Rogers to Phase Out Services

[mrpete]

I recieved a letter saying Rogers will phase out cable services and my current TV service will no longer be available. To avoid these impacts move to Rogers ignite.  Is this true?

I don't want ignite!

***Edited Labels***

[Lurker_Returns]

It's happening eventually.

TV over Internet is where the industry is heading and traditional digital cable is going the way of the dodo, like analog TV before it.

As far as I know, Rogers hasn't set a hard cutoff date yet, but that's where the road is heading.

Out of curiosity, is there a hard date in your letter? Or is it just a generalized sales pitch?

[-G-]

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@mrpete wrote:

I recieved a letter saying Rogers will phase out cable services and my current TV service will no longer be available. To avoid these impacts move to Rogers ignite.  Is this true?

I don't want ignite!

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What part of the country do you live in?

I have heard reports that Rogers will be decommissioning legacy/traditional Digital Cable TV infrastructure for former Source Cable customers.  I would also expect this to happen in areas that Rogers upgrades to Fiber to the Home, when they cease to deliver service over coax.  However, as far as I know, Rogers has not announced any plans to sunset Digital Cable just yet.

[-G-]

Found this article in the Hamilton Spectator: https://www.thespec.com/business/2021/04/15/rogers-phasing-out-source-cable-service.html

According to the report, the affected customers have until mid-May to upgrade to Ignite to avoid a gap in service.

[mrpete]

It states starting on May 15 2021 some of your existing TV features MAY be impacted, including the loss of your channel guide and ability to view some channels.

[Don_Ca]

Are you a former Source Cable or Mountain Cable customer? Also, come to the Dark Side, we have pizza 😉 Ignite is good for me, better than the old half backed software running on legacy.

[THam]

Hello,

I and others in my neighbourhood (in the Hamilton Mountain area) have been experiencing random outages since mid-March of this year. Up until today, I've been told there is a problem in my area that has been difficult to fix but they're working on it. However, today a technician and then an order-entry (?) person let the truth slip:

1. The ignite service I am currently subscribed to is not a suitable deployment for my area due to the number of users
2. This is the cause of the repeated outages
3. I can stay with the service and continue experiencing outages or move to the "upgraded" Ignite service which costs more but will be outage-free

I pointed out that I've been paying for an outage-free service and it doesn't make sense to have a customer pay more because the vendor can't make the current service work properly.

@Rogers: What is going on here? Can you understand that this just looks like a way to extract more money from your customers? The solution is simple: If you can't make your current service work properly, move us to the new service at no extra cost.

Now, can you please help me finally be free of these ridiculous outages?

[Don_Ca]

Sounds like they do not have the capacity in the area to handle the load.

[Pauly]

This happens all the time, planned obsolesce.

The Digital cable you watch on your TV comes from Rogers, but Rogers did not invent the technology, other companies invented and build the equipment to transmit the signals from the Head End to your house. That equipment has been around for quite a long time and its likely at its end of life span. This means the vendors do not produce new equipment anymore, there's no support, and stuff that is being decommissioned in the field is being replaced by another vendor which uses a newer different technology (IPTV).

Basically if u want to continue watching TV you have to switch to the Ignite system.

This is not new thing, this happens to everything remember cash registers were all manual back in the day, ya they got obsolete and replaced with computers. Cellphones? they were all analog, they got replaced and moved over to a digital technology. Audio Cassettes? ya those got replaced with CDs and eventually digital downloads.

[-G-]

Looks like we have some posts that got merged into an existing thread, but the common theme here are issues affecting former customers of small regional cable companies that were acquired by Rogers.  I'm also almost certain that these Digital Cable customers do not have Scientific Atlanta/Cisco/Technicolor cable boxes so, at some point, aging, obsolete and incompatible infrastructure in these service areas will need to get replaced with current technology.

[aboyaci]

Now that it is November 2022, are there any details of when Rogers Digital TV will be phased out? Is there a plan on when they will say, that's it - we are completely shutting off the legacy systems? Very curious to know?

I will assume there is still a ton of people with digital cable still.

[57]

There is no information on this topic yet. There probably won't be until there are only a very few months left.  This sort of information is usually kept confidential until the latest possible moment or something "leaks out" with very little notice.

I assume you're talking about Rogers Legacy Digital Cable everywhere.  Some of the earlier posts in this thread were specific to small cable companies, like Source cable or Mountain cable that Rogers purchased.  I believe, these had Motorola equipment and head ends that were not compatible with Rogers'  (Ontario) current Legacy Digital Cable.  These were phased out to IgniteTV because Rogers wasn't going to switch those systems to Cisco/Scientific Atlanta equipment, preferring to migrate everyone on those (Motorola) systems to IgniteTV in one step. 

Motorola is in use in all of Rogers Atlantic Canada, but they never had Cisco/SA.  I'm not sure if Rogers Atlantic Legacy Digital Cable will be phased out to IgniteTV before, after, or at the same time as Rogers Ontario.  Since there are probably fewer customers there, it may happen before Ontario, but that would be pure speculation.

[-G-]

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@aboyaci wrote:

Now that it is November 2022, are there any details of when Rogers Digital TV will be phased out? Is there a plan on when they will say, that's it - we are completely shutting off the legacy systems? Very curious to know?

I will assume there is still a ton of people with digital cable still.

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Rogers has not provided any details about their plans other than publishing this FAQ: https://www.rogers.com/support/tv/discontinuation-of-our-digital-tv-packages

At some point, Rogers will also migrate neighbourhoods to their next-generation Fibre-Powered Internet and that infrastructure will no longer be able to support the old legacy services.

[mebe]

Plans can change, so even if there's a staff email to some departments claiming that 2023 is the phase-out year for legacy TV, some areas may still get a bit longer to party like it's 2023.
A full year seems like enough time to brace yourselves for the Borg assimilation that you all know is coming.
Resistance is futile, and if Rogers still has legacy digital TV subscribers deep into 2024, that would mean that the time-traveller I spoke to on the phone was delusional.
To Xfinity and beyond! 🔭⏳💣

[lexi321]

I spoke with Customer service yesterday as my cable bill jumped $150/month. They stated they are no longer offering promotions for legacy plans and that all legacy will be discontinued by January 2024. The same message was given by a Rogers tech who was at my place a month ago. I finally made the switch to Ignite in order to get reasonable pricing again. It seems they've really got you by the....

[mebe]

This "cancel culture" is contagious. Legacy was caught using a plastic straw, and that was apparently the last straw.
I will definitely mourn the cancelation of my "real" tv subscription, but whether I get cancelled early, or survive until New Year's day 2024, I intend to go down with the ship.
"Cloud culture" is the new normal, but since the free-wifi Internet is still a thing, that's the "cloud" I'm going to stick with, once my legacy ship has sunk.
All good things must come to an end, so that better things can replace them.
I'm curious to see what comes after IPTV, but I doubt that I'll be around long enough to find out.
I've looked at clouds from both sides now, but soon it will be time to embrace the rain.☔

[aboyaci]

Oh they said by January 2024, they will shut down legacy digital TV? Interesting. I kept being told, at some point in near future, but no date provided. They should clearly say so.

[mebe]

It would be nice if Every Legacy subscriber had full service until their Jan. 2024 billing date, but it is quite likely that certain areas will continue to get letters, or warnings within their bills, that their Legacy service may be negatively affected in various ways during the coming months, and that they should switch to Ignite to avoid them. Some Jan. 2023 bills might even warn of an April Legacy shutdown, so as to reduce the potential influx of new December/January 2024 installs, and calls for help during the busy holiday time.
Unless Rogers officially declares that All current Legacy subscribers have until Jan. 2024 to avoid service disruptions, I'm going to assume that I may only have about 7 months left to finish watching my recorded PVR content, just in case I soon get notified that my Legacy shutoff month will be July 2023.
Summer Bummer, or Winter Wipeout? Regardless of the time of death, the Grim Reaper knows where we all live. 🔜💀

[mebe]

Although it was mentioned to me months ago, that 2023 was supposed to be the death of Legacy services, somebody on the rfd forums (Dec 2022) with legacy tv, internet and home phone, got help from a Rogers rententions agent (via chat, passed to via first CSRep) who found available legacy deals ... to get $4O off her 300 unlimited speed internet, and a 2-year deal for $15 month wireless phone service, instead of $33 for regular home phone. Her Tv deal wasn't expiring so she left it as is.
The rententions agent then apparently told her that Rogers plans to end Legacy Internet and Tv by the end of 2024. Did the agent mean to say 2023, or does anybody really know the RIP date for legacy?
2023 is going to be an interesting year for Legacy fact and fiction gossip ... Until Rogers makes things official.

[X318]

A Rogers tech support guy told me on the phone that digital TV will be shut down across the country on January 2024.  He then said I could get Ignite TV for $40/month with no charge installation and a free rental box.  I'm always leery of anything Rogers tells me based on past experience.  I wonder if any of this is true.

[mebe]

The $40 price means nothing because if it doesn't include all the channels you want, you will have to add more channels, thus increasing the price.

Tech support agents don't handle sales, so it doesn't matter what he tells you, as it's not binding.

Sure, people can get free tv boxes added to their Ignite plans, but since IgniteTV requires a modem and a tv box, for $10 each per month (so that's $20 wasted on equipment each month), your modem rental is extra, although that too can be thrown in for free perhaps. No need to pay for the Internet, but if you want to stream Disney+, etc., You'll need to pay more for internet access.

What Rogers doesn't like to tell you is what you lose if you switch to IgniteTV, nor can they guarantee that your area will give you reliable Ignite service.

So, if you're satisfied with what you have, stick with it for as long as it lasts, whether it be Jan. 2024 (accepted estimate made by many employees), or sooner .. . Depending on your area or building you live in.