They want you to switch to the their hybrid voip service because it's cheaper for them to run.
Currently for their POTS service that is true POTS service, they rent the lines from BELL and require BELL technicians to make any repairs. (which can mean long waits for repair techs if BELL is having busy day. BELL customers will be serviced first)

ANDYA, I'm not sure what prices you're checking, but BELL services are always within a few dollars of Rogers services. I check my friends ROGERS bill every month and the price even after the 15% 'discount' is more money than the same services through BELL.
If it's a price comparison done by Rogers, forget it, they always pick the most expensive comparisons. The same is true of the CIBC and other long distance comparisons. (you know, the ones that say they compare with the 4 other companies and give you the lowest rate...)

Nem, who'd like to know what prices you're checking.

Well, I got my first Rogers Home Phone bill yesterday and was a little surprised when I was charged for long distance calls to another Home Phone customer (it's supposed to be free). I called customer service and they informed me that the number I have been calling was not a Rogers customer, therefore the reason for the charges. Anyway, I called my friend to inform her of the situation and she called Rogers as well. Her account was basically in limbo as they are in an area where Rogers does not have cable service and leases Bell POTS lines. The issue was cleared up and I got a full credit for the long distance charges on my next bill (I hope).

I've had the Rogers telemarketers after me for the last week. They want me to switch my line to Rogers and are willing to give me the service for free for 6 months. I'm thinking about it. After 6 months there appears to be no advantage.

You can stop those telemarketers by just asking them this "can you please put me on your do not call list" works wonders for us.

Rogers came at us this month with the "merge Rogers Telcom and Rogers Cable" bills letter and a new offer if we would switch from Telcom (the old Sprint, lines leased from Bell) POTS service to the digital Home Phone service. I have been expecting this for months as Rogers understandably wants to wean the payments to Bell, but I also wanted to hold off on switching for at least a year and follow how the Rogers service played out.

OK - I like the idea of one e-bill (wasn't available from the Telcom division) and they offered a $30 rebate plus 2 additional features permanently (unlike Bell which loves its "free for x-days offers) so decided the time had come to switch. I'm not happy that Rogers does not allow "distinctive ring" to be included in any features bundle; they don't waver on this but they did offer to absorb the cost for 6 months.

There were a couple of pesky call from Rogers CSRs following up on the letter they had sent (all at inconvenient times, of course) who didn't seem to believe that I would call back at MY convenience. This annoyance was offset by the CSR I dealt with when I did call to arrange the transfer. He was thorough - obviously following a script - especially with changes to the billing cycle associated with the combined bills, confirming my current phone features and what I wanted added as my new bonus features and warning about loss of saved voicemail during the switchover but his response to my answer to his "do you have any questions" question was great. I told him I had read the letter and it was all very clear (I admit English is my first language and I have decades of experience writing business communications); he said of the hundreds of customers he has dealt with concerning the letter, I was the first who seemed to have read it and understood it. He upped my bonus to a $60 rebate.

We booked an 8-11 appointment yesterday. The technician arrived at 8:25 checked the situation where our cable and Bell demarcation are located (fortunately in the same utility closet, along with the alarm control panel and a spare 110v outlet, brought in his tools, installed the modem, tested in/out calls and the distinctive ring number, etc and was finished in less than 20 minutes. I talked to him about the alarm system as he worked and he was completely familiar with how the alarm was wired to permit it to seize the line, allaying any concerns I had (I had asked for an "alarm experienced technician" when I booked the installation).

The only small glitch I encountered was when I tried to set-up the new voice mail after the tech left. Instead of the "enter your temporary password" prompt I expected, I got an "invalid number" response. A call to Rogers (a bit of a hold - maybe 2-3 minutes at 9AM) got me through to technical support and advice that my account had not yet been updated on the system (after a question "how long since the technician left?") and to try again in an hour. Impatient me, I tired again in 5 minutes and everything was OK. Whether it really takes about an hour for the system to update or whether the techie was quick to fix a problem with the order coding, I'll never know. The other new features I ordered are working perfectly.

To my ear, the audio quality is indistinguishable from the old copper wire connection and the people I called yesterday and last night noticed no changes. We have three mobiles in the house ( 2 x Telus and 1 x Rogers) in the event of a power failure exceeding the 8-hour Rogers battery back-up and I can take a chance that the digital phone service is no more likely to go down at the same time a burglar hits our house than would be the POTS service.
I'm happy knowing I am set up to take advantage of any new digital features Rogers may launch.

In the interests of fairness and objectivity, I will post if I encounter any problems with digital Home Phone.

I promised an update if I encountered any problems with the Rogers HomePhone conversion.

A day and a half into the conversion, i realised that calls to the distinctive ring number would not forward, either to voice mail when not answered/busy or when the service was set to 'forward all calls'. Calls to the primary number were forwarding correctly.

I had to make three of calls to Rogers. On the first two, CSR and tech support said they could see the problem in the set-up and that they had done what was necessary to correct it. Not so. A third call on Saturday afternoon got another CSR who test-called the number while I was on the line and confirmed the problem was continuing although the set-up appeared correct.

The CSR 'kicked the problem up to an engineer', gave me a ticket number and promised resolution in 24-48 hours (this was by no means an 'emergency issue'). I got two call-backs from Rogers; the first in about 24-hours that they were working on the problem and the second to confirm it was resolved - under the 48 hour deadline. My test calls from my mobile confirmed it was fixed.

I was surprised that the CSR and technical support personnel seemed rather unfamiliar with the distinctive ring feature. A friend had problems with his distinctive ring number for his home fax machine. Maybe the feature is a lot less common that I think. At least the 'engineers' know how to do the set-up.

To their credit, the Rogers folks I spoke with were apologetic for the problem and tried to be helpful and it was fixed in about 48 hours over a weekend. I was half expecting to be told I would need to upgrade to deluxe voicemail for the distinctive ring feature to work. It was reassuring that no one tried for this 'sale' and that they got the feature working as it had for years with the former Rogers Telcom POTS system.

When people here refer to Rogers digital phone, is that the VOIP service?

I've looked at the standard Rogers Homephone but there isn't much difference from my Bell service.

The VOIP at $20 a month with Anonymous Caller Rejection, Call Display,Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, Deluxe Voicemail and Three-way Calling is a better deal. BUT I don't know much about the reliability of the Rogers VOIP, so any feedback would be appreciated.

The post about VOIP spam is a bit discouraging, is that what "Anonymous Caller Rejection" is supposed to counter?

2 years later and this thread I started is still going Strong. Way cool!!!

When people here refer to Rogers digital phone, is that the VOIP service?

I've looked at the standard Rogers Homephone but there isn't much difference from my Bell service.

The VOIP at $20 a month with Anonymous Caller Rejection, Call Display,Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, Deluxe Voicemail and Three-way Calling is a better deal. BUT I don't know much about the reliability of the Rogers VOIP, so any feedback would be appreciated.

The post about VOIP spam is a bit discouraging, is that what "Anonymous Caller Rejection" is supposed to counter?
Rogers Digital Home Phone and the VOIP product are NOT the same thing. Digital Home Phone operates on a separate network and connects via Rogers coax cable. The VOIP product connects via the Internet. Digital Home Phone is supported by 8-hour battery backup in case of power failure, while the VOIP system will be down unless you have your own back-up power supply.

The VOIP service, as well as Rogers POTS services were originally offered by Sprint Canada until it went bankrupt and was purchased by Rogers. In areas were Rogers' cable supports digital Home Phone, the company is working to move POTS customers to the newer system.

Additional information - Rogers had to adopt a new approach to operating its networks when it got into the home phone business. Previously, it hadn't worried about how operate during a power failure since no on could watch television without power anyway (well very few with a battery operated TV). Also, standard practices allowed them to cut a cable to make a splice since TV was considered non-essential and the outage might only be a few minutes. Now they work around a planned splice so connections are not lost and the result is uninterrupted telephone, Internet and TV service. I have certainly noticed Internet service is much more reliable since Rogers committed to telephone service (7 years a Rogers Internet customer).

I have Rogers Home Phone, and since it was initially installed, some people can't call us. All the people who can't call us so far that I've followed up on have been Bell customers.

What happens is the Bell customer dials our number, and instead of our phone ringing, they get a message to the effect of "The subscriber you are calling has not activated their voice mail". I don't have voice mail.

It seems to me that there's some routing info somewhere in Bell's system that's not pointing to Rogers for my phone number. I've been on the phone with Rogers support, and basically gotten to the point where they are telling me that THEIR system is working correctly, and that the problem is a Bell problem.

I can't really ask the people who are having trouble calling me to call Bell (because mostly they are businesses), so what can I do? I like Rogers Home Phone, and Bell in our area is very noisy, so I'd hate to switch back.

I'm thinking that maybe switching to Bell for 1 month and then switching back would "refresh" the information in Bell's system.. but I'm just guessing. Anyone have any ideas?

Have the people calling you call Bell and you can also call Bell. Bell needs to update their switches (i thinks it's switches) to know that when someone calls your # that it knows that has to get forwarded to Rogers and you. It's basically dieing on the Bell swich and trying to go to a dead voicemail account.

I have been using Primus VOIP for months - cheap, great, but it warbles when you are downloading and when the internet is down you are SOL.

So I decided to switch to a land line and picked Rogers because they are a reputable company, right? Yeah, right. Two weeks ago I called to sign up and was told they would hook up my phone in 3 days between 8 and 8 - I didn't have to be home. That didn't happen so I phoned, and was put on hold by this guy who seemed OK, gave me his name and ext. (which turned out to be useless because you can't reach him anyway) and he said he had to email their repair dept. (???) and it would take several days for them to get back to him (question- shouldn't a communications company be able to pick up a phone and call their repair dept?) but he promised to call me back, and he also promised me 2 months free service for my troubles. Never heard from him again. I called this morning and talked to someone (who put me on hold for about 20 mins total) who said their crew was out at my house yesterday to hook up the phone but they couldn't for some reason. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was put through to another dept, 10 more mins of hold, and spoke not to a supervisor but another peeon who had no idea what was going on with my file after putting me on hold for 14 minutes. All she said was the program shows your phone is being hooked up on the 21st. I asked for a supervisor. 7 minutes later - barely-English speaking guy comes on. I tell him my problem and all he does is berrate his subordinates for putting me on hold so long. No solution, no apology.

So long, Rogers. I will never deal with these guys for anything - wireless, cable, whatever.

Great thread. I'm in the middle of a situation with RHP that has me already regretting the switch from Bell.

I had DSL from Bell when the Rogers tech came to install the home phone. He managed to keep my DSL link as a separate and dedicated line (which died when I discontinued DSL service).

I want high speed again, but from neither Bell nor Rogers. However, the other internet providers say I need a functioning POTS line to get DSL. And I've spoken to at least 6 different Rogers reps in the past two days who all tell me different things about this. Some say I can't get DSL without abandoning RHP altogether; others say I can, it just requires a visit from a tech. Either way, when I'm off the phone I have no real answers, and no internet.

Any ideas? One company's offered me dry loop DSL, but I don't want to pay the surcharges (I might as well switch back to Bell and have a regular line).

I have been using Primus VOIP for months - cheap, great, but it warbles when you are downloading and when the internet is down you are SOL.

So I decided to switch to a land line and picked Rogers because they are a reputable company, right? Yeah, right. Two weeks ago I called to sign up and was told they would hook up my phone in 3 days between 8 and 8 - I didn't have to be home. That didn't happen so I phoned, and was put on hold by this guy who seemed OK, gave me his name and ext. (which turned out to be useless because you can't reach him anyway) and he said he had to email their repair dept. (???) and it would take several days for them to get back to him (question- shouldn't a communications company be able to pick up a phone and call their repair dept?) but he promised to call me back, and he also promised me 2 months free service for my troubles. Never heard from him again. I called this morning and talked to someone (who put me on hold for about 20 mins total) who said their crew was out at my house yesterday to hook up the phone but they couldn't for some reason. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was put through to another dept, 10 more mins of hold, and spoke not to a supervisor but another peeon who had no idea what was going on with my file after putting me on hold for 14 minutes. All she said was the program shows your phone is being hooked up on the 21st. I asked for a supervisor. 7 minutes later - barely-English speaking guy comes on. I tell him my problem and all he does is berrate his subordinates for putting me on hold so long. No solution, no apology.

So long, Rogers. I will never deal with these guys for anything - wireless, cable, whatever.
You don't say where you are located or if yoiu ordered Rogers digital HomePhone or Rogers POTS service on a leased line from Bell or whomever your local phone utility is. The fact that they told you no one needed to be home indicates you ordered the latter. Digital HomePhone required someone to be home to install the digital modem and connect it to your household wiring.

That said, since you have been using VOIP (who is your Internet provider?) the local phone company probably diesn't have an active line to yoiur house and/or there is no listed number available to port over to Rogers.

Yes, the Rogers CSR who took your order should have confirmed what service you have, whether you want to port your number, etc. and flagged the potential problems. Bell is notorious for not co-operating with Rogers on the leased lines for Rogers POTS in areas where digital HomePhone is not available. If there is work to be done for a Rogers customer it always is the last thing they get around to, order dates and confirmations notwithstaniding. I am convinced Bell deliberately delays service to make Rogers look bad.

That said, yoiur order is not the usual and in this era of undertrained staff, I am not surprised you encountered problems. Good luck in getting it sorted out and know most of the hundreds of thousands of Rogers HomePhone customers are happy with the serivce.

Bell customers take priority over Rogers customers on a leased POTS line.

So yes, if you have a POTS line from Rogers, then you will be getting a BELL technician, once all of the Bell customers have been taken care of. There should never be more than a 24 hour wait though as the customers are prioritized first based on when the report is placed and then by who the customer belongs to.
Rogers does testing on the line first to see if it's an issue with the way the service is programmed/provisioned and once they have ensured that that is not the problem, they then submit the request to have a technician go out.
That, in most cases, is the reason for the delay.

Nem, who is familiar with the actual process

usually a max 24 hour delay - unless the order was for Friday, in which case it is bumped to Monday, by which time a weekend's worth of "emergencies" has arisen..... Speaking from experience. Numerous times I have advised persons switching to an alternate phone company to NOT book the transfer for a Monday or Friday. When a line is cut first thing Friday morning and service isn't re-instated until late Monday it's a long weekend.

Bell does charge a system access fee if you have an LD plan on the line. It is only 2.95 though. Most carriers will charge somewhere between 2.95 and 4.95 a month for a system access fee for Long distance. Sprint charges (charged) 3.95-4.95 before they were appropriated by Rogers.

Nem, who has been.. wait I'm not a has been!

Thinking of switching to RHP and catching up on this thread. The quoted post is from 2 years ago. The Network Access fee from my latest bill is now $5.95 -- that's almost a 102% increase from the $2.95 in the quoted post. In two years. That's 42% per year (compounded). I also noticed (but don't remember hearing about it otherwise) that my LD plan, First Rate, is now $7.95 -- last I recall it used to be $5. And I also noticed that it is now listed as "120 Min Eve/Wkd" whereas before it used to be unlimited.

That particular plan has not been unlimited since at least 2003.
Up until Febuary of this year the plan was actually 4.95 and included 60 minutes of calling after 6pm or anytime on Saturday and Sunday to anywhere in Canada. After the first 60 minutes it was 10 cents a minute (during the above time frame) to a monthly charge of $20.00.
The network charge has increased and notice was sent on the bill 3 months before each of the changes.

The change to the plan in February was also noted on the bill of people whom it affected (like my mother) to give you an opportunity to call in and discuss different plans.

There are much better plans available. We switched my mother into something more suitable and still save money over what we were paying.

Nem, who's mother is happy

Thanks, Nem. I guess I am beginning to understand why my bill (I use the phone very, very infrequently) is 6 pages long and usually comes with a couple of envelope stuffers to boot -- it's no wonder I missed the plan changes and rate increases. Now I'm really concerned about my Consumer Gas bills -- they stuff the equivalent of a Sears Christmas catalog in that little envelope every time; I wonder what *they* are trying to hide?

But, back on-topic: since my LD is restricted to North America -- mostly just two numbers, and I typically use 50-100 minutes (average closer to 50), what would be a better plan than First Rate? If I switch to an alternate LD carrier I would save at least the $5.95 Network Access fee, right? Or will that just be something I will pay to the alternate carrier?

Edit: Having finished reading the thread, I am no-longer sure if RHP is a safe bet. Sure, there are people who have no complaints -- and those are more likely to stay away from this forum, but the number of completely dissatisfied customers is still alarming.

Hi.
I got the Home Phone service from Rogers about a month ago. It seems
to work well. Except for answering calls. Very often when I pick up the
phone after it rings I get the dial tone and have to press the "Flash" key
on the phone to answer the call. Also, some in comming calls ring differently
then others, and they are not long distance or Rogers user-to-user calls.
Does any one else have this problem?
I live in Toronto, Ont.

:o