TechnoMagicians Blog

Tyler Hamilton inteviews Dermot O'Carroll, senior vice-president of network engineering and operations at Rogers Cable as stated in his blog here.

The actual article is published in the Star here.

I'd like Dermot to explain how Rogers can make claims as stated in the article:

“Rogers is promising eight hours worth of back-up power in case of outages, as well as 911 calling in the event of an emergency. And unlike services from Vonage or Primus, which are designed to piggyback high-speed access services they don't control, Rogers will be in solid control over the access points and network its telephone customers will rely on.”

I've been asking Rogers for 3 years to remove their dependance on FCI Broadband (also known as Futureway Communications) that provide the infrastructure and network in my area that Rogers piggybacks on top of. They have told me over the years there is nothing they can do about it and they certainly haven't been helpful in anyway in resolving any issues whatsoever with this problem and FCI Broadband. Do you know how many times Rogers tech support tried to get me to call FCI Broadband (even though I am not a customer of FCI Broadband) to look into issues in the area?? Why should I have to do that? Why would Rogers not call them on this? Simple, they couldn't care. Why would Rogers care now that VoIP is being rolled out. They won't. The service will be horrible and unreliable especially in this area.

You'll see a number of Customer Service categories on the left hand side of this blog. All of them have stepped up to the plate to try to resolve problems as posted here except for Rogers. I know a great number of people at Rogers read this blog and I'll take their silence to mean they still don't want to deal with this issue 3 years later.

You certainly won't find me using the Rogers VoIP service. Two tin cans and a piece of string would be much more reliable.

As a side note, FCI Broadband (Futureway Communications) offers digital phone service in this area and a number of people were conned into signing up with the service as FCI Broadband (Futureway Communications) told people that Bell could not bring their own lines in. I had Bell string in a line and I don't think it has been down since I moved in (over 3 years). Even during the big blackout I'm pretty sure I had phone service the whole time. I can't tell you how many times people asked me if my phone was working. Theirs were out for days at a stretch many many times. I have no idea if things are better in the last year or so but I can just imagine how lousy their phone service is.

Update: Mark Evans has a post on this as well.

Update: Mark Evans has a post on FCI Broadband (Futureway Communications) entering the VoIP market!!! My comments above should tell you how far away I'm staying from that one!!!!

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