I was busy yesterday (Tuesday), so I’m late.
I woke up in the morning (again, Tuesday) to find the downstream light on my modem still flashing, which meant my Internet access was still not working. I rebooted the machine, no change.
Then I left because I had stuff to do.
I came back after 13:00, no change in the modem status. I again rebooted it, just to see if that would help. No go.
So, using my lightning fast (that’s a joke) Troublesome Mobile connection, I entered chat with a Tek-non-Savvy person. I have to admit the wait is not too long, but it ironically starts with, “We hate that you are having service issues”, and provides a link to basic troubleshooting. Nice, if it helps, which it doesn’t, because my problem isn’t basic.
The customer service person says my service has been activated, so I need to try another cable outlet. I ask her, “What if it works, but it’s not in the room where our TV will be?” I had attached it to the cable outlet (they’re using Rogers, sadly) in the living room near where the previous owners had a TV mounted on the wall. When I attached it to another outlet and I rebooted the modem, it eventually connected. Great! So I do finally have Internet access!
Oh, but wait.
Me: “OK, now it is [online]. But a wifi connection to the TV is not as good as an RJ-45 connection. Why do we not have connectivity on the one outlet where we want it?”
Her: “We have no control over which outlet the vendor activates for the modem, unfortunately.” (I’m starting to see a scam here.)
Her: “I can make some changes in the modem to improve the wifi. What would you like your network name and password to be?” Huh?
After being disconnected and reconnecting: “Why can we not get service at the cable outlet by our future TV?”
Her: “We have no control over which cable outlet the vendor activates for the modem. If you want to relocate the active jack, there is a fee to dispatch a technician. I can make a change in the modem that will help improve your wifi. What would you like your wifi network name and password to be?”
Me: “That hilarious. So you cripple a new modem? I will consult with the person bringing us our new TV on the 28th, but this might be a very short subscription. Would you rather charge us the fee, or have our subscription?”
Her: “It’s not crippling the modem. Band steering is enabled in the modem by default. Disabling it separates the two wifi networks so you can better manage your devices.”
(I looked up “band steering” on Wikipedia: “Some enterprise-grade APs [access points, I believe] use band steering to send 802.11n clients to the 5 GHz band, leaving the 2.4 GHz band for legacy clients. Band steering works by responding only to 5 GHz association requests and not the 2.4 GHz requests from dual-band clients.” Duck.ai says, “The main difference between 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz WiFi is that 5 GHz offers faster speeds but has a shorter range, while 2.4 GHz provides a longer range but slower speeds. Additionally, 2.4 GHz is more prone to interference from other devices, making 5 GHz a better choice for high-bandwidth activities in less crowded environments.” So despite the conventional wisdom that a “hard” connection (network cable) is better than a “soft” connection like wifi, she’s suggesting that I put my modem in another room (rather then right next to the TV) and connect to the modem over wifi. I don’t think so. The building is wood, but there is obviously a wall between the room with the modem and the room with the TV. By connecting the TV to the modem over wifi we’re jeopardising the quality of what the TV plays back. I have almost no experience in this area (TVs), so I have no idea what the degradation will look like; will it look like snow on a 1950’s TV, or what?)
More importantly, the “scam” I’m seeing here is that when we’ve set up Shaw (and then Rogers) cable TV and Internet in new abodes in the past, all cable outlets have been activated; we had a “main” TV in the lounge and a small TV in the bedroom. So if only one of the three outlets we have now was activated, why? Why this one instead of the one by the TV? Why this one instead of the one in the bedroom? And why hold us hostage if their random pick of outlet was wrong and we want to activate a different outlet? Why do they have to send a well-paid technician out? They can do most (if not all) things remotely, so their “claim” that they need to send someone in person sounds bogus to me, especially as what’s probably really happening is that a switch is being flipped back in the central office and the person they send just has to look busy on our premises for a few minutes.
This sounds like it’s worth bringing to the attention of the CRTC, quite frankly. This is either a scam on the part of the established players, or a reseller (TekSavvy) is rolling over. Either way, I don’t think this is playing within the spirit of the rules.
I’ll finish the conversation with Tek-non-Savvy:
Her: “The vendor charges us a fee to dispatch their techs, we have to pass this fee onto the customer.”
Me: “But why are you only activating *one* *random* outlet?”
Her: “That’s the way the vendor does it. Rogers. They own the lines”.
Her: “They complete the activation”.
Me: “I understand how the system works, but when we used to be with Rogers they activated all outlets in the suite.”
Me: “That’s how we believe it was with the previous owners.”
Her: “We have no control over this, unfortunately”.
Me: “Wow, not impressed. I will have to reconsider this whole palaver.”
Me: “I guess that’s it then.”
Her: “Have a good evening”.
Yup, TekSavvy: “We’re different. In a good way.” Depends; do you consider it good to subject your new customers to more fees rather than just providing the service and taking your fee every month? It certainly seems that this technician doesn’t give a shit and wants their mark-up on the Rogers technician’s time rather than my monthly revenue. That’s the most egregious short-term thinking I’ve ever come across.
I will have to consider my options when the Geek Squad guys show up with the new TV. But as I said above, it looks like this whole TekSavvy palaver has been a waste of time and money, so it’s fake competition.