New cabinet / node?

[toolcubed]

Hi, I received a letter on my door this past March from a 3rd party Rogers contractor, stating that a new cabinet (presumably another neighbourhood node) was going to be built adjacent to my property. It also stated that there was no ETA, and if I had a problem with its location (since it was going to be very close to my house), to contact the number left on the letter. I don’t have a problem with it at all, but I would like to know if someone at Rogers can PM me with an approx timeline of when it’ll be installed if such information is available? I can provide my exact address in the PM. Thanks.

*Edited Labels*

[RogersMoin]

Hello, @toolcubed

Thank you for posting your query in the Community. An ETA for adding a new node is usually not available because of the complex procedures, permissions etc. However, you can reach out the number listed on the letter and if an ETA is available it would be shared with you. Thank you for understanding!

Cheers,

RogersMoin

[toolcubed]

Great, thanks.

[toolcubed]

Notices and notifications of area outages and node/infrastructure work

I wasn’t sure where to post this so I’m creating a new topic. Over the last few weeks, my cable services have been intermittent and I assumed it was due to work being done on the local neighbourhood node. I reached out multiple times to different Rogers agents (tech support, CommunityHelps, and some others on these forums). Each and every time, I was told that there were no records of any infrastructure or node work taking place. I then observed 2 “vaults” side-by-side where there only used to be one a few weeks ago. So still, I stuck to my assumption that there was work being done in the area. Today we lost all cable services (went down around 10:30am ET) and still down at time of me writing this post. I called tech support and logged a ticket. The lady, while very polite and nice, had no clue what was going on...just that her tests revealed an area-wide outage and she created/escalated a ticket. I then decided to take a drive down the street and noticed 2 trucks parked in front of the 2 vaults. One was a “Rogers Ignite” truck and the other was some Optilinx truck (or something like that), which presumably is what Rogers uses for fibre. There were 2 gentleman working on the new vault that was installed approx a week ago. I got out of my car to ask them some questions. They confirmed it is indeed a node split and that my cable would be down for several hours, and to expect intermittent service until Thurs/Fri of this week when work is expected to be fully finished. The Rogers employee was really nice and I enjoyed the conversation quite a bit...we had a chance to talk about a few other things around upcoming infrastructure plans for the neighbourhood.

So my assumptions all along were correct, yet not a single Rogers employee I previously spoke with (other than the one working on the node) could confirm the work. So now the ticket that was escalated on my behalf will go thru numerous other teams and individuals, time and resources spent investigating, only to eventually realize what’s going on. The “service disruption” section on these forums doesn’t even list this area. Rogers, why not put a notice out for your first level tech support agents when there are planned outages/upgrades so the info can be relayed to your customers if/when they call in? That would save some hours, and thus, money. Also, why not send your customers the same info via notifications in the MyRogers app? Can these suggestions please be sent up to your management or whichever team is responsible for user experience and/or process improvement?

[RogersMoin]

Hello, @toolcubed.

Thank you for sharing your cable service experience with the Community. It's absolutely the right thing to reach out to the support when the service is intermittent; I'm hopeful the service will be restored at the earliest.

As for the infrastructure upgrade in your area; it's not documented on an individual account. We can only comment when the upgrade info appears on the account we are serving. Thank you for understanding. 

When there is a planned outage, we do send out email notifications and activate the IVR for such an incident. We will certainly pass along your remarks about improving the outages/upgrades notifications for the review. 

Thank you for your participation and for your help in keeping the community a pleasant place to be.

Cheers,

RogersMoin

[toolcubed]

Quick update. Been speed testing over the last few days since my neighbourhood’s node split was completed earlier this week. I’ve been consistently getting 540/21 on my 500u plan, including during peak times. Also, for the first time ever, I’ve recorded A+ status on both Quality and Bufferbloat when running speed tests from the dslreports website. Very happy 🙂 Fingers crossed that this continues.

[toolcubed]

Another update. I thought everything was just peachy and then things went downhill this past weekend. OnDemand content was/is intermittently choppy/pixelated, and upload speeds tanked. Now I can only hit about 12Mbps and in some cases it’s as low as 3Mbps. I’m also seeing about 3% packet loss on multiple hops. Never had these issues prior to the “node split” ironically. Reached out to CommunityHelps and they escalated some tickets for me (thanks again to the Rogers team for that!) Let’s see where this goes from here...

[toolcubed]

Another update and my frustration with Rogers is growing stronger by the day...so much so that I’m on the brink of dropping Rogers entirely, and taking a hit on sheer speed in exchange for more reliable service by switching to Bell Fibe (vdsl variant).

I took the advice of several Rogers agents (and also because I was told I had to follow the proper support escalation path) and called to have a tech visit the house. He came this morning, and just as I suspected, he checked everything and didn’t find anything wrong in the house or outside. He said my signal levels are very good and that my erratic upload speed (as bad as 3Mbps sometimes) with packet loss issues are likely an area problem. So I told him to put notes on my account, which he said he would do.

I called back in and spoke to another tech support agent after the tech visit. She reviewed the notes, ran a series of tests (confirmed she also saw packet loss on my line) and escalated the ticket to tier 2. I then got a text message a couple of hours later indicating that the issue was fixed. Obviously it wasn’t, so I called back in to ask about the ticket.

The agent said it was closed by tier 2 because they didn’t find any issues with the network in the area. So now I’m upset, but allowed him to do his troubleshooting. He ran his tests (same tests as the other agent) and confirmed no issues. He then had me run tests on my end...with computer connected directly to CODA via Ethernet (several tests with CODA bridged and then in gateway mode), I ended up with just over 600Mbps down and 5Mbps up for both tests. Ping tests continued to show packet loss across multiple hops including the 2 phub Rogers cable hops. Again, tech support agent wasn’t seeing any packet loss or any issues from his end. This was around 9pm. So he scheduled another tech visit for Nov 5th, which was the earliest date he could find to have a tech swing by during the latest available window in the day (6-8pm)...in the hopes that this tech can find something that the first tech might’ve missed considering I told him that the issues are more prevalent in the evening hours. I think this 2nd tech visit is going to be a waste of time but I digress. I asked for a senior tech but I was denied because apparently, Rogers has a policy that a senior tech can only be dispatched if there have been 2 normal techs dispatched in less than 30 days. My frustration level was elevated at that point but I agreed to the appointment, thanked the agent for his time and hung up.

Wanting a 2nd opinion, I jumped on the Management Office online chat and explained the whole situation while the agent also reviewed the notes on my account. She transferred me to the tech support chat and said it would be tier 2...it wasn’t. The tech support agent in the chat was really nice but said that escalation to tier 2 wasn’t possible via chat. So I explained my issue yet again while he reviewed my notes. He too ran his tests and didn’t find any problems with my line or in the area (including the node) from his end. I asked him if he’d be able to have this next tech scheduled for Nov 5th be a senior tech, but again I was denied because of this silly policy at Rogers.

So in summary, a node split last week resulted in erratic upload speeds with packet loss, which ironically I didn’t have prior to the node work. I’m now stuck jumping thru hoops in the Rogers circus support model. I have no idea why I’m seeing these issues on my end but Rogers isn’t (with the exception of the one tech support agent I spoke with on the phone who ran tests on her end). This is taking longer than I expected to get resolved (or to at least identify root cause), but at the same time I’m not surprised based on posts I’ve read from other Rogers customers with similar experiences. I’ve always said I’d wait for Bell to run fibre to the house before making the switch, but even their FTTN vdsl flavour is looking good right now.