Switching from Bell Home Phone to Rogers

UNO

New Member
Mar 27, 2006
14
0
1
Mississauga
Since late Rogers has started a campaign going step to step asking Bell Home Phone customers to switch Rogers. Is switching really benificial to customers? Has any one switched to Rogers? Is it cheaper as they claim?
 

RandomChat.ca

New Member
Apr 14, 2006
11
0
1
RE: Switching from Bell H

A lot of people in the USA have already made changes simular to this. It seems like a practical thing to do, and makes live a little easier.
 

GuyIncognito

New Member
Jun 13, 2006
30
0
6
South Eastern Ontario
I am currently in a situation where Bell has left me no alternative but to switch.... I returned a modem in January of this year with all the proper packaging but in April I received and invoice for the unreturned modem plus interest, upon contacting bell I found out that they infact did receive the modem and agreed to take off the unreturned modem charge but the interest remained.
In my opinion this is a standard bell practice and I say Damn them, Damn them to HECK!
 

kalok

Electoral Member
Jan 8, 2005
287
0
16
Montreal
www.geocities.com
RE: Switching from Bell H

In QC, for now Rogers still use bell phones. But I'm pretty sure Rogers Telecom will bring out something hot later on.

Yea.. Bell customer service is like hell.

kalok~
 

Simpleton

Electoral Member
Jun 17, 2006
443
0
16
Sarnia
sarnia.selfip.org
Re: RE: Switching from Bell H

kalok said:
In QC, for now Rogers still use bell phones. But I'm pretty sure Rogers Telecom will bring out something hot later on.

Yea.. Bell customer service is like hell.

kalok~

This is one of the things that I was curious about. I had contemplated switching my phone service from the phone company to the cable company, but I wasn't sure about how power outages would affect my phone service if I switched.

I know that the phone company does not rely on the local power companies to power their lines, but the cable company does. My concern is whether I would continue to have phone service during power outages?

As for Bell's customer service, I have an interesting little anecdote regarding that.

When I was looking to get broadband Internet service, I chose Bell Sympatico over the cable company because they offered unlimited monthly bandwidth. What a nightmare that decision turned out to be. Bell didn't activate my Internet service on the day that they said they would, and when they did finally activate my Internet service, it was awful. I was constantly getting disconnected and the speed of the service was atrociously slow.

After many calls to Bell technical support and literally hours of intermittent complaining about my service, I threatened to cancel my Sympatico subscription and move to Cogeco. The people at Bell, in an effort to keep me as a customer, offered to give me a one month free upgrade to the next highest Sympatico package. I was reluctant to accept this offer at first, as I was really just wanting good reliable Internet service, and it was becoming quite apparent that I would not be receiving good service from Bell.

Thinking that free crappy internet service was better than paying for good Internet service, I accepted Bell's offer and Bell sent a technician to check the phonelines. After having checked the phonelines leading to the demarcation point, the Bell technician concluded that there must be a problem inside my home. He called my house and left a voicemail message for me to call back and schedule an appointment to have a technician check the wiring in my home. But by that point I was so frustrated with my Sympatico service, that I was running out of patience with the Bell people and I just wanted to cancel the service.

I called Bell customer service and asked that they cancel my subscription, as I had run out of patience with them. The Bell customer support representative pleaded for me to give them one more chance, and he offered to credit my account for one full month of Sympatico Internet service. Reluctantly, I again agreed to give them one more chance.

For a little while after, my Sympatico service appeared to work fairly decently. But this was a mirage, as the problems would soon resurface, and I would be back to playing phonetag with the Bell folks. Only this time, I had made up my mind. I was not going to let them talk me into giving them one more chance, and I cancelled my service.

A couple of weeks later, I received a cheque in the mail. Bell Canada had issued me a refund for my crappy Sympatico service. Only, instead of issuing me a refund of what I had actually paid to them, they issued me the cash value of all the free credits that the Bell Customer service representatives had given me. I actually ended up making a small profit on my Sympatico ordeal, and I haven't been critical of Bell Canada since.

It's nice when the phone company screws up in your favour. :lol:

PS: When I returned the DSL modem to Bell, I kept the ethernet cables too. Ooops.
 

DurkaDurka

Internet Lawyer
Mar 15, 2006
10,385
129
63
Toronto
I have never had a problem with my Sympatico internet service, it help when you are close to a central office though.

Reasons I prefer DSL to cable are:

- Unlimited downloads
- Low Latency connection, I avg about 50ms to any game server in NA
- Sympatico doesn't throttle ports like cable does. Rogers has packet filters installed at their gateways, which will slow down P2P, torrents etc.
- I don't have to share my upload capacity with a whole neighborhood.
 

zeeg

New Member
May 27, 2008
5
0
1
Rogers Home Phone: Many Problems, and no 911 when down

*EMERGENCY SERIVICES (911, police, ambulance, fire department) DO NOT WORK WITH ROGERS HOME PHONE when they have techinical problems.
*IF YOU LIVE IN AN APARTMENT/CONDO WITH A BUZZER YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LET PEOPLE IN while Rogers experiences technical problems... we have experienced 8 hour, 16 hour, 24 hour, and recently 80 hour Rogers Home Phone techinical problems (this time attributed to an outside box).
*ROGERS CUSTOMER SERVICE IS VERY VERY POOR. They take two days (that is, waiting between 9 and 5pm) to come, and then didn't follow instructions to get in, and the another 3 days to sort-of fix the problem. When head office is called, there is no admittance of poor services, no attempt to assuage the customer (in fact, I was initially made to feel the problem was my fault), no solutions or customer services provided, such as "We'll provide you with you an interim cell phone, while not admitting liablility", or "We'll correct the problem and credit you for a month". You will be stonewalled-- you will get no higher than middle-management (if that). When I said to customer service "If I was at a restaurant that I went to all the time and I got food with worms in it delivered by an indifferent waiter and I complained, management would say 'Sorry for the bad service and food, and we know you're a long-time customer' and take steps to rectify the situation. Rogers says 'We've provided good service. We have no reason to improve," despite the horrible technical and customer support. But most importantly, here's what Rogers says re: bad service and inability to access 911: "We are not liable."
*OUR ROGERS HOME PHONE HAS GONE DOWN 4 TIMES, in about five months once for a few hours, once for a whole day, and the worst was 5 DAYS! During those 5 days we had no incoming calls, were unable to make outgoing calls, and unable to buzz people in to our apartment.
If you need stability in your phone system for any reason (you have children, you might have an emergency); if you do business from home and take important phone calls; if you live in a condo or apartment with a buzzer code, DO NOT USE ROGERS HOME PHONE.
 

karrie

OogedyBoogedy
Jan 6, 2007
27,780
285
83
bliss
when we moved in here, there was a cable running from our house to the neighbor's. We scratched our heads a bit and finally, after introducing ourselves to the neighbors asked which house was stealing cable from which. They were just as confused as us, and after a bit of wandering around we realized that their service call to Roger's to fix their cable telephone, while successful, was only such because they had T'ed it into our house and tossed it to their roof. They were mortified and phoned Roger's... Roger's solution? To come over and cut the cable and leave them with no phone. We had to demand they hook it back up until they could fix it properly, instead of leaving a family of five with no telephone. Morons.

Throughout our months of yard work, we severed four separate coax cables leading into our house, and put the neighbor's phone out twice. We complained to Roger's because their lines aren't marked or buried any reasonable depth, and they responded by essentially saying 'Yeah, we don't really care, we fix them as they need it'. So, a frost heave, a dog digging, a neighbor planting a new tree or working out a dandelion, and you can lose your cable phone. That just doesn't seem right to me given what cable costs.
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
25,756
295
83
when we moved in here, there was a cable running from our house to the neighbor's. We scratched our heads a bit and finally, after introducing ourselves to the neighbors asked which house was stealing cable from which. They were just as confused as us, and after a bit of wandering around we realized that their service call to Roger's to fix their cable telephone, while successful, was only such because they had T'ed it into our house and tossed it to their roof. They were mortified and phoned Roger's... Roger's solution? To come over and cut the cable and leave them with no phone. We had to demand they hook it back up until they could fix it properly, instead of leaving a family of five with no telephone. Morons.

Throughout our months of yard work, we severed four separate coax cables leading into our house, and put the neighbor's phone out twice. We complained to Roger's because their lines aren't marked or buried any reasonable depth, and they responded by essentially saying 'Yeah, we don't really care, we fix them as they need it'. So, a frost heave, a dog digging, a neighbor planting a new tree or working out a dandelion, and you can lose your cable phone. That just doesn't seem right to me given what cable costs.


Cable needs to be burried at least 18" down and run inside conduit...if either of these things is not done, and Rogers won't do anything about it...you might consider calling the city and laying a complaint.
 

karrie

OogedyBoogedy
Jan 6, 2007
27,780
285
83
bliss
Cable needs to be burried at least 18" down and run inside conduit...if either of these things is not done, and Rogers won't do anything about it...you might consider calling the city and laying a complaint.

Not so according to Roger's, because coax cable poses no personal risk if severed. Alberta One Call doesn't acknowledge their cables either.

It's done now though, we crossed the entire yard with a 4 ft (I think... I know it was code plus a foot... paranoid hubby) deep trench burying electrical for the garage (run in conduit, and caution tape laid in the trench one foot above the conduit). There's not a coax cable left intact running to our house now.
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
25,756
295
83
Not so according to Roger's, because coax cable poses no personal risk if severed. Alberta One Call doesn't acknowledge their cables either.

It's done now though, we crossed the entire yard with a 4 ft (I think... I know it was code plus a foot... paranoid hubby) deep trench burying electrical for the garage (run in conduit, and caution tape laid in the trench one foot above the conduit). There's not a coax cable left intact running to our house now.


Good girl..... Sounds like it's different here then in BC,....which is the last pace I had cable brought into the house from the street...... had to dig a trench and lay conduit to pull phone lines and cable coax from the street.
 

karrie

OogedyBoogedy
Jan 6, 2007
27,780
285
83
bliss
Good girl..... Sounds like it's different here then in BC,....which is the last pace I had cable brought into the house from the street...... had to dig a trench and lay conduit to pull phone lines and cable coax from the street.

When they finally showed up to run the new lines for the neighbor, they just horizontal drilled and ran cable that way, no conduit. You'd think it would get pricey for them, but, they seem to think it works out better for them to replace and patch and repair constantly.
 

gerryh

Time Out
Nov 21, 2004
25,756
295
83
When they finally showed up to run the new lines for the neighbor, they just horizontal drilled and ran cable that way, no conduit. You'd think it would get pricey for them, but, they seem to think it works out better for them to replace and patch and repair constantly.


:roll:
 

scratch

Senate Member
May 20, 2008
5,658
22
38
Since late Rogers has started a campaign going step to step asking Bell Home Phone customers to switch Rogers. Is switching really benificial to customers? Has any one switched to Rogers? Is it cheaper as they claim?
...been with Bell 40 years, hard line 100%, will never switch, Bell Mobility and Sympatico leave much to be desired and ExpressVu (if you have a double satellite) is excellent, pricing is reasonable
:canada::canada::canada:
 

JenniferAT

New Member
Feb 25, 2010
1
0
1
Bell definately thec worse crook!

I just switched from Bell Canada because I told them I wanted them to meet the deal rogers was offdering me. Instead, for the advantage of not disrupting service I agreed to stay with Bell FOR A HIGHER MONTHLY CHARGE but an end to long distance gouging. I would pay through the nose for 4 - 5 minutes long distance in North America. The change was promised in October. It was not on Novembers bill, Bell said that was because it was a transition problem but would be reflected on Decembers bill, it was not, I called and was given more promises of correction but December was even higher. I called and said they had not honoured my contract and I was leaving. On the way out they hit me with numerious minor charges but I let it go. They even put my final bill up for collection on the 5th of Feb and it had a due date of the 9th. I paid that same hour. The last straw. Feb 25 2010, to my shock,a bill from Bell, $150 DEACTIVATION FEE. I am going to the CRTC with this one! Bell has charged our business for 8 years for a modem we never rented from them. They insisted we had so I asked for the serial #, “Oh, you don’t have a bell modem!” RIGHT!!! But they would not credit even one month of those rental fees, much less the 8 years they were stealing from us. I just changed over at our business and now know an other wopper from Bell will hit us there. IF you are considering switching service. Talk to Bell about contract requirements and deactivation fees!!! Then, tell Rogers or whom ever, you will let them install only after you personally end your relationship with Bell. Rogers knows about this, that is why they say, “don’t call Bell, we will arrange the change over” RIGHT!! AND IT WILL COST YOU $150.!! BE CAREFULL , they will both F you in the heart! But Bell is the worst I’ve seen by way of corporate crooks!
 

johnle5

New Member
Feb 23, 2010
4
0
1
agree totally about bell mobility being crooks 5 out of 6 co workers dropped them because of billing service and customer satisfaction seems u have to moniter your bill for overcharges and service that they have trouble providing now the 6 th co worker is leaving them because of billing issues what a shame once was a great company glad for this forum glad i dont deal with them