The IT Nerd

In the midst of looking for something related to an inquiry that one of my clients had, I tripped over this posting on the Rogers Community Forums which led me to this related post. In short, it now appears that Rogers has finally got support for eSIMs. But there is a catch. A forum member asked this question:

Here’s the answer that this person got:

Judging from the reaction on the Rogers Community Forums, the reaction thus far is positive. Which is a good thing if you are Rogers. This seems to be iPhone only at the moment. Specifically the XS, XS Max, or the XR. Hopefully this expands to other eSIM capable devices soon. It also appears to only be available at Rogers flagship stores at present. Hopefully this broadens out. Regardless, this is good news for Rogers customers.

If you’re in the north-east part of Toronto and your Rogers TV, Home Phone, and/or Internet aren’t working, it’s not you that’s the issue. Rogers unfortunately has become the victim of a cut fibre optic cable thanks to a construction crew who didn’t have their eye on the ball. That in turn has cut service to roughly 4000 customers. Rogers has been keeping customers updated on social media.

But as I type this, Rogers crews are still working to restore service:

Fixing this sort of issue is not an easy task as it requires specialized equipment, the right people, and a lot of time as it can take hours or even a day or more to restore service when a fibre cable is cut. So the advice that I have been giving people who have reached out to me about this is to be patient for service to come back on line. You truly have no other option as phoning Rogers and unloading on the first contact center rep from Rogers that you get isn’t going to restore your Internet, Home Phone, and TV any faster.

I’ll update this story with any developments that I become aware of.

So if you’ve been following the mess that is Rogers support for eSIM on the iPhone XS/XS Max/XR, you’ll recall that Apple appeared to announce that Rogers was supporting eSIM for Apple’s newest phones. But then appeared to back away from that by removing references to Rogers from its various web pages. And in the process leading to a lot of Rogers customers being confused.

Well, Rogers is back on this Apple webpage which lists carriers that support eSIM:

And after some poking around, I found this on Rogers Community Forums which is announcing eSIM support for business customers only. Meaning consumers need not apply. And its only for iPhone XS/XS Max/XR. Which means if you nave some other eSIM device like some of the flagship Android phones, you need not apply. Plus this is only available on BYOD and no-term plans. If you want to be on a contract with Rogers, then your only option is a physical SIM card rather than activating the eSIM on the phone.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they won’t get a lot of interest from customers given the above. But I’m free to be proven wrong.

Now you’ll also notice that Rogers flanker brand Fido is listed as supporting eSIM. Except that if you ask Fido, they’ll say something like this:

So that’s weird seeing as Apple is saying that they do support eSIM. What’s up with that? Perhaps Rogers/Fido and Apple should collectively clarify this as it’s not exactly clear what the truth is.

It seems that if you’re a Rogers Wireless customer, you’re getting hit spam and “spam.” I’ll start with the actual spam. Rogers customers seem to be receiving messages like this one:

Needless to say this is spam and it looks like a new version of this scam that I came across some time ago. Thus if you are a Rogers customer and you get one of these text messages, don’t click on the link. Instead, forward the message to 7726 (SPAM) and Rogers will investigate.

Now onto the “spam.” Something that blew up my inbox overnight is the fact that Rogers customers are getting text messages via Rogers  “GeoTxt” ad service which used to be called Rogers Alerts. It sends coupon offers when a user is geographically close to a Rogers partner. And this isn’t going over too well with customers.

Ryan Cash, the founder of Built by Snowman which is part of the reason why he has a blue checkmark on his Twitter account and his message to Rogers to the point. This is how Rogers responded:

In short, by being a Rogers customer it appears that you automatically opt in to this service. And that isn’t good as it kind of reminds me of the Negative Option Billing fiasco that blew up in 1996 here in Canada. Consumers reacted negatively to that at the time, and there seems to be a similar reaction now:

Rogers really would be well advised to change this practise ASAP as it clearly has upset customers. That doesn’t help with retention rates. Nor does it help with Rogers reputation. I’ll be watching to see what happens next in terms of Rogers addressing this or hoping that this blows over.

Things really aren’t really going well with those who want to activate an Apple Watch on the Rogers network. On top of corporate customers being shut out entirely at this point, those who should be able to activate an Apple Watch on the Rogers network are sometimes running into issues. Based on the angry emails that I am getting, here’s a list of error codes that people seem to be getting:

• “Your Rogers account is not eligible to enable cellular on your Apple Watch. Contact Rogers for more information.”
• Error codes WS300, WS201 and WS501

On top of that, people are also reporting that when they enter 911 info, the activation process kicks them back to the start of the process. That sounded familiar as my wife and I experienced that several years ago when trying to set up WiFi calling on Rogers. The only recourse that seems to exist at present is to phone Rogers. I’ve been told by various customers who have called in that this can be very painful as the front line reps seem to be only able to open a support ticket and beyond that they can’t do much for you. I’ve also heard that in some cases it may take days for Rogers to get back to you. That’s highly frustrating to customers. Some of whom have asked me what my experience has been like on Telus. Rather than answer them individually, I’ll do a write up about my experience with Telus in the coming days.

Rogers really needs to get a handle on this and quickly. They have already taken a PR hit by being a year late to the Apple Watch party unlike Telus and Bell. Then when they show up their corporate customers can’t join the party. Again, this is unlike Telus and Bell. Now this. If Rogers can’t get their act together, they will find it difficult to convince customers that their Apple Watch business should go to them rather than to Telus or Bell. After all, Apple fans are an intensely loyal and highly vocal group. And getting them mad enough to defect from Rogers is a really bad idea if you’re Rogers.