I’ve gotten a few e-mails asking me to provide an update to my migration to Rogers Home Phone and Internet as well as ask some questions. So here’s a update having had Rogers in my home for just over a week.
I’ll start with the products themselves. My Internet is fast and my Home Phone works. One feature that I really like is the call display function that puts the incoming number on your TV. It’s very handy if you’re watching TV. If you want a more comprehensive review of Rogers Home Phone, click here as I did a very detailed review of Rogers Home Phone a few years ago.
Now, one question that I did get asked is how did I deal with the fact that Rogers Home Phone won’t work for more than 5 hours according to this FAQ if a blackout occurs. Simple. I plugged it into a APC BackUPS 650 uninterruptible power supply as I have a number of them lying around. Given that the device that powers Rogers Home Phone draws 0.5 amps, I should be able to stretch another 45 minutes or more before things go dead. Here’s hoping that I never have to test that. As an aside, I plugged my Rogers modem for my Internet into another APC UPS of the same type. In both cases, they’ll protect my equipment from surges, spikes, and power sags which is a good thing.
Another question I got asked is if I am using the Rogers supplied modem (A Hitron model CGN2-ROG) to provide all Internet functions (meaning WiFi and home networking functions) for my condo instead of my Airport Extreme by Apple. The answer is that I am not as I have my network setup perfectly and I didn’t want to change it. Thus it was in my best interests to run the supplied modem as just a modem (which in nerd speak is setting the modem into “bridge mode”) rather than use it as router. Here’s how I made it work with my Airport Extreme:
- Plug in a laptop via Ethernet and set the Ethernet card to the IP address of 192.168.0.2.
- Using the web browser of your choice, login to the router using the IP address of 192.168.0.1. The username is cusadmin and the password is the very secure password.
- Disable Wi-Fi by going to Wireless > Disable Wi-Fi
- Then go to Status > Capability > and uncheck “Residential Gateway function” and “UPnP”
- At some point you’ll be prompted to reboot the modem. Do so.
- Connect your router. Log into it and set it to DHCP.
Now if you ever have to do anything with the Rogers supplied modem after you do all of this, you’ll have to factory reset the modem. Realistically, you should never have to get back into it after you do this so that should be a non-issue I believe. Another reason for doing this is that it makes your home network very secure. You see, Rogers can access your modem remotely for troubleshooting purposes (and only with your permission I might add). With this set up, they can only see your modem. They can’t see what’s beyond it which makes your home network very secure. Now let me be clear. I am not implying or saying that Rogers would ever do something nefarious. What I am saying is that I like my network to be secure as possible from everybody. That includes whomever provides my Internet services.
Now, the next question is what I did with my old PVR. The answer is that I put it up for sale on Craigslist for $100. If you’re interested in it, drop me an e-mail we can talk. But, I should mention that if you ever want to sell your Rogers PVR, you need to call Rogers and tell them to not only deactivate the PVR, but to disassociate it from your Rogers account. If they ask why, tell them that you are selling it privately. Now this might take 48 hours to get done (as was the case for me as the Rogers CSR was unable to do this on the phone and had to escalate this for whatever reason that left my wife unimpressed) so make sure you get a case number before you hang up in case things go sideways for whatever reason.
Now let’s say you want to buy a Rogers PVR from a private seller. Before you buy it, ask the seller to provide the serial number from the PVR. Then you should call Rogers to make sure that to make sure it’s free for use, and to make sure it’s not a rental terminal. For security reasons Rogers will be unable to tell you what person is using the box or if it’s in use, but they will be able to tell you one way or the other if the serial number is currently tied to another account, and if it’s owned by Rogers as a rental or not. This is extremely important because there have been people in the past selling rental terminals either out of ignorance or stupidity. If everything checks out and you’ve paid the seller, you need to activate it as simply plugging it in won’t bring it online. To do that you call into Rogers and simply activate it on your account.
The next question is what PVR did I get from Rogers and if I will do a review of it. I got the NextBox 3.0 which has the following going for it:
- It has a 1TB hard drive to record up to 240 hours of TV programs.
- You can record 8 programs at once.
As for a review. Watch for one in the next couple of weeks.
The final question is a predictable one. That is, has Rogers screwed anything up. The answer is no. We’re waiting for our bill to arrive to see if they have or haven’t screwed that up as we’ve had problems with our billing in the past when we’ve made changes to the services that Rogers provides. I’ll let you know what happens on that front. But other than that, it’s been smooth sailing.
UPDATE: The PVR has been sold. Thanks to all who e-mailed in.
UPDATE x2: The person I sold my old PVR to called into Rogers and called me back to get the PVR removed from my account. It was five minutes of listening to silence, but it was removed. The root cause of the first Rogers CSR not being able to remove the PVR from my account was because of the way the discounts were applied to my account. To fix it, she moved all my equipment from “cable outlet one” to “cable outlet two.” What’s weird about that was the fact that we only have one physical outlet. We’ve had problems with Rogers believing that we’ve had more than one outlet and billing us for it. That was painful to fix as we had to escalate to the Office Of The President and have a Rogers tech come out and confirm that we don’t have a second outlet. I am hoping this does not create a new nightmare for us to have to fix.
A Follow Up To My Recent Rogers Install [UPDATED x2]
Posted in Commentary with tags Rogers on July 5, 2014 by itnerdI’ve gotten a few e-mails asking me to provide an update to my migration to Rogers Home Phone and Internet as well as ask some questions. So here’s a update having had Rogers in my home for just over a week.
I’ll start with the products themselves. My Internet is fast and my Home Phone works. One feature that I really like is the call display function that puts the incoming number on your TV. It’s very handy if you’re watching TV. If you want a more comprehensive review of Rogers Home Phone, click here as I did a very detailed review of Rogers Home Phone a few years ago.
Now, one question that I did get asked is how did I deal with the fact that Rogers Home Phone won’t work for more than 5 hours according to this FAQ if a blackout occurs. Simple. I plugged it into a APC BackUPS 650 uninterruptible power supply as I have a number of them lying around. Given that the device that powers Rogers Home Phone draws 0.5 amps, I should be able to stretch another 45 minutes or more before things go dead. Here’s hoping that I never have to test that. As an aside, I plugged my Rogers modem for my Internet into another APC UPS of the same type. In both cases, they’ll protect my equipment from surges, spikes, and power sags which is a good thing.
Another question I got asked is if I am using the Rogers supplied modem (A Hitron model CGN2-ROG) to provide all Internet functions (meaning WiFi and home networking functions) for my condo instead of my Airport Extreme by Apple. The answer is that I am not as I have my network setup perfectly and I didn’t want to change it. Thus it was in my best interests to run the supplied modem as just a modem (which in nerd speak is setting the modem into “bridge mode”) rather than use it as router. Here’s how I made it work with my Airport Extreme:
Now if you ever have to do anything with the Rogers supplied modem after you do all of this, you’ll have to factory reset the modem. Realistically, you should never have to get back into it after you do this so that should be a non-issue I believe. Another reason for doing this is that it makes your home network very secure. You see, Rogers can access your modem remotely for troubleshooting purposes (and only with your permission I might add). With this set up, they can only see your modem. They can’t see what’s beyond it which makes your home network very secure. Now let me be clear. I am not implying or saying that Rogers would ever do something nefarious. What I am saying is that I like my network to be secure as possible from everybody. That includes whomever provides my Internet services.
Now, the next question is what I did with my old PVR. The answer is that I put it up for sale on Craigslist for $100. If you’re interested in it, drop me an e-mail we can talk. But, I should mention that if you ever want to sell your Rogers PVR, you need to call Rogers and tell them to not only deactivate the PVR, but to disassociate it from your Rogers account. If they ask why, tell them that you are selling it privately. Now this might take 48 hours to get done (as was the case for me as the Rogers CSR was unable to do this on the phone and had to escalate this for whatever reason that left my wife unimpressed) so make sure you get a case number before you hang up in case things go sideways for whatever reason.
Now let’s say you want to buy a Rogers PVR from a private seller. Before you buy it, ask the seller to provide the serial number from the PVR. Then you should call Rogers to make sure that to make sure it’s free for use, and to make sure it’s not a rental terminal. For security reasons Rogers will be unable to tell you what person is using the box or if it’s in use, but they will be able to tell you one way or the other if the serial number is currently tied to another account, and if it’s owned by Rogers as a rental or not. This is extremely important because there have been people in the past selling rental terminals either out of ignorance or stupidity. If everything checks out and you’ve paid the seller, you need to activate it as simply plugging it in won’t bring it online. To do that you call into Rogers and simply activate it on your account.
The next question is what PVR did I get from Rogers and if I will do a review of it. I got the NextBox 3.0 which has the following going for it:
As for a review. Watch for one in the next couple of weeks.
The final question is a predictable one. That is, has Rogers screwed anything up. The answer is no. We’re waiting for our bill to arrive to see if they have or haven’t screwed that up as we’ve had problems with our billing in the past when we’ve made changes to the services that Rogers provides. I’ll let you know what happens on that front. But other than that, it’s been smooth sailing.
UPDATE: The PVR has been sold. Thanks to all who e-mailed in.
UPDATE x2: The person I sold my old PVR to called into Rogers and called me back to get the PVR removed from my account. It was five minutes of listening to silence, but it was removed. The root cause of the first Rogers CSR not being able to remove the PVR from my account was because of the way the discounts were applied to my account. To fix it, she moved all my equipment from “cable outlet one” to “cable outlet two.” What’s weird about that was the fact that we only have one physical outlet. We’ve had problems with Rogers believing that we’ve had more than one outlet and billing us for it. That was painful to fix as we had to escalate to the Office Of The President and have a Rogers tech come out and confirm that we don’t have a second outlet. I am hoping this does not create a new nightmare for us to have to fix.
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