[Toronto, CANADA] Rogers@Home and Excite@Home may be passing on a
legacy of substandard customer service to Shaw@Home, according to a
recent article in InternetNews.com’s ISP-Planet by Associate editor
Patricia Fusco (Uh-Oh! Canada, October 31,
2000).
Last week it appeared that appropriate action was taken to resolve
some intermittent e-mail problems and spotty service outages
occurring throughout the Rogers@Home service area. Rogers@Home vice
president Alek Krstajic released a service update (Rogers@Home Oct.
26th Update: A Message from Alek Krstajic, October 26, 2000).
But Fusco reports that the service disruptions appear to be
continuing.
“How could Rogers@Home provide such pitiful service and expect to
keep customers from switching to different providers or canceling
service altogether?” said Fusco. “The answer is simple — Rogers never
intended to keep British Columbia clients in its fold.”
Earlier this week, Shaw Communications received regulatory approval
to acquire all of more than one million Rogers Communications cable
system clients in British Columbia.
However, that does not explain the disruptions in Ontario, which also
seem ongoing according to Chris Weisdorf, Rogers@Home User’s
Association president. “This hasn’t been an issue for several months,
but now it’s back again. This is what I meant when I described
@Home’s temporary solutions to everything. No fix is ever permanent
with these people.”
Weisdorf said that, although Rogers@Home service has improved
somewhat in Ontario, things are still not satisfactorily repaired by
any stretch of the imagination.
While the fate of Ontario @Home users may be in question, there is
light at the end of the tunnel for the British Columbia users with
the Shaw takeover. Fusco said that Shaw Communications will spend
US $132.5 million to improve its Internet network.
Peter Bissonnette, Shaw Cablesystems president, said the upgrade
would expand its cable modem network, as well as deliver improved
network performance for Shaw cable Internet access and its new
digital cable TV services.
Bissonnette said that Shaw would further upgrade its high-speed
service by replacing customers’ current hardware within 3-4 months
with a cable modem that doesn’t govern throughput.
Previous InternetNews.com coverage of the @Home networks can be found
at:
- Excite@Home’s Job Hunt, October 25, 2000
- NET-36m, Excite@home To Deliver Rich Media Content , October 17, 2000
- Excite@Home Embraces Streaming Media, June 1, 2000
- @Hom
e, D4 Launch Ad Campaign, Test New Technology, April 12, 2000 - @Home Network Contributes to Growth in Rich Media Advertising, April 27, 1999
- @Home
Network, Motorola Launch National Campaign, April 8, 1999. - @Home
Network Concludes Rich Media Ad Study, March 2, 1999 - @Home
Finalizes Narrative Acquisition, February 3, 1999 - @Home: Broadband Tops Narrowband Ad Models, October 27, 1998
- M, Toyota, Acura Select @Home for Rich-Media
Ads, October 6, 1998
- @Home
Network Selects NetGravity AdServer Solution, March 30, 1998