Which Modem does Rogers rent for Express Service?

[Dimundz88]

Express internet:

Up until I upgraded to the new Cisco modem, things were great. Speed test's of up to 40mbps. I was very happy, and rarely had a problem.

I recently noticed I was paying the same amount of $ for Express as others who were receiving a higher monthly data rate, and was told I needed to upgrade my modem. I was upset that I had been going over my monthly 50gb and paying extra charges when all along I could have been using up to 80gb a month. 

I WAS THE ONE who happened to be on their website and noticed this change in monthly allowance. NO ONE from Rogers notified me to say, "Hey, you're actually paying the same amount of money as anyone else who has signed up for the Express service - all you need to do is give us MORE money for a new modem and your'e set" - Thanks Rogers for never notifying me. 

Since I have upgraded a month ago or so to the new Cisco modem, my download rates have been ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! Packet loss like crazy! Speed tests of 0.2mbps - 3.5mbps. 

A technician was sent out on this past friday - He replaced the cables, splitter and something in the wall and said it was fixed.  that it was fixed - It is WORSE now!!!

I called Rogers back today (because I have soo much time to call Rogers on a daily basis) and they said my neighbours in my apartment building above and below me are also receiving Packet Loss and they have to send a technician out again to fix the problem internally in the building, along with externally.

I told them I want to be notified of this once it is complete to test once again. If this is not resolved in the next 48 hours, I am leaving Rogers and canceling all of my services. A customer pays a premium for a service that they should be happy with. I am certainly not happy and will not pay any fees to get out of any contracts.

A side note, I connected 4 seperate times with their live chat agents, who were completely useless. "Disconnect your modem" "Restart your modem" "Clear your Cache" LOL. All of these suggestions were hilarious. My grandmother knows more then them regarding Internet problem solving. 

At one point talking to a live chat agent, I requested her to answer me 1 simple questions - "What was my signal strength coming to my modem" - She avoided the question completely, telling me I keep on getting disconnected from her in the chat, and finally she just left. I was amazed, and wish I had saved the chat to show Rogers Upper Management the horrible customer service. Needless to say I gave her a poor rating via the user satisfaction survey. It was a joke.

In the end it seems like the new Cisco modems are garbage. I have an old wireless router I may bridge (I have never done such a thing before, but am comfortable doing so). 

There is no point trying to download anything, play any online game on PS3, or even use an iPad since the connection and packet loss is so poor. Frustrating that I am paying money for a service that does not work. I look forward to leaving Rogers in the near future, as it has been 15 years in the making, as they do not value their customers, nor make any effort to truly solve the problem. Sending a technician is the easiest thing a Customer service agent can do to avoid the problem. Technician shows up, doesn't bother removing his clunky/dirty work boots, replaces a splitter and cable line and says it's fixed, see ya later. 

Thanks Rogers for messing up something that was once great. 

** edited for content**

[FormerMember]

Appreciate the time you have taken to write such a detailed review. It is comments such as yours that keep me from switching to a D3 modem. I really hope that some day, Rogers will get the message. While they often claim that our messages are passed on to their "internal teams", whomever they might be, I fear that no one is really listening. 

[FormerMember]

It is also interesting to note Dimundz88 that the Rogers Rep has taken time to read and edit your comment, but cannot be bothered to post a reply. I guess that says a lot about Rogers!

[desi_dude]

Agree with the frustractions all you had. I have had similar discussions with the Express internet usage allowance...all I want them to do was to give me the extra band-width (I don't care about the speeds). But they refuse and say it is not compatible...which is not true.

I went yesterday to the Rogers store to get the D3 Modem ($7 rental) and they they didn't have them in stock so I was offere an enhanced wi-fi modem for $8 rental  (can't recall the manufacturer name). I called Rogers customer support from the store and they were kind enough to credit me the extra charge for a year. I will test the modem's performance and decide weather to continue renting or buying one (Do they allow that?). While I appreciate the goodwill gesture, they could have just increased the montthly quota with an option for a hardware upgrade.

I heard some companies out there are offering 300 GB for the same price of Express package with Rogers or Bell...time to shop around 🙂

Srini

[FormerMember]

If the modem you were given desi_dude was going for $8.00 per month, it sounds like the new Hitron gateway that Rogers has just introduced.

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/Getting_connected/message-id/713...

It would be great if you could report back to us on your experiences with this. I am sure many people are quite interested in hearing whether or not this modem is a real improvement over the problematic SMC and CISCO gateways, especially in terms of wireless performance. 

You are also quite correct in that the type of modem you have has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with what your monthly usage is. Rogers will be quite happy to allow you to exceed your 60 GB per month, especially now that they have upped the maximum charge for exceeding that from $50 to $100. 

[Jaymeister]

Is it a difficult thing to put the gateway router into bridge mode? I'd much prefer to use my own (reliable) wireless router. That's the only way I would switch up to the DOCSIS 3.

[Gdkitty]

I am not sure about the hilton gateway, but the cisco one is very easy to switch over to bridged mode.

Literaly log into the modem, go to one of the tabs (i cant remember which, i dont hvae it infront of me), and there is a dropdown where you can choose bridged mode.

[EddieDZ]

@Dimundz88
wow, thats a crappy experience you had there LoL, sucks to be you, then again things like this happen to everyone of us, not neccesarly from rogers but even other companies, I can rant about my vehicle insurance company **bleep** me up countless times, its the joy of ... well it just is what it is hahahahah. theres probably some good technical reasons as to what happened to your connection upon upgrading, docsis 2 operates on slightly different mibz then docsis 3 so when you had the D2 all was good and when switching to a D3 your RF mibz were probably not within spec. Also you may have had a bad device from the store, also it could have all been by coincidence that when you upgraded, got the new device, something may have happened in the building that effected multiple user connections and was probably nothing to do with you upgrading, or it could have been everything i just mentioned plus more hahahah. Enjoy.

As for putting the Hitron into bridge mode, first gotta make sure you disable the Wifi, then to put hitron into bridge mode you go to STATUS on the left then click on CAPABILITY tab then remove the checkmark for Residential Gateway function

[FormerMember]

Once again, one has to ask the basic questions: Why is Rogers introducing yet another gateway modem that people see the need to put into bridge mode? Does this now make three gar*bage gateways that do not function properly as both a modem AND a router? And why can Rogers not provide a decent stand alone D3 modem so that discussion threads like these become totally unnecessary?

[EddieDZ]

Dont know why theres no stand alone modem like the old Docsis 2's, its probably a "smarter" move from a business standpoint you know what i mean, or something like that.

I havent needed to bridge the Hitron, infact i never even bridged my old SMC8014 and the SMCD3GN, i guess i been lucky, knock on wood i've never had any major problems that most customers complain about on here.

My only flaw was when I first got the Hitron, the first one was a lemon as it died in about 1hr after i plugged it in, when i mean died i mean totally died, no LED lights (different outlets too). i couldnt help but laugh that a brand spanking new unused unrefurbished out of the box deviced died that fast, but so far my second hitron is holding up well. Looking forward to the new firmware update being released soon 🙂