Rogers Choco Promo

I recently went in the morning to a major Rogers location for updating the hardware of my daughter's cell phones. The first contact with staff was on the cool side. The person assisting us was sitting behind a long counter and did not stand up and join us as I am used to in that location (must be some new "stay-put" policy!).

Once we explained what we needed the rep started typing on his computer. His body language and terse responses communicated annoyance. I thought for a while it was because we disturbed their peaceful morning rumination, but it turned out that he was stuck trying to retrieve the account information.

Long story short, we selected the new phone (BB of course) and started the process of settling, which involves committing to a 3-years contract with exit penalties in order to get the subsidized cost of the phone. As soon as we signed on the dotted line a magic transformation in the attitude happened. Two bottles of water were offered. The contract was briefly explained, particularly the checklist of what a customer satisfaction survey to be expected in few days will be asking us.

Then, with the phone and papers we got handed two CD jewel cases. I was expecting the usual promotional materials, perhaps a manual in electronic format, or even a music selection like Nissan does sometimes.

To my surprise each case contained a thick CD made completely out of chocolate!



Now I don't know about you, but I am quite a chocolate fan. So I was initially pleasantly surprised. On second thought, however, and having eaten the chocolate, I have the following to say to my friends at Rogers:

• Thanks for the promotional chocolate; its quality was medium, but hey, it's free.

• While I am a chocolate fan, I would have much preferred a friendlier service before sale.

• I was not happy that despite being a VIP customer with significant spending with Rogers for many years, a hardware upgrade had to reset the account lock for another 3 years.

• I realize I am hostage to the only GSM carrier in Canada for the time being. All the chocolate of the world will not stop a hostage from seeking freedom. So I'll be seriously looking for alternatives as soon as other GSM carriers become available. Customer service is not post-sale token rewards. It starts with genuine and fair value of the products and services you offer your customers.

• Oh and by the way: After 4 months I am still trying to remove a Rogers monthly charge for web hosting that I canceled over six months ago for a web site that never ran on Rogers servers. I assure you, you can remove our web domain from your servers while keeping our (hosted exchange) email domain.
  

Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Stick - Customer Report

Rogers is offering recently a wireless broadband modem in stick format with a USB interface, which it has branded as the "Rocket Mobile Internet Stick". The stick supports multiple wireless broadband technologies (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA and HSUPA). The device is being offered free with on one-year activation with an MSF (monthly service fee) of $25. I was looking into a mobile Internet solution for my team's MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, so I contacted Rogers.

The sales person I was dealing with offered me to evaluate one unit on a 30 days refund basis and promised delivery of the evaluation unit by overnight courier. I received the unit only several days after, as Rogers needed three trade references for my company, despite being their customers for business data products for over 7 years.

Package Contents

The unit arrived in a box and contained the Stick, a SIM card, a CDROM, a USB cable, a hook for attaching the stick to the top of a laptop's screen or LCD monitor, and documentation.

The Stick is an Ovation MC950D mobile broadband modem made by Novatel Wireless Inc. The documentation consisted of a Novatel Quick Start Guide and a Rogers Wireless Services User Guide. Also provided were a single sheet with information on the assigned cellular number (user name, cell number, ESN), a UPS courier bag and labels for return shipment if required.

The SIM is inserted directly into the side of the stick as shown here.

A slot in the stick shows how far the SIM has been inserted. Once in place, the SIM still protrudes a bit at the top and the slot length gives the impression that there is more room for the SIM to slide down. It turned out however, that this is as far as the SIM would go and is sufficient for proper operations.

The Novatel printed guide (glossy, 4-color, 5 languages) turned out to be only relevant for Windows installation. It did provide a table to decode the 6-color LED status display of the stick. The CD provided a Quick Start Guide for installing the modem under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger as well as 3G driver v2.0.

Mac Installation

The stick can be inserted directly into a USB port or in case of weak signal in that position it can be attached on top of the screen using the plastic hook and USB extension cable provided.

Although I followed the instructions provided, the Stick would not show up in the MacBook's network interfaces at all, and hence I could not configure it as required. From the colors displayed by the status LED, the modem seemed to connect properly to the cellular network. However, differentiating between the colors blue, cyan and violet could be challenging in normal operating conditions.

I contacted Rogers Technical Support. It took quite a while to get to the proper skill set. Once there the Rogers technician had me remove the drivers I had installed, download new drivers from Novatel's web site and re-install. Several variations of the same approach yielded no progress. The technician then consulted a superior and came back with the following stunning answer: "We only support Mac OS X Leopard". Both the included Novatel documentation as well as Rogers own web site stated clearly that Mac OS Tiger is supported. The only thing I got out of this wasted time is a case number!

Windows Installation

I continued my efforts by installing the Stick on a Windows XP (SP3) laptop following the Novatel instructions. Using address information that was not supplied with the package but obtained during my support session, I was able to install and configure the Rogers stick on this machine and access the internet. Speed tests with various sites ranged between 642 and 1046 Kbps download and 509 to 1067 Kbps upload with latency ranging between 103 to 167 ms. The maximum throughput recorded was 1243 Kbps. I tried again on the Mac with no success. I did notice that the serial number of the device showing up in the USB section of the Mac System Profiler was slightly different from the one on the modem and in the accompanying documentation.

Speaking about my frustration with the Mac installation to a Rogers reseller while on other business, he suggested trying Nerds Onsite Technology Partners, who were providing paid assistance to Rogers customers over a wide scope of issues: from assessing their communications needs to assisting in complex deployment or installations, to on-site technical support. I contacted the Nerds Onsite and a technician was made available on site on Christmas Eve afternoon. I was impressed with their commitment and hopeful of a solution. Unfortunately, the technician was unable to get the Stick working.

The Verdict

I had invested at that point 200% more time than I had initially planned for this evaluation. Thinking about deploying and supporting this device to multiple users with such lacking vendor support, I decided it was not ready for Mac users. The Stick will be on its way back to Rogers tomorrow. It is unfortunate that such a promising product would fail due to poor customer service. If only Rogers technical support for the Rocket Stick was as good as their billing department! They've already sent me an invoice dated December 17th for $65.77.