OFFLINE for a week!

The what, why and how of this "unthinkable" ordeal.

We have been with the ISP giant ROGERS for more than 5 years. After the Canadian government's mandate to regulate the monopoly, a lot of small ISPs surfaced. One of them was TekSavvy (TS).

We switched to TS a few months ago. Before we decided to switch we knew that TS was actually a ROGERS downline. Meaning, TS was using all ROGERS infrastructure and TS was created by ROGERS so that people will have "choices". We switched because there was no contract; because TS charged way lower than ROGERS; and lastly because the speed was fast. We were happy.

Last Saturday however, our internet suddenly was offline. We called TS and they explained there was an outage. Sunday and Monday came. We kept calling TS for an update - but nobody can give us answers. All TS staff could say was it is a ROGERS problem and they cannot touch any ROGERS equipment. There is nothing they can do and nothing we the client can do as well. We are not the only ones affected but a few other TS clients who have been offline for a week.

Tuesday, Wednesday. Still offline and nothing definitive from TS. On Thursday we argued and discussed our next steps. Despite frustrations, absence from gaming, Facebook and being plain incommunicado to the whole world - we decided to giveTS more time to fix the mess.

My "principled" boys said going back to ROGERS will just give them more power to dictate higher rates. These giants are playing a game but we will be firm. We are sticking it out with TS as we really wanted to support the small business.

But comes a time when you have to make a decision, even if it's a heavy hearted one. Friday night I called ROGERS to be our Internet provider again. Less than 24 hours later - a ROGERS guy came and re-installed our internet. In less than 5 minutes!!

We are back in cyber world but I am so pissed with both ROGERS and TekSavvy. ROGERS does not play fair! Id like to say ROGERS sabotaged the whole thing. For all I know, they might just have switched the on-off button somewhere. I am no techie guy - but I cannot find a valid explanation on how we can become offline for almost a week. Even the ROGERS guy who came to re-install said - he does not see anything wrong with the connection.

TekSavvy is not spared of my anger and frustration either. For their part they should have anticipated these problems and should have made precautions. I feel they have made money from us clients as we bought routers from them and paid installation fees. How can they not protect us, clients who want to support them.

After re-installing our internet, the ROGERS cable guy was scheduled to go to another home to install internet - this time for TekSavvy. See how they play?

I hate to admit that we caved in to the giant. It is so sad to know this is the world I live in now.
Just angry, and sad and frustrated.