So much for “an hour”
I should have known better than to post that I was going to upgrade the modem and expected to be offline “for about an hour”. Never tempt fate!
I called Rogers to see what needed to be done, and I was told that it would cost an extra $2/month + ($3/month to rent or $100 outright purchase an upgraded modem), and I’d need to swap my modem.
Kerri happened to have Friday off, so we unplugged the modem and walked over to the Rogers store; we swapped the modem (I was told I’d probably need to call Rogers to have the service activated) and walked home.
When I plugged the new Motorola “Surfboard” modem in, all the green lights came on (usually good) and stayed on (not good) – I’d expect to see the Send & Receive lights blink as data is transfered. (Power and Online being permanently lit is good.) The new modem also had two additional lights: “PC/Activity” (orange light blinked occasionally) and “Standby” (light was off).
I called Rogers and explained that I probably just needed the new Extreme service activated. The support person ran through the usual “is it plugged in?” type questions. I tried to explain that I know what I’m doing, and that I’ve run “ipconfig /all” (on Windows 2000) to check the config and it can’t find the DHCP server. Obviously this went way over her head and (after a couple more simple questions) she passed me over to technical support.
The technical support rep said that they’d have to reset something their end and it’ll be OK. Close but wrong. I’d opened Internet Explorer (because I know Rogers don’t understand anything except Microsoft) and up popped Rogers’ self-activation page … except it looked like it was for first time Rogers customers because it was asking me to create a new someone@Rogers.com address and so on. The TSR agreed that I shouldn’t fill in that form, but it was the only page accessible to me.
Eventually the TSR said that the problem would have to be fixed by someone in technical support (funny, I was told you were in tech support!) and then “I’ve raised a support call and they’ll get back to you within 48 hours”! WHAT?
Let me get this straight – I had an operational Internet connection this morning; Rogers tell me to swap the modem and charge me extra for the privilege; and now I have no Internet connection and it could be two whole days before someone looks at it? Put me back to Express now and let me know when you’ve fixed Extreme! Ah, they can’t do that. The only thing to do is wait and they’ll automatically contact me (leave a voicemail) when it’s fixed. Great. Thanks. Well done Rogers.
Fortunately a friend called and we went out for a beer or three. However, it’s the Italian Grand Prix this weekend and I always get up early (6:45am) to watch qualifying on TV and track the technical data via the official Formula One website. Guess I can’t do that now. 
I waited until about 8:30am and then called Rogers support again. I called the Internet support number instead of the general Customer Service line, so I had to contend with the stupid “voice recognition system” – what a pain! Just let me hit the numbers!
After a couple of minutes my call’s picked up and I ask them to check on the status of my support call. I’m told it’s still “pending” … “ah, but the problem that was causing that was fixed so we ought to be able to activate it now”. Excellent … and when was your wonderful system going to call me to tell me that?
The support guy said to unplug the modem, reboot the PC (obviously from the Microsoft school of fixing things!) and plug the modem back in while it was rebooting. I asked him if Rogers had any intention to support Linux because then we wouldn’t have to waste all this time rebooting. He said I probably didn’t need to reboot but he always asked people to do it, just in case!!
Modem starts up – same lights (all on) as before. He says that’s the way the new modem is – only the Activity light blinks and the others are all static. (What a waste of power! No wonder it runs so warm.)
Windows eventually starts up and he says to open Internet Explorer (baa!) and see if I can go to a website or two. Yes! Success!
He asked if I had any other questions, so I asked him to check that my bandwidth cap had been raised to 100Gb. No, he said – “you’re on Express”. WHAT?!?
OK, now change me over to Extreme and don’t break my Internet connection again. (I wasn’t very amused but I was trying not to get too annoyed at him.)
“I can’t make that change – you’ll have to talk to billing” (or whatever they’re called) “because they’ll need to adjust your bill.” OK, put me through. Oh goody, another queue.
As soon as the billing person started to talk to me I knew I’d taken a step back – they didn’t understand “Extreme” when I said I needed to sort out my upgrade! Eventually they clued in and asked if I’d swapped my modem – I said “yes, and you don’t want to hear what a pain that was!”
“I’ll have to put you on hold a minute while I make the change” – OK. It all goes quiet – not even cheesy hold muzak.
After a couple of minutes, just as I’m about to give up and start all over again, a woman comes on the line – “can I help?” Huh? What happened to the guy I was just talking to? Guess he gave up and passed me over.
She says “I’ll have to put you on hold a minute while I make the change” … “yeah, just don’t lose me like the previous guy did” I joked, and she said “I’ll try not to”. After about 30 seconds of hold muzak I get a dial tone!!
I decided I’d wait a couple of minutes and then check my Internet Usage stats … Wow! It’s a miracle! More by dumb luck than judgement, I’m finally on Extreme and I’ve got the new 100Gb/month cap.
Was it worth the pain? We’ll see!
[Cross-posted to
p.s. Saturday @ 4:30pm – still no message from Rogers to tell me it’s fixed.
Sunday @ 1:30pm – it’s over 2 days since I raised the call but no message. I guess they closed it when they fixed it on Saturday morning so I won’t get a call after all.
Update: Tuesday, 4pm: an automated call from Rogers to tell me the problem’s fixed! Wow, only 100 hours (4days + 4 hours) since the call was logged. Well done!
Comments
Flickr Photos
Find me elsewhere
Book a meeting with me
Amazon wishlist