[rlongfield]

So we've had Cogeco's home phone for about a year now and I have no complaints about the quality and it is cheaper than the same Bell phone package which is a plus.
However we have run into a problem with the equipment it seems. First it was a faulty battery in the modem which was replaced without question. Then it was a problem with our phone and internet connection being dropped without reason. We know it is not a cable problem as our cable TV still works.
Cogeco sent a tech out who could find no problem with the signal levels or the modem.
Last night we lost our phone and internet again, I went through the whole gambit of resetting the modem, unplugging the modem and resetting it (which seems silly with a battery backup but that is what the tech on the cell phone said to do.
Eventually the phone line and internet came back up.
We asked for a service call because loosing phone service is a problem with 2 small kids. The tech on the phone asked if we had a router, my wife said yes because we do. The agent said well since you have a router there will be a service call fee.
It's a good thing my wife was on the phone, I told my wife to ask what two blinking phone line lights on the modem means, the agent responded oh that means there is a signal problem. My wife then asked if our router could cause a signal problem with the modem and the tech said no, so my wife said, well if the router can't cause a signal problem and our modem is showing a signal problem when we loose phone and internet do you think it is still a router issue? No answer
We have a service call setup for next week.
That's the end of my rant.

Has anyone else had similar phone/internet service issues with Cogeco? It's getting to the point where I might have to switch to a different provider for VIOP and get a Cell for the house for emergency calls.

 

[hugh]

So we've had Cogeco's home phone for about a year now and I have no complaints about the quality

Well apparently you do

Having said that, I can understand the rant. Phone service has to have 99.99% uptime. Hate Bell or Telus but they do deliver on that.

 

[graeme86]

I have had cogeco phone for a few months now with no problems.
the modem it self could be faulty maybe ask the tech to switch out the modem.

do your dropped calls seem to happen when it is wet out side?
i ask this because at one point at a different house we where having problems where squires where chewing on the line. we wouldn't have problems with the service 90% of the time but when it was wet/ damp outside are signal would die. the tech would come out and say everything is fine and leave.
it took us and the techs a while to figure out that it was only happening when it was wet outside, and the tech then changed the line and it was all fixed up.

 

[JamesK]

Then it was a problem with our phone and internet connection being dropped without reason. We know it is not a cable problem as our cable TV still works.

I had that exact situation with Rogers last year and it was a cable problem. It took a lot of effort and testing on my part to demonstrate that to them. It turned out to be a problem with the the cable coming into my condo property from the street.

One of the things I did was I often listened to a radio station over the internet. When it stopped, I also checked my phone for dial tone. I also wrote a script that would ping the Rogers router once a minute and record failures. In addition, since I have two feeds from the utility room, I was able to put the phone on one and internet on the other and when both still failed at the same time, that was proof to Rogers that the problem was not with anything within my unit. It took them a bit longer to locate the problem. You might want to ask your neighbours if they are having similar problems. If so, you can ask the Cogeco tech to check the logs on your neighbours equipment to help isolate the problem. TV was not affected by this. This is because TV uses different frequencies than phone or internet and are better able to get past small breaks.

 

[rlongfield]

Hugh, I guess I should have specified that I don't have an issue with sound quality

Bell in my house is the evil of evils and I'm a share holder in the company. I think that statement says a lot.
In short we moved, we're given a number that Bell no longer owned, took 2 weeks and countless tech visits to sort out. We were charged for DSL that they could not provide and the last straw was the phone agent calling my wife a dumb <blank> <blank> (I think you can figure out what was said).

graeme86, You know you might be right about the rain. It was very wet yesterday, it doesn't happen every time it rains but I think the last few times it has been wet outside. If it happened every time it rained today would have been the first day with phone service in a week. (ugg)
I think I'll get my wife to mention that and request a modem swap out.

JamesK, We are writing down all the outages now, especially after the phone call last night. Now in the year and a bit we've been with Cogeco we've had one bad phone agent and that was last night. The support at Cogeco now compaired with 10 years ago (the last time I was a cogeco customer) doesn't even compare they've advanced light years from where they used to be.

 

[flower_petals]

i just recently upgraded to the 125gb ultimate 30. Before i had the standart 60. ever since they upgraded the modem, for the upgraded internet, i have to keep resetting the modem cause the phone keeps going out. I already had them come out twice to switch modems- anyone else have this issue?