the signal strength then he would say we don’t get in to that and I tried to show him the modem setup page where it shows all the signal strengths and he wouldn’t even look at it. . My issue hasn’t been solved so called the tech support again and go through the procedure and still the signal strength was out of limit especially the up stream should be (power level 35-50) mine was in the low 30′s
the second guy who came also said the signal is good and he was ready to leave the house but he seemed to be a much nicer guy so I asked him some questions and showed him the modem setup page and the strengths of the signal and right away he said they are too high which will cause intermittent internet outages for me, so I asked what can be done? he said it is easy just need to install a splitter before the modem that should lower the signal strength , “do you want me to fix that for you ” he said. I said sure and so he did and the internet seem to be ok now.
My point would be If he wasn’t a nice enough guy and if I didn’t ask for it I don’t know how long or even if the issue would have been solved. I think these tech guys are trained on purpose to be not helpful to the customer or the third party internet provider
I do have question for you guys , I have about 25 mbps down and 512kbps up (I tested it with speedtest.net) but if am downloading a high def video then during that download I am unable to access the internet on other tabs or other browser the page gets timed out, a simple google page.
I was able to do this on my previous dsl connection which was only 3.5mbps down and 400 kbps up, sure it takes longer to download the video but during that download I could browse other pages.
Is this a dsl vs cable system issue
Is there a fix for this?
The teksavvy guys can’t seem to figure this out. and I moved from lower package to a speedier package to see if it will resolve it but did not.
Thanks.
Sam
Sam – I upgraded my TekSavvy connection for another $6, so now I get 1 meg upstream and 28 megs downstream. I was experiencing the same problem as you where downloading big files would really slow my connection on other sites. That’s a Rogers thing, BTW, not a TekSavvy thing. TekSavvy rides on the Rogers network for cable customers.
Anyway, my new bandwidth package is awesome. I upgraded because I’ve been editing a lot of video and uploading it to websites. I needed better bandwidth. But now EVERYTHING is faster.
I want to switch ISP from Rogers. I am not tekky, just someone trying to save money. I have 3 teenagers and needless to say they’re youtubing me out of house and home(LOL). I’ve been looking at TekSavvy for a while but I’m worried about their security. I work from home and have to log on to my work website and if the security is not good I’m not able to log on. That’s my only draw back from switching to TekSavvy. Rogers are crooks, they are definately doing something to increase the internet usage so their customers are always over. I’ve noticed this for months now but how do you prove it.
Security should not be a problem with TekSavvy. As long as you password protect your WiFi and choose the best security type for it. I would recommend a alphanumeric password for the WiFi (automaticaly done) and WPA security. Also, TekSavvy provides better internet speed for low price.
Security is a non issue. You’re still riding over the same network as Rogers. When you connect to your work website you’ll probably be using a VPN or some similar software. That software gives you the encryption you need to satisfy your workplace IT folks.
I myself am switching to Internet TV and am no longer in need of Cable.
I purchased an HD Antenna (which works beautifully) and plan on getting my Internet TV viewing via Teksavvy. They have a decent 18MBps Upload Speed with 300GB cap for $40/month.
Chris, do you use Teksavvy for HD video streams?
What plan do you have?
Teksavvy uses Rogers Infrastructure, so I’m concerned it might be affected by that.
I find Netflix HD movies or shows stream perfectly. The bitrate for HD streaming isn’t that high. The 18 Mb/s plan is the one I’m on, I think. No issues at all with downloads, however my upload speeds are pretty slow (0.5 Mb/s is the quoted rate), so when I post videos online it takes a while. I’m considering moving to the 14 Mb/s plan because it has 1 Mb/s upload speeds (double). The slight loss in download speed won’t bother me.
Miki,
Like Chris, I’m a long-time Teksavvy customer. I ‘cut the cord’ a long time so we are without any sort of entertainment unless we are able to stream video over the web in our household unless you count the 20+ TV channels we receive on an ‘over the air’ basis.
That said, I can’t think of a single issue that was Teksavvy’s fault. I hope you were able to successfully ‘cut the cord!’
Regards,
Kevin Restivo
Hey Chris, awesome site you have here!
Rogers have a no contract cable+Internet + phone for 74$/Mont 25mbs, 10$+if I want unlimited Internet usage. This plan however last for 6 months time and according to the rogers representative they said the price may increase our adjust to beat if there’s another plant better from another service. This plan I find interesting but at the same time I don’t know if I should trust them. They said the price would stay the same but I asked workers in store about the plan and they said the prove would go back to regular, what ever regular is.. I’m confused if u should switch to rogers.
I’m with primus and from them I’m paying roughly 90$ post month for unlisted Internet usage 12mbs and telephone with some features…
Rogers is absolutely the rudest and most incompetent company that I have ever dealt with. I would need several pages to describe their incompetence. Basically they notate on my account things that I never agreed with and it is my word against theirs. I have quit all my services with them today and I look forward to TekSavvy. Their customer service is so superior. I guess Rogers does not know how to deal with their core business so they got into baseball. Poor Blue Jays!
Amazing info! After my research Teksavvy is the one i’m going on board with. Good Riddance Rogers!!! You’ve stolen enough money from me!
Great write up Chris. I am just about to cut the cord with Rogers and get on to TekSavvy, will connect back with you if I find a terminator on my cable after the switch. Thanks.
Hi,
I am currently with Rogers for ALL my services and have for the last little while been unsatisfied. I play a lot of video games on my PS3 online and have been experiencing a lot of lag. My wife runs her own business from home and relies on the net for her business dealings but frequently our signal will drop for no reason. My cable bill is quite high the the services we actually receive.
I’ve been looking around for an alternative and have been recommended to TekSavvy from friends. I’m not as familiar with all the ‘technicalities’ of it all so I’m wondering as a customer who likes to stream HD movies from Netflix, play games online, use Skype and browse the internet, which service would you recommend that could handle that workload smoothly? DSL vs Cable? Upload/Download speeds?
Thanks for your advice. I’m leaning towards making the jump from Rogers… I just don’t know who to jump to!
Hey All,
I just had the exact issue happen to me. and Now I have to wait 2 days for Rogers tech who do get paid per Job to come back and fix their mistake. I would also like to say that Tek Savvy is a great company so far who in my opinion are customer service driven and will go far if they keep up this type of service. I have managed to get most of my friends and family to Drop both Bell and Rogers for Tek Savvy and none have complained or regret the move.