Internet service providers get little love these days it seems. In my town I have a choice of two – one really if I don’t want to get TV via satellite dish. My local monopolist is Rogers Communications.
Generally Mr. Rogers gives good service although I pay him well for the privilege. And don’t expect him to tell you if he has a better deal.
Lately one of the guys in my coffee group got a new Rogers modem installed and for once he didn’t have to attach a separate router to it to get decent wifi speeds. The early Rogers combination Internet gateways were horrible. No speed anywhere in the house more than a couple meters from the gateway.
So I got sniffing round the Rogers website and discovered what looked like a better deal for a few bucks more. Faster speed, new modem and more bandwidth. I started chatting with a Rogers rep (in Moncton I think) and she did even better – almost double the speed and unlimited bandwidth for about the same price. An offer I couldn’t refuse.
The catch? I had to switch my older but nicely functioning Cisco modem for a new Hitron Rocket Modem. I noticed really bad performance with Hitron gateways when my friends and family used them – that’s why I made the local Rogers store give me a Cisco modem in the first place. But the deal was too good to resist. Besides I figured I could always reattach my old router if need be.
Well how wrong I was. The Rogers store in Carleton Place gave me one of the latest and fastest Hitron modems. My wired connection to the upstairs desktop is just flying. And I didn’t have to reconnect the external modem. The internal wifi in the Hitron gateway is providing just as good if not better speeds than I was getting with my earlier, more complex setup. Looks great so far.
Maybe you have to nag Mr. Rogers a bit, but in the end he does the job.