Results tagged “rogers”

In a move clearly meant to stem the bad PR continually building against the ludicrous $6.95 monthly System Access Fee, as well as the pending debut of increased competition in the marketplace, Rogers Communications has announced that the despised fake tax is about to disappear. But not really, because a new "government regulatory recovery fee" will be added, as well as a $5 monthly plan increase. That means your monthly bill won't really change, but Rogers hopes you'll be tricked into thinking it has. To divert the customer's attention from the fact that they're still paying through the nose, Rogers is now "throwing in" things like call display and the obnoxious WhoCalled "service." Plus, there are those things they quietly implement but hope you don't notice, like reducing your local calling area so that more calls are classified as long-distance. The reason for this, as usual, is to "align with common industry practices." In other words, they reserve the right to continue being loathsome and unethical.

While we think it's really sleazy to force customers to pay extra for a connection they're already paying for, we have to admit that Rogers surprised us when they enabled the tethering option of the iPhone at no extra charge this month (tethering allows you to basically use your mobile device as a modem when not connected to your usual service). Could this be a sign of a kinder, gentler Rogers-slash-Fido?

When it comes to holding customers in seething contempt, few corporate entities do it with more blatancy than the Canadian telcos. And they know customers hate them—that's why Koodo (a brand owned by Telus, though you'd never know it) mocks the industry's despicable practices in their advertising. But when three biggies control an entire market, forcing users into long-term contracts and deliberately muddying their fee structures, the notion of customer service is merely an insignificant byproduct of offering a service to customers.

We hopped onto the Rogers TV site to find out with what it had been replaced, only to discover the Monday–Thursday 7 p.m. block the same as it ever was. The show's own page also failed to recognize any changes.

If you've ever been watching television and immediately jumped to back up the DVR lest your eyes had deceived you (a certain Super Bowl halftime performance perhaps?), yesterday's broadcast of Sportsnet's Hockey Central may have been one of those moments.

Listening to the debate between the CRTC and Canada’s major internet service providers (news here, here, and here) during recent public hearings is a bit like overhearing a pair of Luddites discuss how the tiny people in computers make the World Wide Web work. ISPs such as Rogers and Bell continue to argue they provide nothing more than a “dumb pipe” through which web content imperceptibly flows (even though they’ve been “smart” enough to throttle BitTorrent downloads on smaller ISPs such as TekSavvy) and shouldn't therefore be expected to provide funds for the promotion of Canadian culture online.

For a year now, several of Canada's ISPs, including Bell, Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, and a few others, have been throttling BitTorrent transfers, frustrating subscribers and internet wholesalers like TekSavvy. Two weeks ago, we noted that the CRTC was investigating the throttling practices of Canada's ISPs, and while the formal hearings won’t begin until July 6, 2009, the commission's deadline for public submissions is only two days away. So far, if February is any indication, it looks like the net neutrality crowd is winning the media campaign. Last week, the major ISPs undermined their position when they released statistics to the CRTC that showed that the growth in total internet traffic volume declined in Canada between July 2005 and August 2007. These statistics raise an important question: if network traffic growth is slowing down, then why are network management policies necessary all of a sudden? More likely than not, certain ISPs are choosing to slow down access to the forms of media they either sell, or hope to sell. It's not a coincidence that Telus, who has shown little interest in online media, doesn't throttle its customers.

The Buffalo Bills are back—and this time, it's for real!

Ted Rogers—father of the massive Rogers empire—is dead from heart failure. Rogers laid the groundwork for his company by buying FM radio station CHFI for a little under $100,000 in 1960, forming Rogers Cable T.V. Ltd. in 1967, co-founding Cantel—which he'd later buy out and turn into Rogers Wireless—in 1985, and snatching up media company Maclean Hunter Ltd. in 1994. A shrewd and aggressive salesman, and as such not one universally loved (but, to borrow a line from Arthur Miller, "with his pockets on he was very well-liked"), Rogers for better or worse defined and ruled over the Canadian telecommunications landscape more than anyone else. He was 75.

Photo by Jonathan Goldsbie.

Rogers customers are used to getting fucked, which is why some of them must have felt a bit alienated when, according to the Sun, the Rogers-owned AMC channel accidentally showed a nine-second long clip of porn—twice—because of "a corrupted file that was inexplicably embedded in a commercial for television show 30 Rock" during a Monday afternoon screening of Patriot Games. Rogers Cable's Director of Communications Nancy Cottenden told the Sun that "they came in very fast and we acted very fast to get it off." That's what sh...uh, never mind. [via MyHogtown]

The announcement is a few days old, but you can blame the Labour Day weekend. The CBC is reporting that Rogers has unveiled new data plans for all smartphones (including the iPhone) and is extending the $30 6 GB data deal till the end of September. Under Rogers' new plans, 500 MB of data will go for $25 a month and 1 GB for $30—so long as you plop them on top of a voice plan, as usual. Also surprisingly well thought out: "The company is also rolling out a 'peace of mind protection plan' on Oct. 1....Customers will get periodic free incoming text messages warning them when they cross certain usage thresholds, such as when they have downloaded 80 per cent of their monthly data allotment." And: "excess usage charges...will be capped at $100." Rogers may have actually gotten this whole iPhone thing mostly right, and what, only five months or so late?

While Second Cup and Starbucks have offered Wi-Fi service for years, the cost model has always leaned towards laptop users: customers can choose to purchase internet for an hour, a day, or a month. However, the explosion of Wi-Fi enabled smartphones changes the use of Wi-Fi: checking an email, using GPS, or finding a telephone listing takes minutes. Here's a catch: in the States, the internet period is limited to a single session. Once you log off, you're done for the day. We wonder if Bell will make the session cumulative or if the telco will follow suit. (Doesn't it appears that telcos plan to take advantage of the changing market to manipulate Wi-Fi at the major coffee chains to become marketing tools for products like the iPhone or WiMax?)

In yet another significant change of policy following customer outrage, Rogers appears to have changed the rule that prevented existing customers who had changed their phones over the past year from upgrading to an iPhone. According to a forum thread on ehMac.ca (sent to us and confirmed by reader K. Robson), existing Rogers wireless customers can now get iPhones so long as their wireless account has been active for at least three months. Hey, maybe Rogers doesn't have contempt for their customers after all—maybe they're just totally inept.

As we've pointed out many times before, Rogers boasts an exceptional brand of contempt for its non-business wireless customers, but the launch of Apple's desperately anticipated iPhone has exposed a whole set of new lows for the Toronto-based company. Due to a breathtakingly boneheaded policy in place by the company's National Planning Department, existing customers currently under a Rogers contract and who have upgraded their handset within the year are prohibited from purchasing an iPhone. At all.

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve.

The wireless spectrum auction being held by Industry Canada to sell off 300 spectrum licenses has closed, with 40% of the spectrum licenses being set aside for new competitors in the wireless industry and $4.25 billion in revenue going to the Feds. The Financial Post speculates that competition will increase and prices will decrease, and also notes that: "It is widely assumed that all new entrants will lease bandwidth space on Rogers' networks." Ever the fair-minded conglomerate, Rogers will be leasing bandwidth space to their new competitors for the bargain price of 75 GAJILLION DOLLARS.

Rogers has just announced that they will sell a $30 6 GB data plan for the iPhone that can be added to any voice plan, so long as customers sign up on or before August 31. The Rogers Plus store at 112 Dundas Street East will be open early at 8 a.m. on Friday to sell the phones; they will be sold at other Rogers stores during regular business hours, but will not be sold at Apple stores. (The rumour is that Apple was "disgusted" with Rogers' plans. Rogers declined comment.) The new offer on the table isn't perfect, but it's something.

Rogers has unveiled its iPhone 3G plans, and, as anticipated, they're really not that great. No unlimited data plan, mandatory three-year contract, no pie, and the best plan—2 GB data allowance with 800 minutes of talk time and unlimited evenings and weekends—will cost ya a cool $115 a month, not including those nice extra charges Rogers always slaps on. [via Dead Robot.]

Journalists are no strangers to being sent odd things in the mail to get them excited about new products. For the most part, writers are paid such a pitifully small amount that we’ll take whatever freebies come our way. Free CD? Awesome! Free food? Hells yeah, we’ll go to your restaurant.

The second-generation iPhone was unveiled today, and it is (officially, legally, and dear God finally) coming to Canada on July 11 this year. Just over a month ago, with rumours abounding about the new release, Rogers announced that they would be the phone's exclusive carrier here, but provided no further details as to how they would figure out a way to suck all the awesome out of it.

Like it or not, big bad Rogers will be the exclusive provider of Apple's beautiful and magnificent and world-changing iPhone, and as each week goes by it's getting harder and harder to mitigate disgust for the former with adoration for the latter.

We wouldn't suggest for a second that the competition between Bell and Rogers has gotten so fierce that Rogers has resorted to cutting its rival's cables to pick up new subscribers. We're sure it was just an accident. An accident that happened often enough to prompt someone to tape this note to a utility box in front of an East York house.

With Rogers' plan to move Citytv, OMNI Television, and the Fan 590 to the southeast corner of Dundas Square, those familiar with the current streetfront studios on Queen Street have wondered if the former Olympic Spirit building will be opened up in a similar way.

Many of us were looking forward to welcoming the Buffalo Bills to Toronto. The eight games they'll play here over the next five years could've been the perfect complement to our existing football diet of live Argonauts games and televised NFL matches. Now that the details have been announced, more than a few of us have been priced out of attending. The majority of tickets average into the $350 per game range, and are only available if you ante up for all eight games at once. As Dave Perkins laments in The Star, the arrangements clearly lay the groundwork for Ted Rogers and Larry Tanenbaum to bring the NFL to Toronto full-time. Granted, there's the unlikely possibility that Bills owner Ralph Wilson is using the games as leverage to extort further concessions from the taxpayers of Buffalo, but he's not exactly denying the possibility of eventual relocation. This is simply the latest chapter in Toronto's long-running soap opera love affair with "big league" American football. A couple past episodes in this drama are indicative of how this pursuit has evolved from quiet self-confidence to the fervent desire to be validated as a "big league" city.

Photo by Denmar from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

TTC subways twice as costly to build as Madrid's. And they got tapas while they were building it.