Rogers Gives a Little Back

I’ve been very hard on Rogers at times over their extremely high data prices for cell phones. Not that it’s necessarily their fault … somehow the CTRC has managed to make Canada the most expensive country in the world in which to use cell phones. Another government cluster f*ck I suppose …

But last week Rogers sent me a letter telling me that I was being upgraded from my Rogers Extreme Plus service to the real Rogers Extreme Plus service at 25mbps … a nice little boost from the alleged 18mbps I was already getting. This requires an upgrade from the Motorola Docsys 2 modem I owned to their new SMC Docsys 3 modem. Of course, that modem is quite expensive at 200 bucks because it also contains a full Wireless N gateway / router. Cool …

Well, the letter told me I would get a free upgrade to this new enhanced gateway if I brought the letter to my local store and presented my photo ID. What they did not say in the letter was that not one single person in the call center had ever heard of this deal. So I spent an hour in the store twice last week to try to collect on the offer. Finally the store guy just gave me the modem and charged it to my account, saying that he would straighten it out this week. I have to check back with them, but be warned if you receive this letter … Rogers marketing dropped the ball … again.

It’s pathetic, really … this is a company whose customer service is lambasted regularly, yet they continue to screw up again and again. I’ve said it before … the fact that they continue to have the best technology is what keeps me with them. But if Bell ever gets it together … watch out Rogers.

My speed results are quite decent … it is rare for Rogers to show the full download speed from the test sites … but there are sites that download slightly above maximum speed. I’d had downloads at 1.8MBps on the old service, so I am looking forward to what might be possible on this service. The uploads are very fast now too. It actually tempts me to spend the bucks on ultimate and go for 50mbps down and 2mbps up …

YMMV of course.