You Know, I Really Have To Question Why Rogers Describes Its Internet Offering The Way They Do…. Because It’s Simply Not Accurate
Right off the top, I’m going to say that I believe that Rogers must be feeling the heat from Bell and the fact that Bell is rolling out fibre to the home anywhere and everywhere it can. And the fact is that as I said years ago, and when I got Bell’s fibre product in my home, Bell’s fibre optic Internet products destroy anything that Rogers has to offer as Rogers customers for the most part are stuck with cable. Now here’s why I say that. A reader pinged me with this:
Hello IT Nerd. I got an advertisement in my mailbox today where Rogers is offering “fibre-powered Internet” at my address. Does that mean that Rogers is about to roll out fibre to my address? Would you be able to answer this question? Thanks!
The first thing that I did was to reach out to him and ask him to check what speeds are offered at his address and send me the screenshot. I got this back in reply:
All of these options are Rogers cable based Internet offerings. Which I have said previously work like this:
They deliver Internet access by using a system they call “Hybrid Fibre” which means that the Rogers network is largely fibre optic cable. But the so-called “last mile” to your home is copper cable. The problem with that scheme is that copper cable can only handle so much bandwidth. Since Rogers is in the process of rolling out DOCSIS 3.1 across their network (at present they have DOCSIS 3.1 enabled on the downstream part of their Internet connections, but not on the upstream part of their Internet connections), that means that they’re capped at 10 Gbit/s downstream and 1 Gbit/s upstream as per this Wikipedia page.
The problem is that Rogers advertises their Internet offering like this:
You’ll note that it says “Good news! Fibre-powered Ignite Internet is available at” followed by the address which I have redacted. Rogers isn’t being quite truthful as they are only providing fibre to the node and not the home. This is further backed up by the flyer that this person got in the mail:
Both of these pictures have references to “fibre-powered Internet”. The problem with that is consumers think that this is fibre from end to end like Bell. But it is not fibre from end to end. And that leaves consumers with a bad taste in their mouths. Take this post on Reddit as an example:
And the thing is, I’ve called out Rogers for this type of marketing before. Last year, Rogers was advertising “pure fibre to the home” when that wasn’t what they were delivering. But they quickly changed that about a week later. Presumably because of blowback from customers who thought that they were getting something other than what Rogers was actually delivering. I can only conclude that they are now doing this again because Bell is really putting the heat on them and they need to do something to acquire and retain customers on their Internet product. Which has a knock on effect for home phone and TV as well.
Rogers isn’t doing itself any favours by the way they are advertising their Internet offering. It confuses consumers who then are left with a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to Rogers when they find out that they’re not getting the service that they think that they should be getting. Honestly if I were Rogers, I would stop this immediately. And instead I would clearly explain to consumers how their technology works. Sure their technology in most places that Rogers operates isn’t as sexy as fibre to the home. But at least they would be completely honest. And that would be an improvement over what they are doing currently which is playing fast and loose with the facts.
This entry was posted on May 4, 2023 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You Know, I Really Have To Question Why Rogers Describes Its Internet Offering The Way They Do…. Because It’s Simply Not Accurate
Right off the top, I’m going to say that I believe that Rogers must be feeling the heat from Bell and the fact that Bell is rolling out fibre to the home anywhere and everywhere it can. And the fact is that as I said years ago, and when I got Bell’s fibre product in my home, Bell’s fibre optic Internet products destroy anything that Rogers has to offer as Rogers customers for the most part are stuck with cable. Now here’s why I say that. A reader pinged me with this:
Hello IT Nerd. I got an advertisement in my mailbox today where Rogers is offering “fibre-powered Internet” at my address. Does that mean that Rogers is about to roll out fibre to my address? Would you be able to answer this question? Thanks!
The first thing that I did was to reach out to him and ask him to check what speeds are offered at his address and send me the screenshot. I got this back in reply:
All of these options are Rogers cable based Internet offerings. Which I have said previously work like this:
They deliver Internet access by using a system they call “Hybrid Fibre” which means that the Rogers network is largely fibre optic cable. But the so-called “last mile” to your home is copper cable. The problem with that scheme is that copper cable can only handle so much bandwidth. Since Rogers is in the process of rolling out DOCSIS 3.1 across their network (at present they have DOCSIS 3.1 enabled on the downstream part of their Internet connections, but not on the upstream part of their Internet connections), that means that they’re capped at 10 Gbit/s downstream and 1 Gbit/s upstream as per this Wikipedia page.
The problem is that Rogers advertises their Internet offering like this:
You’ll note that it says “Good news! Fibre-powered Ignite Internet is available at” followed by the address which I have redacted. Rogers isn’t being quite truthful as they are only providing fibre to the node and not the home. This is further backed up by the flyer that this person got in the mail:
Both of these pictures have references to “fibre-powered Internet”. The problem with that is consumers think that this is fibre from end to end like Bell. But it is not fibre from end to end. And that leaves consumers with a bad taste in their mouths. Take this post on Reddit as an example:
And the thing is, I’ve called out Rogers for this type of marketing before. Last year, Rogers was advertising “pure fibre to the home” when that wasn’t what they were delivering. But they quickly changed that about a week later. Presumably because of blowback from customers who thought that they were getting something other than what Rogers was actually delivering. I can only conclude that they are now doing this again because Bell is really putting the heat on them and they need to do something to acquire and retain customers on their Internet product. Which has a knock on effect for home phone and TV as well.
Rogers isn’t doing itself any favours by the way they are advertising their Internet offering. It confuses consumers who then are left with a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to Rogers when they find out that they’re not getting the service that they think that they should be getting. Honestly if I were Rogers, I would stop this immediately. And instead I would clearly explain to consumers how their technology works. Sure their technology in most places that Rogers operates isn’t as sexy as fibre to the home. But at least they would be completely honest. And that would be an improvement over what they are doing currently which is playing fast and loose with the facts.
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This entry was posted on May 4, 2023 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.