Rogers hardly @home

Internet provider causes havoc for dozens of users

Cristiano de Florentiis is a documentary producer who works for RAI, the Italian television network. He and his lovely wife just moved into a new house in downtown Toronto, a house furnished with taste. Like many new homeowners, however, Cristiano has a bit of a problem, only this time it has nothing to do with mowing lawns, shovelling snow, or dealing with rave-addicted neighbours. Nope, Cristiano's problem lies in accessing his Internet via Rogers@home.
After all, how could he have resisted the offer? Digital cable TV with free installation and three free months of Internet access. A few weeks ago television cable and modem were installed as per the offer, but trouble started as soon as the computer was connected: the Rogers CD and instructions were only for a Windows PC, with no mention of iMacs. That was the beginning of a telephone ordeal made up of hours on hold and clueless support people.
A solution seemed at hand when the help desk reassured him that the Network Team will take care of the matter. As of today, the ancestral gods of the Network Team have solved nothing; indeed, they failed to materialize or even to call. A tired and frustrated Cristiano is finally considering switching to a different DSL provider.
Cristiano is not an isolated case: Norman, Antonio, Francine, and many more like them have experienced the same problems plaguing the Rogers services.
A new network and a lot of customer support for reconfiguring their system had become necessary following the bankruptcy of the Excite@home giant, which supplied Internet access for Rogers. Even though this week Rogers Cable extended its @Home deal for three more months, the provider is urging members to make the switch to the new network ASAP. These changes, painless on paper, turned into a nightmare due to unclear (when not outright mistaken) instructions and intermittent Internet access; not exactly top performance for a service claiming to be "Always On."
Certainly something misfired in the company's plans, considering that many users lamented huge problems even in reconfiguring their computers for retrieving their e-mail. As if the trauma of informing everyone that your e-mail would change from @home.com to @rogers.com were not enough, users had to cope with super-clogged support hotlines and cryptic Website instructions which baffled even people with some computer savvy, such as a colleague of mine.
Norman, for instance, is a movie critic, and for any professional like him changing his e-mail address is like changing his telephone number. Calmly and patiently, he followed the instructions step by step, and finally discovered that his new e-mail, indispensable for his job, simply refused to work. After four days of useless calls to customer service, Norman changed his Internet service provider.
It's no surprise that, while Rogers was trying to cope by broadcasting explanations even on television, many of its former customers went somewhere else.
But Rogers' problems are not over yet, since many users have not changed their e-mail addresses which, of course, will eventually stop working.
Maybe navigating POP, IMAP and authentication protocols is as easy as TV commercials claim, but Rogers' competitors are all too happy with the number of users who, this time, switched to another channel.

Publication Date: 2001-12-09
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=697