My Internet service provider wants its customers to switch to its latest technology – Ignite services. This means it wants to be rid of traditional cable TV, separate Internet and home phone modems – replacing evrything with a single gateway that does it all. Part of this replacement would be getting rid of traditional coax cable set top boxes and replacing them with wifi powered terminals for TV.
I am still 100% legacy. I have Digital cable TV , a modem for Internet upstairs and one for my home phone in the basement. There are several reasons for this:
- I still have an old school standard definition TV which the new technology can’t support very well.
- I have no telephone jack upstairs where I currently have the modem so a new modem wouldn’t work with the phone lines in the house.
- I have my own wifi network which I’m not sure would work all that great with the newest Rogers modem.
- I might have to relocate my wifi modem to the corner of the basement away from all the devices I want to use with it.
However when I got my latest Rogers bill yesterday they are dropping my customer loyalty discount, increasing my bill. I spent two hours in a chatroom yesterday with their customer reps and nada. They won’t ever give me a discount again unless I go with their new tech which I don’t want.
The alternative is Bell which is pushing the same newfangled solutions as Rogers.
I was promised a chat with a supervisor but nobody showed up after 30 more minutes of waiting. I gave up.
It’s not the money; I’m willing to pay for what I need. But Mr. Rogers doesn’t care about me as a customer or as a person. I am just another brick in the wall, or another obstacle to push out of the way if I don’t agree with their Brave New World of technology. They give lots of lip service to my being a three decade Rogers customer, but they don’t really mean anything by it.
Think about that the next time you see one of the communications oligarchs in Canada swallowing up a competitor.