Service Availability at New Home

[AEC1]

Good Morning 

Today, I write to you to express our deepest dissatisfaction and disappointment with Rogers customer service. We have all of our services with Rogers through my wife. We are at a point in which we cannot even comprehend how your company is even allowed to treat paying customers the way you do.  

Your customer service is a complete and utter disgrace. Every time we call to change a plan or because we need help, it is at least 4 – 6 hours on the phone. And please, do not even think of blaming COVID for this. Your service was deficient long before the pandemic. Your customer service reps provide deficient, and even more concerning, malicious service. Every time we call, the person who answers claims it is not their department, even though we follow the phone system instructions. We get transferred around, hung up on, transferred to the French queue etc. Sometimes we feel that we are flagged to be treated poorly on purpose because you do not want us as clients. We have come to realize that to get help from you, we must talk to 5 – 7 different people in hopes that one would be trained enough and kind enough to help with our needs. It almost feels like a favour even though we are paying customers. 

Ever since October 7th we have been living through a nightmare with your disgusting customer service. We called to make an appointment to have our internet moved to our new home. We were assured on the phone that the house had internet connection from the street. The technician comes on Oct 7th and informs us that it is not the case and that he cannot help set our home internet and cable because the cable buried by our home is COMPLETELY EMPTY.  Because of this, we have been forced to hot-spot on our phones because we need to work. Looking into data overages we call to change our plan. In trying to do so, we have been transferred and tossed around like garbage. From one department to another, from one useless, malicious agent to another.  We asked for a Manager, we got hung up on! AGAIN 

Why is your customer service so bad?  

What kind of contractors do you have that install an empty cable to our home so that no home internet can be installed? who supervises these jobs? why did we get false assurances from your moving department that our home was internet ready?

What good is it that you claim to have “the most reliable network” if we cannot get service from you even though we pay our bills on time? 

How do you get away with treating people so badly? 

Should we switch to Bell Canada?  Our next door neighbour had NO PROBLEM getting his house hooked up!

You guys need to get your act together. You cannot keep treating people like this, it is disrespectful and inconsiderate, not to mention unfair. Even though we are paying customers, your attitude to your customers is: “you get what you get when you get it.” Disgraceful. 

Just because you have little to no competition, does not mean you should get away with not treating people properly. 

Please offer us a compensation for our troubles, we are less than 24 hours away from switching to Bell Canada

**Labels/Title Edited**

[Datalink]

@AEC1 I'm not going to argue about the service aspects of your post.  I'd like to point out the potential problems of moving into a new home.  

If you're new home is in an existing neighbourhood thats been around for a few years, then its possible that you could have cable service available from Rogers or TPIAS as well as DSL / VDSL available from Bell.  Bell has also been installing fibre to the home in various communities, so its also possible that you could have access to Bell's fibre network.  

At the side of your house, close to the power meter, you should see a couple of nylon enclosures, possibly one for Rogers and one for Bell.  Looking at those enclosures and evidence of cables running into those enclosures from an underground or overhead source would tell you immediately what's currently available, Rogers, Bell or both. 

If you're in a new home, in a new development, then there's a good chance that the developer has made an exclusive deal with either Bell or Rogers.  Since your neighbour has service from Bell, that provides some evidence that potentially, Bell may be the only provider in the neighourhood.  One of the very first questions that potential new home owners should ask of the home builder, or neighbouhood developer is which company has been given access or exclusive rights to provide internet service to the house or neighbouhood, and in the particular case of your house, what services have been installed or run to the external demarcation point that is seen by the presence of those external Rogers or Bell enclosures.  That question is up to the new home owner to ask of the home builder or neighbourhood developer.  

So, unfortunately, you have some homework to do before you can assume that Rogers has run any cabling to your home for future service.  

Internally, there should be an RG-6 cable that is run from the Structured Wiring panel, which is usually in the basement, up to the external demarcation point.  That is normally installed for cable service from providers such as Rogers or TPIAs.  And, internally there is usually cable runs to all of the rooms in the home.  Those cable runs and what is included in those runs should have been included in the house build agreement if in fact you contracted with a home builder or developer to build your home.  If there are no cable runs that include RG-6 cables for Rogers or TPIA service, or ethernet, then you have bigger problems to contend with.  I would hope that the builder at least installed low voltage conduit to the drop sites in the rooms in order for you to run RG-6 or ethernet or fibre to the required locations.  Again, the house build agreement  or specs should have included the cabling or low voltage conduit as an installed item. 

Can you expand on the term "empty cable"?  Either there is cable to the home from the local tap or there isn't.  Did the house builder install conduit, in the case of underground cabling in order to run the required cabling at a later date?  That would be ideal, but, I have yet to see anyone post that fact, indicating that the builder was thinking ahead.  If that is the case, that there's an underground conduit running from the local tap to the side of your home, then all that a tech has to do is run the required RG-6 cable thru that conduit.  I don't know if the usual contract tech is prepared to do that or not.  The local tap is a waist high green pedestal (normally green in colour) that provides cable service to four or possibly six homes.  That pedestal is normally visible from your front steps.  In the case of overhead cabling, the local tap is located at the nearest utility pole, which services four homes, possibly more from that one tap.  

If your neighbourhood has overhead cabling, then a tech has to run a cable from the nearest utility pole to your home.  I don't know if contract techs are allowed to climb utility poles or not.  If not, then a Rogers tech will have to be assigned to run that cable.  

So, at this point, the questions are:

1.  Which company provides service to your neighbourhood, Rogers or Bell?  That might take some homework on your part to determine that.  A good starting point would be your neighbour.  Ask him or her is they have fibre or DSL/VDSL.  I'd say that if the answer is fibre to the home, then there's a very good chance that Bell is the only provider for your neighbourhood.  It all depends on whether or not your sub-division is a newly built sub-division.

2.  Do you have underground or overhead cabling to your home?  That should be very evident.  

3.  Do you have a Rogers or Bell Network Interface Device (NID) which is the enclosure that is normally attached to the side or your home?  

[-G-]

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@Datalink wrote:

Can you expand on the term "empty cable"?  

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My initial thought was that this might have have been a new subdivision, slated to get fibre-to-the-home, and that perhaps the conduit going to the home was empty.

That would also explain why the tech would not have been able to install the service, otherwise they would have found some way, any way, to get the service up and running with a temporary line.