Rogers Cable

Ahh, Rogers Cable.

I signed up for Rogers Cable on February 28th, 2000. The date sticks out in my head in particular because that day happened to be stage 1 of the 2000 CCC contest. Anyway.

I had been religiously using Toronto Freenet every day until that fateful day. But I got tired of playing my simple Text Based Games (bouncing through Seflin Freenet of course). And my parents got tired of me tying up the phone line. And it just so happened that on that day, going home from school, we passed the Rogers building. "Do you want Rogers Cable?" "Uh, yes." "Okay". So in we went, an appointment we made, and Rogers Cable we got.

Maybe this is true with all good things, but I remember it being faster when I first got it. Or perhaps it was the sheer fact that I was switching from a 14.4kbps dialup connection. Just like how the number for Toronto Freenet is burned into my mind, as is the IP address I got (which stayed with me for 8 months: 24.68.88.248).

I soon hooked up a Linux box. Ardant Dot Net? was born.

Rogers Cable has also given me lots of problems.

Do's and Don'ts of Rogers Cable Support

My cable's died for extended periods of time before. Or even worse, been very slow (to the point where it is unbearably slow, but still "working" so they ignore the issue). Sometimes, it's gone on for weeks or months. Recently, it's been reasonably good. Here is some wisdom to help you through your trying times.

• Do call and complain. It makes you feel better, even if the person on the other end can't really do anything for you. Call and whine and complain, and be sure to sound angry, so you can get the support person as exasperated as you are. It's really entertaining. Sometimes you might get some useful information.
• Don't let the support person talk you through a checklist on what to click on your computer and what to unplug and replug and in what order. The order does not matter. Stop with the order already.
• Do try to get more information. The friendly support person may know about other outages in the area. They don't normally volunteer this information. It can be quite useful sometimes.
• Don't use Linux. Hah, yeah right. Use Linux, but be ready to translate their commands (ipconfig /renew *) into real commands (ifdown eth0; ifup eth0). For the even more skillful, translate the results back into Windows-speak for them ("Ok, I right-clicked on Network Neighbourhood, now what?").
• Do get the name of the person you talked to. Do recommend that your problem be escalated to TAC, if it persists. Do insist on a partial refund, or discount, for lost service time. You might have to ask multiple times, they conveniently ignore this.
• Don't bother asking for their supervisor. You'll never get them.

That's all, for now.

Rogers and Vo IP??

Rogers announced that on July 1st, 2005, they would start offering local phone services using Voice-over-IP technology. This is in direct competition with Bell; now Rogers can offer bundle packages including cable internet, cable tv, wireless phone, and local phone service, to further expand their monopoly.

Of course, the first thought that went through my mind was sheer disgust. Given their proven availability and reliability track record with cable internet, would you really want them to handle your landline phone too?