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With The Announcement Of The Samsung Galaxy Watch, The Lack Of Support For eSIM On The Rogers Network Is Further Highlighted

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 13, 2018 by itnerd

Since the Apple Watch was announced last fall Rogers has been on the back foot trying to tap dance around the fact that their chief rivals Bell and Telus can support the eSIM technology that it uses and they can’t. Last week Rogers problems increased as Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy Watch. Guess what? It uses eSIM technology as well. Thus it’s not available on the Rogers network. Something that is confirmed in this Tweet:

If that response sounds familiar, it’s the same one that they’ve been using for months as they’ve tried to tap dance around this issue. But to be fair, Samsung hasn’t announced availability outside the US and Korea. Thus Rogers can’t really comment on a product that technically doesn’t exist yet. But the fact that questions are already popping up about whether Rogers supports this watch, and the fact that Rogers is serving up similar answers isn’t going to help the perception that Rogers is behind the eight ball when it comes to supporting the latest and greatest tech. Plus you can bet that because Telus and Bell who already support eSIM technology are going to be quickly pushing that narrative the second that the Samsung Galaxy Watch does pop up in Canada. Not to mention that we’re likely a month or so away from an Apple press event where the latest version of the Apple Watch will likely appear. All of that will crank up the pressure on Rogers to support eSIM.

Let’s see if Rogers can actually follow through on their promise to get this done in 2018. I for one am skeptical they can, but I am free to be proven wrong.

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Rogers Messaging About The Apple Watch With LTE May Be Sending The Wrong Message

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 4, 2018 by itnerd

As frequent readers of this blog will know. Rogers has been very unwilling to say one way or another if they will carry the Apple Watch with LTE. I personally had to switch to Telus to be able to use one, and many others have switched to that carrier or Bell for the same reason. Well, the waters in regards to this may have been muddied further as Rogers have appeared to have altered their talking points. I cite this Tweet as an example:

So, this is how I interpret this:

  • Rogers isn’t going to carry the Apple Watch. Which isn’t the biggest deal in the world as you can get it straight from Apple.
  • Rogers still plans to roll out “the technology for cellular-enabled wearable tech” in 2018. Which I assume means support for eSIM

However, that isn’t how the universe seems to interpret this. Based on the e-mails that I’ve received over the weekend, the universe interpreting this as “Rogers isn’t going to carry the Apple Watch. So you should move to Telus or Bell.” This impression is being played out on Twitter as well:

Now, not carrying the Apple Watch is not the same as not having support for it. But because Rogers messaging in regards to this issue has been just so horrific from the moment that the Apple Watch with LTE first appeared, it has been conflated to be the same thing. Perhaps if Rogers took my advice which was to come out with a clear statement in terms of their plans for eSIM support ages ago, perhaps we would not be talking about this now. However, there’s more as evidenced by this Tweet:

And:

At this point, Rogers customers really don’t believe what the telco is saying. That’s a problem as customers are assuming the worst and bolting as a result of that.

Rogers, here’s some free advice. You can clear this up right now by coming out with a  clear statement in terms of your plans for eSIM support. Some contrition would be nice as well as I can tell you that your customers are incredibly frustrated. Because what you’re doing isn’t helping you to retain customers. And even if you do, they clearly don’t trust you.

So how about it Rogers?

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Rogers Responses To The Lack Of Apple Watch LTE Support Appear To be Incredibly Tone Deaf

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 16, 2018 by itnerd

Even though I am no longer a Rogers wireless customer so that I could get an Apple Watch (review to come in the next couple of weeks by the way), I still follow this story as I get a lot, and I do mean a lot of comments from frustrated Rogers customers on this. As I watch Rogers try to deal with what must be a public relations nightmare, I note a very disturbing trend in terms of how Rogers is responding to this. Rogers seems to be responding in a way that seems to be incredibly tone deaf. Take this response that Rogers served up to a Twitter user:

Justin Prest has a point here. Rogers from what I could tell didn’t even try to say anything to keep a 25 year customer. I point that out because I have seen the people behind Rogers social media accounts try to jump in to save a customer who is talking about leaving. Instead they stuck with a modified version of the party line which is “We don’t currently support Apple Watch. Keep an eye on our website for updates on our products and services.” Now I guess you can’t get in trouble for repeating that. But it really doesn’t help them to give their customers the warm and fuzzies. And now customers are even trolling them on that:

Now the second tweet was sent two minutes after the first one. Keep that in mind as I post what Rogers replied with:

Well. Mr Patrick called it. Either Rogers didn’t see the second Tweet, or they simply don’t care and are sticking to the party line. Also, by the time customers start calling the responses from Rogers on Twitter like Babe Ruth calls home runs, Rogers has a major problem on its hands. As in, they have lost the plot when it comes to managing this from a PR perspective. That’s not good if you’re Rogers.

Then there’s this:

https://twitter.com/NigelMather13/status/996360810120318976

Now this could be fact, or a salesperson in a Rogers store or authorized dealer going rogue. But in the absence of actual facts, it allows this sort of thing to happen. That’s not good for anyone.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Though I will say it again packaged slightly differently. Instead of these incredibly lame and tone deaf responses, Rogers needs to simply come out and say what their plans are. Or, if they’ve not going to support the Apple Watch with LTE, just say so and put an end to this so that customers can make decisions on the telco that best meets their needs. If they are going to support it, say when. Cookie cutter responses are not winning the day for them, thus they really need to demonstrate that their customers matter to them by not giving them tone deaf responses.

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BREAKING: Rogers E-mail Provider Yahoo/Oath Will Change Terms Of Service Due To Epic Backlash

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 1, 2018 by itnerd

I guess that all the negative press finally got to Rogers and their e-mail provider Yahoo/Oath and they decided to smarten up and do something about the terms of service that had upset users to a massive degree. In short, some changes are coming to the objectionable parts of the terms of service according to The Globe And Mail [Warning: Paywalled. I will find an additional source shortly].

However, this isn’t over yet:

However, Canada’s privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said Tuesday his office continues to investigate other concerns raised over new terms of service recently sent to users of @rogers.com e-mail addresses

I took a look around and early indications are that this change is specific to Rogers customers. Anyone else who uses the Yahoo/Oath platform don’t appear at this point to have gotten the same treatment. I’ll continue to look at that. But if that’s true, it will be interesting to see what the reaction to that is.

More as it comes.

UPDATE: I found this which confirms that this was a Canada specific change.

UPDATE #2: The Toronto Star has this story. It indicates an investigation by the Privacy Commissioner is what sparked the change in direction by Rogers Yahoo/Oath.

UPDATE #3: Mobile Syrup has even more detail on this including a quote from Rogers that the telco “is currently working with its customers to “help them use Yahoo’s opt out settings” to manage their preferences.” Which implies that you can somehow opt out of this.  It also has Yahoo/Oath doing a bit of a walk back as well.

UPDATE #4: One Rogers customer Tweeted me to comment on this. Or should I say, ex-Rogers customer:

UPDATE #5: The change of heart by Rogers and Yahoo/Oath may not be winning hearts and minds. This person just Tweeted me to illustrate that:

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How To Move Your E-Mail And Contacts Off The Rogers Yahoo/Oath E-Mail Platform

Posted in Commentary with tags , on April 27, 2018 by itnerd

Because of the change of the terms of service of the Yahoo/Oath e-mail platform that Rogers uses, I have been asked how can users move off that platform because of the privacy issues that have been uncovered. I can tell you that it does take some work, but it is possible for the average person to move off that platform by downloading e-mails and contacts.

Let’s start with the contacts as that’s easy:

  • In Rogers Yahoo Mail, click the Contacts icon .
  • Click Actions | select Export.
  • Select a format to export (if you’re unsure, I recommend Yahoo CSV).
  • Click Export now.

This will download your contacts to a file that you could use to import into an e-mail client like Microsoft Outlook or some e-mail service like Gmail. Next you want to delete your contacts by doing the following:

  • Go to contacts and check the select all check box. Yahoo displays the number of contacts selected in the right side panel.
  • “Delete Contacts”

Now to the hard part which is to download the e-mail. You’ll need an e-mail client to pull this off and I recommend Mozilla Thunderbird as that will download and save your emails in MBOX format. You then have to set it up to download all your email. General instructions on setting up Mozilla can be found here with options for setting things up manually and automatically. You may need the server settings for Rogers which are:

Incoming Server imap.broadband.rogers.com or imap.nl.rogers.com
Incoming Port 993
SSL Yes
POP Authentication Email address: Enter your full Rogers Yahoo! email address
Username: Enter your full Rogers Yahoo! email address
Password: You’ll need to create an app password in the Rogers Member Centre.
Outgoing Server smtp.broadband.rogers.com or smtp.nl.rogers.com
Outgoing Port 465
SSL Yes
SMTP Authentication Email address: Enter your full Rogers Yahoo! email address
Username: Enter your full Rogers Yahoo! email address
Password: You’ll need to create an app password in the Rogers Member Centre.

You will have to likely create an app password to make this work. Here’s how you do it.

  1. Go to the Rogers Member Centre sign-in page.
  2. Enter the Rogers Yahoo! email address and password for the account you’d like to create an app password for, then select Next.
  3. Mobile: Select the menu icon ( Menu icon ) in the top-left corner, then select Account Information.
    Desktop: Select Account Information in the top-right of your browser window.
  4. Select Authorized Applications.
  5. In the Name your password field, label your app password with the name of the email program it’s for, then select Generate. A pop-up containing a randomly generated app password will appear.
  6. Write down the password or copy it to your clipboard.
  7. Enter this password during your email set-up when prompted. When finished, select Done in the pop-up.

You can download all the mail once everything is set up. It snags everything in your inbox and outbox along with any other folders that you might have in your e-mail account. From there to export your mail, I would suggest that you use this Mozilla Thunderbird add on to make it easy to export your mails in MBOX format. That way you can import it into another e-mail program.

Once you export your e-mail, you can use Thunderbird to delete it all from the Yahoo/Oath servers. Because as I said here, you want to delete your e-mail and contacts to keep Yahoo/Oath from reading your e-mail.

Give this a shot and leave a comment to let me know how it goes.

 

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So What Does The Yahoo/Oath Terms Of Service Change Actually Mean For Rogers Customers?

Posted in Commentary with tags , on April 25, 2018 by itnerd

I was asked by a reader if I could distill down the change in the terms of service that Rogers e-mail users are upset about. But to be clear, the change in the terms of service really come from Yahoo/Oath who provide e-mail services for Rogers. Thus Rogers is not responsible for this. However, this does apply to anyone who uses Yahoo/Oath e-mail. With that in mind, the goal of this article is to get to the key points of what this change means to Rogers users. In short, Yahoo/Oath has changed their terms of service to allow them the following rights:

  • Yahoo/Oath now claims ownership your e-mail, its contents and any attachments.
  • Yahoo/Oath can do whatever it wants with your e-mail. As in scan it for keywords that allow them to provide targeted advertising to you for example.
  • Yahoo/Oath states that you have obtained permission of all of the people that you contact thru e-mail, and they have agreed to have their e-mail to you scanned as well.
  • Yahoo/Oath also states that it can send email, on your behalf to your contacts. Presumably to sell them stuff.

Here’s the kicker. If you don’t like the above, and to be frank most people reading this wouldn’t, and you don’t agree to the terms of service, you don’t get to use the Yahoo/Oath e-mail platform. But…. If you don’t accept the terms of service by May 25th, you would have been deemed to have accepted them. So, what’s so significant about May 25? That’s when the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force. So this is clearly meant to tie into that. And even if you don’t agree to this change in the terms of service, you’re going to agree to this change to the terms of service.

Based on the above the only way I can see to avoid this is to somehow download your contacts and your e-mail and delete them from the Yahoo/Oath servers. Then either delete the account if it isn’t tied to anything else, or keep the account open so that it can’t be recycled by someone and used for illicit purposes. I’d be leaning towards the latter and set up a vacation notice to let people know where they can actually e-mail you. But if I did that, I would also stop that account from accepting e-mail.

I am currently working on an article to help you to help you to move off the Yahoo/Oath platform if that’s what you wish to do. The process isn’t exactly straightforward, but doable by most people. Expect that on Friday.

 

 

 

 

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If You Don’t Want To Use Rogers Yahoo/Oath E-Mail Because Of The Terms Of Service Change, Here’s An Option For You

Posted in Commentary with tags , on April 24, 2018 by itnerd

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that Yahoo/Oath have changed their terms of service for their e-mail offering, and as a result of that Rogers customers are up in arms because Rogers uses the Yahoo/Oath e-mail platform and people feel that their privacy might be under threat. Overnight, I got 7 or 8 e-mails from users asking me what options exist for users who want to switch from using Rogers e-mail service and still have their privacy.

In my mind, there’s really only one option that balances the need for privacy with ease of use and support for a variety of OSes and devices. That option is ProtonMail. Based in Switzerland, these guys are free (Though they do have a paid option. More on that in a moment) and use open source software to provide their services. They guarantee that nobody can see your e-mails. And they do mean nobody. Not your ISP. Not a national government. Not even them. In fact, if you forget your password, you lose your e-mail if you don’t have a recovery account set up. You don’t get more secure than that. Another plus is that these guys don’t store IP address info. Because when you send an e-mail, the external IP address of the network you sent it from is usually logged. That can allow someone to track you down in theory. That can’t happen with these guys.

The free version of ProtonMail supports 500 MB of email storage and limits your usage to 150 messages per day. You can pay for the Plus or Visionary service for more space, e-mail aliases, priority support, labels, custom filtering options, auto-reply, built-in VPN protection, and the ability to send more e-mails each day. There’s also a Business plan available. So you do have options depending on your e-mail needs. But I suspect that most Rogers users would be fine with the free option.

Are there any downsides to using ProtonMail? The only one that I can see is that it does not support IMAP, SMTP, or POP3 protocols. Likely to ensure your security. Thus you’re stuck using their web interface or their iOS or Android app. But they are all easy to use so I don’t think that’s too much of a hardship.

Thus if you’re a user of Rogers e-mail, and you’re not thrilled with the change to the terms of service from Yahoo/Oath because of the privacy implications related to that, you might want to check out ProtonMail as you get privacy and security for your e-mail with them.

 

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I Am Not Sure Why Rogers Customers Are Shocked That Their E-Mail Is Being Read By Yahoo

Posted in Commentary with tags , on April 23, 2018 by itnerd

Over the weekend a number of stories appeared about a change to the terms of service to Yahoo e-mail. Yahoo, which you can also call Oath as that’s the name given to it by Verizon who bought the company last year said in their new terms of services that they analyze “‘content and information,’ including e-mails, photos and attachments ‘when you use our services.’”

In other words, they read your e-mail.

Now how does Rogers fit into this? Rogers e-mail services are powered by Yahoo/Oath. Thus when users got notified about this change to their terms of service, it led to stories like this one and this one being published.

The thing is, I am not sure why anyone is surprised here. After all Google’s Gmail e-mail service used to read your e-mail to serve up targeted ads. Until they dialed that back  to read your e-mail for other reasons. So one could safely assume that others that offer up e-mail services were doing the same thing.

In short, if you use a third party e-mail service, anyone, or anything could be reading your email. Thus you should have no expectation of privacy. Ever. If you want privacy when it comes to you’re e-mail, you can always do what I do which is build and run your own e-mail server and host it out of a data center. That way you control the e-mail that you receive and that you send. What happens to it after you click send though is completely out of your control. Which means that you’re only marginally ahead in the privacy game.

One other thing. There’s a bunch of people who are mad at Rogers for this. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Rogers is just collateral damage in this as they are essentially a customer of Yahoo/Oath. So while there are things that Rogers does that deserve the ire of their customers, this isn’t one of them.

Finally the story written by Ellen Roseman of Toronto Star which is linked to above has this in it:

Rogers Yahoo email customers need to press for more information. What is the deadline for agreeing to Oath’s updated terms? Will they be cut off without access if they don’t agree? Can they get help moving all their emails to another provider?

Those are fair questions to ask. Hopefully Rogers and Yahoo/Oath answers those questions and does so quickly. Though I suspect that I can answer question three for them. I cannot see a scenario where Rogers or Yahoo/Oath would help a customer move their e-mail to another provider. There’s no value in doing so. But the other two Rogers and Yahoo/Oath can and should answer.

UPDATE: I just had a chat with a Rogers Tech Support rep who informed me that if users don’t agree to the new terms of service, they can’t use Rogers e-mail. Also, users who have contacted me directly have said the same thing.

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It’s Been Seven Months Since The Apple Watch With LTE Was Released And Rogers Still Lacks Support

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 20, 2018 by itnerd

We’re now about 7 months since the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE has been launched, and Rogers who is Canada’s largest telco still lacks support for it. Now I have said each time that I have talked about this that they risk losing customers over this as other telcos, most notably Bell, are looking to snatch their customers away from them. Now there appears to be definitive proof of that. Take these for example:

https://twitter.com/andrelmmatos/status/987335681516195840

https://twitter.com/karewpah/status/983811697872846848

You’ll note the last Tweet is yours truly. Well, having switched from Bell to Rogers about 5 years ago because of Bell’s horrible customer service, I made the decision to go from Rogers to Telus so that I could get an Apple Watch with LTE. Now I was on a retention plan with Rogers which means the cost of using my iPhone 7 Plus is going to go up a bit. But Telus offered me a deal that will minimize that impact. Plus it will get even cheaper when my wife who has been a Rogers customer for almost 20 years moves to Telus this June and we leverage the Telus Family Advantage Plan to lower our costs to the level that we are used to paying. Why is she waiting until June? Her birthday is in June and she plans to buy an Apple Watch with LTE for herself as a birthday present. Assuming I don’t get her one first.

As for Rogers, the only reason that I can think of that they haven’t rolled out eSIM support (which the Apple Watch with LTE requires) yet is that they must figure that they might as well wait until the fall when the Apple Watch Series 4 (if that is what Apple calls it) makes an appearance. I can see from Rogers point of view why they might not want that as it would ensure that they wouldn’t get stuck with a large amount of Apple Watch Series 3 models in their inventory. Plus it would give them time to make sure that eSIM support is bullet proof. The cynic in me also says that they’re counting on their Q1 results where they gained 95000 customers on the wireless side of the business offsetting any defections because of lack of eSIM support. But whatever their strategy is, it’s clearly costing them customers because all Rogers saying is that they “don’t have specific timing to share” which is frustrating to hear if you are a customer looking for a reason not to switch from Rogers. Meanwhile your buddies on Bell or Telus have the latest and greatest wearable from Apple. Add all that up and you get the PR disaster that Rogers is in where departing customers are taking shots at Rogers on social media as they leave. That from an optics perspective is craptastic.

Of course all of the above assumes that the only other possibility which is that they just can’t get eSIM support to work properly on their network for whatever reason isn’t in play. Which I hope for their sake it is not as that would truly end badly for them if that were true.

If I were Rogers, I’d come clean on what their plans are for the Apple Watch with LTE. Just lay it out there whether it is good bad or ugly. Because their current tactic of they “don’t have specific timing to share” isn’t working. But the truth might actually work because people like the truth. In short, unless they change course, many others will be joining me in leaving Rogers for another carrier. And that has to suck if you’re Rogers.

 

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CCTS Mid Year Report Is Out…. Surprise! Bell Is The Most Complained About Telco In Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags , , , on April 10, 2018 by itnerd

In a sure sign that Canadian telcos are frustrating and infuriating their customers, The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) published their mid year report and noted that complaints are way up. And by that I mean a 73% increase over this time last year. And what are people complaining about? Here’s the number one issue:

The most frequently-raised issue in complaints remains the non-disclosure or inaccurate information about the terms under which a service is being provided. This is by far the most problematic issue for wireless customers. For TV and phone customers, the largest area of concern is incorrect charges, and for internet customers the number one concern is quality of service.

Hmmm…. Bell have been accused of that recently. I wonder how they finished in this report. Let’s rank the telcos in order:

  1. Bell with 2275 complaints
  2. Rogers with 707 complaints
  3. Telus with 511 complaints

Additional details can be found here.

That’s not a shock that Bell is number one seeing as the sort of stupid stuff that they’ve been caught doing recently have surely annoyed Canadian consumers from coast to coast. It illustrates just how bad their customer service is. It’s also a major reason why I haven’t switched from Rogers to Bell for my telco services. Sure Bell has a way better Internet offering than Rogers. And unlike Rogers they support the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE. But their customer service is so bad and they have a reputation of “baiting and switching” when it comes to their pricing, that I would rather just live with what I get, and don’t get from Rogers than to switch to Bell. By the way, Rogers shouldn’t be celebrating Bell’s misfortune as they got caught doing some of the same things that Bell has been accused of.

One other data point. Clearly the increase in complaints is affecting the CCTS too as they have a job posting for people to help them to field all the complaints that are coming in. That shows the level of discontent that Canadians have when it comes to telcos.

If I were an exec at any of the three major telcos that was responsible for customer service, I would looking at this report and say to myself that I need to up my game. Then go about improving things so that my customers don’t complain. But when it comes to Bell specifically, they need to take a bit of a different angle as this just further highlights how bad they are as a telco when it comes to how they treat customers. And I don’t know how they fix that so that they can regain the trust of Canadians. Bell has a good product offering, but without quality customer service, that doesn’t mean anything.

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