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Issues with Roger's High-Speed Internet aka Extreme Dial-Up! (Toronto - October)

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  • Oct 28th, 2010 7:57 pm
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Member
Apr 8, 2006
254 posts
133 upvotes

Issues with Roger's High-Speed Internet aka Extreme Dial-Up! (Toronto - October)

Got a good deal on Rogers High-Speed internet? You may still be getting ripped off. I suggest hitting Rogers.com/speedcheck (or any other reputable speed test site) to make sure you're getting what you pay for. For the past 3 weeks, seemingly my whole neighbourhood (northwest Toronto) is getting atrocious speeds during primetime. By atrocious, I mean on Express (10mbps) I'm getting .2 - .5 mbps (200 - 500 kbps) after 6pm. Overnight it creeps back up to 5 or 6 mbps, then starts dropping again in the morning. Upload speed is unaffected.

Judging by the posts on dslreports.com, others in my neighbourhood (including Teksavvy customers) are having the exact same issue, and it has been narrowed down to being a problem with the hub at Dupont that clients were recently moved to.

Unsurprisingly, Rogers tech support has been aggravating, because 95% of the time they will not acknowledge that it is a network problem. Instead they insist on making you run the typical restart/tracert/ping/etc tests (and only a speed test will indicate that there's an issue) before escalating it to network engineers, who in turn close the ticket with a 'problem resolved' automated message despite the fact that the problem remains. And so you call back and they start over again with the testing and escalation and, you guessed it, problem resolved messages.

This happened to me 6 months ago and went through the exact same pattern for a month until they finally did maintenance at the node. Which fixed it and put my tests at exactly 10.0 mbps until this new problem started. So it is fixable, but noise must be made apparently.

I'm posting this here because at 200-500 kbps, most websites will still load so many people may not notice the cruddy speeds unless they're streaming or downloading. So i'm not sure how widespread the problem is, if it's affecting all levels of internet packages, or if we're being as vocal to Rogers as we can. So my suggestion, particularly if you're in the Dupont area, is to check, and if there's a problem call tech support, jump through the test hoops once (but let them know it's an area problem and the usual tests won't resolve anything), and then start insisting on reimbursement. It seems to me this will be the only effective way to truly get some attention paid to the matter, since tech support protocol just creates a circular waste of time. (oh and if they insist on sending a technician to your home, be forewarned that the tech can spend hours trying everything including swapping the modem and rewiring, and it won't make a difference.)

Thanks for reading, I feel like my only recourse is to get the word out so that their phones start ringing even more.
4 replies
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Mar 8, 2005
6382 posts
1741 upvotes
^ It is a widespread problem within the Rogers territory. There is nothing you can do about it. With cable internet, your internet connections are shared with your neighbors. When every one gets home from work in the evening, they turn on their computer and go on the internet. So that fat internet pipe would have to be shared among all of you, and you get 200-500kb out of it.

To tackle the problem and not upgrading their lines, Rogers decide to put bandwidth charge to deter people's usage.
Member
Apr 8, 2006
254 posts
133 upvotes
It is indeed a traffic management issue, with users (including Teksavvy clients, and Extreme + customers) being moved to Dupont hub, if the feedback on dslreports rogers and teksavvy forums is at all accurate. And yes, some degradation of speed is to be expected with cable.

But I cannot agree that getting less than 5% of the advertised speed is acceptable in a "them's the breaks" way. I expect issues, but I also expect them to be solved, not indefinite and unackowledged after 3+ weeks.

There is a remedy, they just have to actually work it out and fix it! Like I mentioned, last time this happened, once it was finally effectively fixed by their engineers, the speed remained consistent and dead-on for 6 months until this move from the Bloor node. I just think the only way to expedite the fix is to start hitting the revenue stream by asking for compensation.
Member
Apr 8, 2006
254 posts
133 upvotes
For more info, here are some relevant dslreports links:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r249237 ... in-Toronto

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r248860 ... Dupont-POI

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r248018 ... ~start=320


And respectfully Tomtomtom, i don't think caps and overage charges were put in place to curb usage, but rather to make absurd profits from likely overages, and create an upsell tactic for higher-end plans. I mean would they really be trying to discourage 10mbps 60gig cap usage because their lines are stressed, and meanwhile offer a $99 Ultimate 50mbps package, while also providing bandwidth to resellers like Teksavvy? These caps/charges/etc are purely deliberate from a fiscal standpoint, taking advantage of customers' online appetites (ie the arrival of Netflix = cap reduction to make up for the hit to Rogers On Demand).

But there are many tangents when it comes to the current broadband situation in Canada that leaves consumers screwed. I'd rather stay on this particular speed issue which I'm certain is fixable based on my last experience. It's true, there's nothing we can do...except complain.
Sr. Member
Sep 19, 2010
568 posts
89 upvotes
Unionville, ON.
This has been a problem for the 15 years that I've had rogers "high speed" cable internet.

15 years ago, the service was so intermittent, I was simply happy when it worked, never mind worry about the speed. So I've never bothered.

As for the caps, those are new. They were put in place simply to squeeze more $$$ out of you, and make sure you couldn't replace cabletv with internet downloads & streaming.

If you live in Canada, you should be used to consumers getting screwed, especially compared to the prices and services available stateside. Sigh.

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