High Latency and Packet loss 1.5GB - City permits required for fix.

[jared426]

I have bad latency, jitter and packet loss with Rogers internet 1.5gb, hard wired to computer. I have had two techs come out to confirm everything from my unit is ok but both techs have also confirmed the problem is between the box in my yard and the box across the street. I have been dealing with this for almost a year now. When I call, I am told rogers needs permits from the city of London to dig up the street to fix the lines. Nobody is able to provide anytime line or any further help. Rogers has yet to even bury the new lines they ran a couple of months ago from my unit.

It's ridiculous that I am paying for a "Premium" internet service and cannot even play my game without stuttering around. Has anyone else ran into this issue? If so, how long did it take to resolve? Should I call back and try to speak to a supervisor? The techs have confirmed the problem will only get worse and start effecting other units. Currently it effects roughly 6 of my Neighbours.

I am not sure what to do, considering rogers owns the infrastructure so anyone I switch to will have the same issue and I am under contract for a service I'm not really getting.

Rogers is not taking this seriously and I am getting nowhere with support. Should I start offering to help my Neighbours draft CCTS complaints? I'm at that point. I don't know what to do.

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@jared426  From what you describe, it's probably something more than burying a replacement cable.

Rogers can run temporary RG-11 cables across a street, which requires a catenary/messanger wire and a special crew but no permits. and run temporary cables along a street, which is routine.  It may not be pretty and, if municipalities are slow in approving permits, can months or even years to bury temporary cables, but it does address cabling-related issues.

If you are getting inconsistent speeds, high latency and packet loss, Rogers probably needs to do a node split, and that usually also requires getting permits as crews will need to excavate to install new upgraded infrastructure and may also need to trench if they need to run power and fibre to where they will be installing new equipment.

Rogers does take this stuff seriously, but it requires planning, and can be a slow endeavour if factors outside of their control slow things down.  You can file a CCTS complaint but it won't go anywhere if entities other than Rogers are dragging their heels.

[jared426]

I don't know what the actual problem is because every time a tech comes out, they escalate to senior techs who then show up typically when I am not home, look at the box in my yard and leave with no follow up or any kind of explanation. They already wired my unit to another Neighbours box and I'm still having problems. All of this occurred prior to the ground being frozen in early October.

I can't even get an answer about what's goings on or what the next steps will be. Nothing but radio silence. They only thing they confirmed is they issue is between the box in my yard and the box across the street. I'm guessing it's a CMTS across the street? Nobody offered to run a temp line across the street the last two times I called. Once it gets escalated to the "senior techs" the communication completely stops, and I'm left in the wind until I call back and start all over again.

I am here asking for help because I don't know what to do. Should I call and ask them to run a temp line across the street? Should I be speaking to a supervisor when I call? What do I do?

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@jared426 One thing that you can do is log into your Gateway with a web browser, go to "Gateway > Connection > Rogers Network", scroll to the bottom of the page and check your error stats.  If the uncorrectable codewords errors are zeros across all channels, or close to zero and not increasing at a high rate, then replacing your line probably will not fix the problems that you are seeing.  If you are seeing a ton of uncorrectables, that's packet loss.  It might be due to a bad cable leading up to your home.  It could also be due to noise ingress or some other issue affecting the neighbourhood.  Regardless, its indicative of a problem somewhere that needs to be fixed.

The only infrastructure that Rogers puts into a neighbourhood are fibre nodes (the transition point between incoming fibre and coax legs going to homes) and taps (which can be in pedestals at ground level or on poles), which are connections points at the edge for coax going to homes.  If the node is far away from the tap, there can also be one or more amplifiers that boost upstream and downstream signals on that leg.

If the fibre node is overloaded, Rogers will perform a "node split", where they install a new fibre node and shed some of the load from the old node to the new.  An overloaded node can cause latency spikes, packet loss, and other network performance issues.  (Node splits are often contracted out to specialized crews.)

If tickets have already been escalated to Maintenance, there is not much more that you can do.  There may not be much that they can do if they are waiting on permits or waiting for new equipment to arrive.

[jared426]

I called a few times again yesterday and spoke to a rep who claimed there was no senior tech assigned to the case. Had a third tech dispatched to my residence with no resolution. Called back shortly after the tech left and spoke with a supervisor. The supervisor quickly confirmed there is a year-old open case to have the Maintenace team repair a distribution cable across the street.

The supervisor I spoke with told me he would ask the maintenance team if a temporary line could be installed. I am still waiting to hear back from him.

This is where I am currently at. I am not sure if supervisors have different notes that regular reps but the difference in quality of service is insane so far. All three reps I spoke with were unable to locate the Maintenace order and instead just insisted they send out techs to my residence or nothing could be done. That must be costly for rogers to send techs repeatedly for no reason when you already know the issue.

Anyway, I hope there is a resolution by summertime if no temporary line can be installed. 300-400ms upstream download latency from London - Toronto is wild. 

[jared426]

Update: My internet is now intermittently disconnecting, and the problem is getting worse. The supervisor is still waiting for an update from the Maintenace team and has not called me back over two weeks later.

Again, I am left in the wind about what's happen with this. I have reached out to @CommunityHelps. Really hoping I can get some help and support with this.

[RogersCorey]

Thank you for being patient with us while we work on this @jared426!

Please feel free to return to the ongoing private chat we have with you at anytime if you have additional questions or concerns.

~RogersCorey

[xxSW7xx]

@jared426 Hi Jared, I am also a Rogers loyal customer since many years now, unfortunately I have also been entangled with their Coax Cable internet solution (Not Fiber) due to area restrictions. Since past few years since I have returned back to Gaming (FPS Mostly) I am also experiencing a very similar issue as yours. Usually around the evening time when the traffic gets really heavy for Rogers internet services (5pm-12am ET). This consists of heavy network jitter (Upload jitter to be specific). Your ping will remain the same, your Download jitter will remain the same, but your upload jitter is going to be the root cause of instability during these gaming hours.

To my understanding Rogers don't have a fix for this problem. (correct me if I am wrong if any Rogers 'Knowledgeable' staff member knows about something about it, then feel free to respond and even help me as well).

The Coax Cable internet is notorious for this exact reason (even if you use lab cable for gaming, which I have been doing as always).

Your options for a seamless game experience would be to go with a Fiber internet with a choice of your ISP. That's what a lot of my friends did and I have been recommending the same to everyone now.. I am just stuck at this area where I don't think so Fiber is accessible (at least by rogers). I will also most likely be switching to a different ISP for a better and stable connection, especially for gaming.

Remember; Bigger name brand doesn't always mean a 'better' brand/service.

[jared426]

Unfortunately, I do not have any option to switch to another ISP with fiber in my area, every other option is just a reseller of roger's coax internet; which is insane because I live in a popular college area. Anyone I switch to will have the same issue because it's the same infrastructure. 

I am getting the run around again even after speaking with staff on this forum. I was told I would get a call from their Field Escalations team within 48-hours. It's been almost a week tomorrow, and I've heard nothing. I reached out to the CCTS to file a complaint because I have done all that I can do from my end to try and work with rogers to resolve this issue over the span of 4 months. Nothing has been accomplished. 

I never had these issues 2 years ago, their infrastructure is damaged, they need to repair it. Simple as that. They can fix the problem; they just don't want to spend the money because the issue is only transparent to a small minority of users. The average user wouldn't notice 300ms upload latency. 

At the end of the day, city permits are not the responsibility nor the business of the customer. Its rogers dropping the ball here failing to maintain their infrastructure for an issue they have known about for over a year. As we're speaking, they've probably already onboarded new users raking in money while degrading the service even further their existing customers. 

I'll provide an update once I've completed the CCTS process. My complaint was just accepted yesterday.

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@jared426 wrote:

I never had these issues 2 years ago, their infrastructure is damaged, they need to repair it. Simple as that. They can fix the problem; they just don't want to spend the money because the issue is only transparent to a small minority of users. The average user wouldn't notice 300ms upload latency. 

In my area, two years ago, rather than upgrading the neighbourhood to FTTH, Rogers started "upgrading" the old analog fibre nodes to next-gen DAA / R-PHY nodes as well as the supporting infrastructure upstream.  The new technology was known to be problematic.  Rather than halting upgrades until the problems got fixed and/or dumping a problematic vendor, they stuck with their vendor and went ahead with the upgrades anyway.  Then their vendor went bankrupt.

I don't know what Rogers plans to do going forward but they currently do not have a viable path to a fully functional DOCSIS 4.0 implementation with what they have now.  The prudent move is still to upgrade neighbourhoods to FTTH.  If they do not, an independent fibre over-builder will have the first mover advantage, will offer a symmetric 1 Gigabit (or faster) Internet service for $70/month, and then any DOCSIS infrastructure upgrades that Rogers spends money on will all be for nothing.