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Rogers Xfinity introduces Storm-Ready WiFi

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 10, 2024 by itnerd

Rogers today announced the launch of Rogers Xfinity Storm-Ready WiFi, an innovative new product designed to keep customers connected when there is an outage.

Rogers Xfinity Storm-Ready WiFi brings Rogers advanced network technology together with a device that automatically switches to a cellular backup connection when there’s a network or power outage. The device and battery backup seamlessly keep customers’ homes online so they can work and stream without interruption.

The launch of Storm-Ready WiFi follows the company’s recent introduction of Rogers Xfinity, a suite of in-home services that leverage Comcast’s world-class product and technology platform.

Rogers Xfinity Storm-Ready WiFi delivers:

  • Extended Battery Backup
    Keep streaming for up to four hours during a power outage with a rechargeable battery backup
  • Enhanced Reliability
    Automatically switches to Rogers cellular network when the power or primary internet service is interrupted with real-time connection and battery status notifications on the Rogers Xfinity app
  • Simple Setup and Seamless Integration
    Ready in minutes and seamlessly integrates with Rogers Xfinity Internet
  • Stronger WiFi Coverage
    Device provides enhanced coverage, doubling as a WiFi extender for everyday use, making it our best WiFi Boost Pod ever.

Rogers Xfinity Storm-Ready WiFi is now available for customers in British Columbia, part of Rogers commitment to deliver innovative products to Western Canada and will be rolling out across the country in February. Customers can pre-order their Storm-Ready WiFi device today or visit Rogers.com for more information.

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Taylor Swift Fans in Vancouver Break Record for Most Data Ever Used at Single Event on The Rogers 5G Network

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 9, 2024 by itnerd

Taylor Swift fans on the Rogers 5G network used over 11 terabytes (TB) of mobile data in just a few hours at BC Place to share and stream her last concert of The Eras Tour – setting a new Canadian record.

This shatters the record set at the Taylor Swift concert at Rogers Centre in Toronto on November 21, when fans used 7.4 TB of data on the Rogers 5G network.

The data used on December 8 is the equivalent of uploading 307,000 photos and 2,180 hours of video streaming. Based on data usage spikes, the most-shared moments of the show were when Taylor Swift came on stage and the start of the ‘Reputation’ era. 

As presenting sponsor of Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour in Canada, Rogers invested $10 million to enhance 5G connectivity at BC Place ahead of Taylor’s last stop on her global tour. This includes a full network redesign and installation of a new in-stadium network system to bring fans the best experience across her three nights in Vancouver. Teams spent 10,000 hours of planning and installation took 10,000 hours with a crew of over 40.

The upgrades increase 5G network capacity by 38 times throughout the stadium – the equivalent to coverage provided by 20 towers in Vancouver. Over the course of Taylor’s three performances in Vancouver, fans on the Rogers 5G network at BC Place used 32TB of data.

5G technology is critical for today’s concert experiences, providing faster speeds, lower latency and more capacity, as large numbers of fans livestream and share the moment in real-time.

As part of planning for the expected crowds outside of BC Place, Rogers also installed two temporary Cell on Wheels to increase wireless capacity and ensure reliable connectivity.

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Discovery | HGTV | Food Network | ID | Magnolia Network. Rogers Sports & Media Unveils Winter Schedule, Launching January 1

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 5, 2024 by itnerd

Starting January 1, Canadians can continue watching their favourite shows with new seasons and series exclusively on Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, and more. Rogers is the new home to these iconic lifestyle brands and beloved content including titles such as Homestead Rescue (Discovery), Celebrity IOU with Drew and Jonathan Scott (HGTV), Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives with Guy Fieri (Food Network), Signs of a Psychopath (ID), and Maine Cabin Masters (Magnolia Network).

Building on the exciting slate of hit content from Bravo, Citytv, FX, and FXX, Citytv+ adds thousands of hours of new and returning shows from Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, OWN, Cooking Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Science, MotorTrend, and more.

Discovery will feature new seasons of off-the-grid living with Homestead Rescue, exploring the unknown in Expedition X, high-stakes underdogs in Hustlers Gamblers Crooks, bootleg legends in Moonshiners, the ultimate booze-making competition Moonshiners: Master Distiller, and all-new series Expedition Files and The Last Woodsman, beginning this January. That’s not all! Discovery will air repeat seasons of Caught, Gold Rush, Big Little Brawlers, and Outback Opal Hunters, plus special events such as Shark Week and Puppy Bowl.

Beginning this January, HGTV will have new seasons of star-studded transformations on Celebrity IOU with Drew and Jonathan Scott, property pursuits with House Hunters, Home Town with Erin and Ben Napier, heritage home renovation series Fixer to Fabulous, and over-the-top house hunting with My Lottery Dream Home, plus Married to Real Estate, Zillow Gone Wild, and Help! I Wrecked My House. Additionally, the channel will have repeat seasons from HGTV’s slate of home improvement programming including Why The Heck Did I Buy This House?, Rico to the Rescue, and Battle on the Mountain. 

The Food Network, connecting viewers to the power and joy of food, will feature all-new seasons of competition series Chopped, Kids Baking Championship, Wildcard Kitchen, and Spring Baking Championship, sizzling showdowns with Beat Bobby Flay, plus Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and Guy’s Grocery Games to round out the schedule.

ID offers a slate chock-full of harrowing crimes, in-depth investigations, and powerful true stories with all-new seasons of Signs of a Psychopath, Very Scary People, Murder Under the Friday Night Lights, Death by Fame, Body Cam: On The Scene, and Evil Lives Here, plus past seasons of Real Time Crime.

Premiering on the Magnolia Network this January are new seasons of Maine Cabin Masters, Building Outside The Lines, and In With The Old, plus past seasons of Beachfront Bargain Hunt Renovations and Barnwood Builders to complete the schedule. 

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Rogers Net-Zero Targets Approved by SBTi

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 31, 2024 by itnerd

Rogers today announced its net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets have been approved by the globally recognized Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Rogers is the first national carrier in Canada to have approved science-based net-zero targets published by the SBTi. The global organization for corporate climate goals validates submitted targets and action plans to ensure they are in line with the Paris Agreement.  

The company’s action plan will aim to deliver on environmental commitments in four key areas: 

  • Increasing energy efficiencies across its operations and network   
  • Transitioning its fleet to electric and hybrid vehicles    
  • Expanding its renewable energy strategy    
  • Engaging suppliers to set their own science-based targets 

Rogers efforts have already reduced scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 33% since 2019. Rogers long-term net-zero targets are to reduce absolute scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions to net-zero by 2050. Near-term targets are to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% by 2030 and ensure 80% of its suppliers set their own science-based targets by 2029.

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Rogers And Other Canadian Telcos Have Given You A Great Reason To Ditch Using Their Hardware For Their TV Services

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 22, 2024 by itnerd

Rogers isn’t exactly well loved by Canadians. In fact, no Canadian telco really is. But Rogers specifically is in the crosshairs of many Canadians because of price increases that many Rogers customers weren’t specifically told of. A few Rogers customers went public with CBC a few days ago to express their displeasure:

Here’s the core issue. Rogers customers are seeing unexpected increases in TV box rental fees by $7 a month. Something that Rogers is able to do because it’s buried in the fine print of their contract. That in my opinion is fine if it is properly disclosed to customers before they sign on the dotted line. But in many of the cases that have come to light, that hasn’t happened. Thus customers are mad. To be fair, Rogers aren’t the only Canadian telco that does this. I’ve heard of TELUS and Bell doing something similar with their equipment rentals.

My advice is that if you must get TV from a big three telco, don’t rent their TV hardware. Bell has the Fibe TV app on a variety of platforms. TELUS has the TV+ app on the App Store and Play Store. Ditto for Rogers with their Ignite TV app on the App Store and Play Store. None of these options require you to rent hardware from any Canadian telco, and you get the same experience as if you did. Which means that you save money at the end of the day. Though I suspect that if there’s a critical mass of people switching to these options, the big three telcos will find some way to bill you extra for it.

It will be interesting to see what if anything the big three in general, and Rogers specifically does to respond to this backlash from consumers. Because this kind of has the smell of the negative option billing fiasco that Rogers found itself in the middle of many years ago. Government outlawed the practice as a result of that fiasco, and one has to wonder if the same thing will happen here.

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Rogers Confirms Plans to Launch Warner Bros. Discovery Brands in 2025

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 8, 2024 by itnerd

Rogers Communications confirmed today it will be the proud home of Warner Bros. Discovery’s suite of English-language U.S. lifestyle and factual brands starting January 1, 2025. This confirms Rogers plans to bring this sought after content to Canadians and follows Bell’s decision to abandon its legal efforts to block Canadians from seeing Discovery channels.

As the exclusive English-language content rights holder, distributor, and advertising representative for the Discovery brands in Canada, Rogers will launch TV channels for Discovery ID and Discovery and will work with Canadian distribution partners to make the content widely available. In addition, content from Cooking, OWN, MotorTrend, Animal Planet, and Discovery Science will be available on demand and via Citytv+ on Amazon Prime Video Channels.

In June, Bell filed a Notice of Application in the Ontario Superior Court seeking an injunction to block Rogers from distributing Discovery channels. Bell acknowledged all claims against Rogers were unfounded and abandoned its legal efforts.

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Has iOS 18/iPadOS 18 Broken Rogers/Yahoo Email Or The Other Way Around?

Posted in Commentary with tags , on September 22, 2024 by itnerd

Over the last week, I’ve gotten four calls that seem to have the same pattern:

  • The client uses the built in Mail app on their iPhone or iPad
  • The client also gets email from Rogers/Yahoo
  • After updating to iOS 18/iPadOS 18, they can no longer send or receive email

Now one of these calls is a fluke. But I’ve gotten four so there’s something clearly going on here. This could be a bug in iOS 18/iPadOS 18. But what makes me think that this is a Rogers problem is that if you try to delete the account and re-add it, that doesn’t work. When you get to the section that requires you to enter the Rogers credentials for your email account, which is a redirect to rogersmembercentre.com, nothing ever loads. Thus leaving you stuck. It gets interesting as I’ve been able to get all the affected clients working by using Yahoo Mail from the Apple App Store. So if you’re in this situation, you could try that as it has worked for me so far.

And what doesn’t help the situation is that Rogers and their co branded Rogers/Yahoo email service has been a train wreck next to a dumpster fire for a while now. You can get the details here on that. But what that does is cloud the issue because you can make valid arguments that either Apple or Rogers could be at fault here. Regardless, I’m going to reiterate my official advice for any issues related to Rogers email. Abandon it. Details as to why I feel that way can be found here. But it’s pretty clear that you cannot rely on Rogers to provide their users with reliable email. And that’s independent of who’s at fault when it comes to this specific issue. Thus you need to do what you need to do to get reliable email that works for you.

If I find out any additional details or fixes for this, I’ll be sure to post an update.

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A Rogers Email #Scam Using The iPhone 16 Is Making The Rounds

Posted in Commentary with tags , on September 22, 2024 by itnerd

If you get an email saying that you’re going to get something for free, it might be a scam. Case in point is this email using the Rogers brand and riding on the coat tails of the iPhone 16:

Let me get one thing out of the way right up front. No Canadian telco is going to give you a phone for free. That affects their bottom line. So it’s not going to happen. EVER. Thus knowing that, this is clearly a scam. And you should delete this. But if that’s not convincing enough, this might be:

The email address that sent this is not coming from “Rogers.com” so this is another sign of it being a scam. So not that you should ever do this, let’s see what these threat actors are up to:

When I tried to click on “Share Your Thoughts”, I got this on Firefox and Opera. This only worked on Google Chrome which shows that the threat actors behind this aren’t too bright as they are limiting the audience of this scam to just Chrome users.

Well, this is another one of those fake surveys to supposedly get an iPhone 16. Okay. Let’s go down the rabbit hole and see where this goes:

Ten fake questions. Oh Joy.

Great. I supposedly now get an iPhone 16. And if you look at some of the specs, they’re wrong as Apple for example doesn’t have a 200MP camera. But you know, facts.

And look at the fake comments here. The threat actors clearly didn’t spend a whole lot of time coming up with these as they seriously don’t sound authentic.

So this is the part of the scam where I assume that the threat actors would collect your personal information and your credit card details so the can commit fraud and identity theft. But the website crashed and went to Google’s home page before I got that far. I don’t know why. The scam targets Rogers customers and maybe because I am on Bell it didn’t like me? I don’t know. But this scam is something that I can see many falling for as humans gravitate towards something that is perceived as free, and let their guard down as a result. Don’t be one of those people and delete this email if it hits your inbox.

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A New Rogers Text Message #Scam Is Making The Rounds

Posted in Commentary with tags , on September 21, 2024 by itnerd

One of the things that I teach people to do when I give my seminars on how not to get scammed is to closely look at any email that you get or any website address that you’re asked to visit. We’re going to focus on the latter today by doing an exercise where I am going to show you two web addresses, and you need to determine which one is fake and why:

  1. https://mobile-2fa.rogers.com
  2. https://mobile-2fa-rogers.com

The correct answer is the second one. That’s because the technical term for a web address is uniform resource locator or URL for short. And understanding how URL’s work can help you to determine what is real and what is fake.

Here’s how a URL constructed:

  • A URL starts with a protocol followed by the name of the resource that has to be accessed. In this case https which is a web page with SSL encryption during transport from the server to your web browser.
  • That is then followed by the domain or host name. For example, itnerd.blog is my domain or host name.

If you look closely at the two examples above, they look the same. But they are not. the first one ends in “.rogers.com” after the “mobile-2fa” part of the web address. Which means that this domain name is the one for Canadian telco Rogers. And it’s going to a specific host that Rogers controls named “mobile-2fa”. That’s why there’s a period between the first part of the web address (“mobile-2fa”) and “rogers.com”

For the record, Rogers doesn’t have a host named mobile-2fa. But I am going to use it for reasons that you’ll see in a moment.

The second one has a domain name of “mobile-2fa-rogers.com” which means that that one is going someplace else other than Rogers because the entire text above is the name of a host that has been set up by a threat actor called “mobile-2fa-rogers”. And what that threat actor is hoping for is that by setting up a web address that looks very close to something that Rogers might use, you might click on it because you’re not paying attention to the details. And that in turn will lead you into all sorts of danger.

So why am I pointing this out? I got this sent to me the other day from someone who had this message pop up on his phone via text message:

The person asked me if this was a scam. And based on what I just explained above, it was. Fortunately they didn’t click on anything. And neither should you. But I did as I wanted to see what the scam was.

This is another one of these scams that uses a CAPTCHA to convince you that you’re going to the real Rogers site. But it’s clearly not the real Rogers site as explained earlier.

Once you get past that, you get to a site that has the feel of something that Rogers might create, and you also get this prompt saying that your account requires two step verification. Two step verification is something that adds security to your online accounts because there’s two factors in play. A password and a one time code that is sent to your phone. But this isn’t how Rogers does this. If you want details on how Rogers does this, click here.

You’ll notice that you as a person is not identified in any way. That should be a major red flag as any communication from Rogers will identify you with an account number or your name. Let’s continue shall we?

Now the threat actors want your name and address details. That’s great for swiping your identity.

Using some fake information to get past that, I now hit this page. I am not sure what handing over your credit card info has to do with two factor verification, but swiping your credit card details is also on the list of things to do for these threat actors.

What this example highlights is that you need to closely look at anything and everything that hits your phone, inbox, etc. Because anything and everything could be a scam. and if you’re not paying attention, you could be a victim.

Be careful out there.

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Rogers to Offer All-New iPhones, Apple Watches, And AirPods

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 13, 2024 by itnerd

Rogers will offer iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, which are built for Apple Intelligence with the all-new A18 chip, Camera Control, powerful upgrades to the advanced camera system, the Action button to quickly access useful features, and a big boost in battery life; iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are powered by the A18 Pro chip and built for Apple Intelligence, featuring larger display sizes, Camera Control, innovative pro camera features, and a huge leap in battery life; Apple Watch Series 10, the thinnest Apple Watch yet, featuring the biggest, most advanced display of any Apple Watch, faster charging, water depth and temperature sensing, and the breakthrough health and fitness insights of watchOS 11; Apple Watch Ultra 2 in a stunning new black finish alongside a new Titanium Milanese Loop band; and a groundbreaking new lineup of AirPods models and features, including a brand-new design for AirPods 4.

Switch to Canada’s largest and most reliable 5G network with the iPhone 16 lineup. Rogers covers over 2,300 communities across the country and is now #1 in awards for Canada’s most reliable mobile network as awarded by umlaut and Opensignal. Enjoy great savings with Rogers when you trade-in an eligible iPhone for the new iPhone 16 lineup. And with select 5G plans, you can enjoy promo credits when you finance your iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, as well as special offers for connected devices.

iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models can be activated with an eSIM, a more secure alternative to a physical SIM card. With eSIM, users can quickly activate their cellular plan, store multiple cellular plans on the same device, and stay connected. Rogers supports eSIM Quick Transfer which allows users to transfer their existing plan to their new iPhone, and with eSIM Carrier Activation Rogers can digitally assign a user’s eSIM directly to their iPhone.

For more details on pricing and data plans, please visit rogers.com.

For more details on Apple products, please visit www.apple.com.

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