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September 16th, 2012
10:37 pm - TekSavvy Reliability
Few months ago I was thinking about switching my ISP from Rogers to TekSavvy, the premise seemed unresistable, ditch Rogers who loves to charge its customers an arm and leg and keep offering a service that is years behind while charging for overages over a quota that is simply not enough for today's average internet user. On the other hand TekSavvy, a young company who is giving excellent value for the money.
While on the surface that seemed great, the actual experience is far from. The essence of the issue is reliability! I had to go through the whole switch over process only to realize that the TekSavvy reliability is an overlooked metric. Not because they have poor customer service, or because they have subpar network, their problem is actually caused by Rogers themselves!
It is a know fact that TekSavvy actually doesn't own the network, they are simply a reseller for cable and DSL, but what I didn't know was the actual logistics involved between the reseller and the company providing the service, and in my case... it was Rogers.
What happened was that switching from one provider to another caused me an internet outage of over a week, and this was caused by the fact that Rogers just didn't want to cooperate. The SLA governing the relationship mandated a response within 48 hours, but guess what? Rogers always responded in the last minute. Obviously, their intention is to annoy the TekSavvy customer as much as they can till they feel they are getting less of a service. In my case, it was a modem activation issue, which Rogers claimed that I needed a tech visit to activate. Having done this many times, I know for a fact that a modem can be activated within minutes remotely, all they needed was commision the new modem on their network. But Rogers insisted that a tech was required, and this was all after the activation date, and then offering an appointment date few days after their response. This meant that I had to lose internet for more than the week of back and forth that I already lost. I spoke with the TekSavvy customer service and they said that they basically had no power to correct this problem, although they acknoledged that the issue can be fixed remotely. They are basically at the mercy of Rogers. Unfortunately, I discovered that I wasn't alone on this, a friend of mine had the exact problem, I wish I asked him before the switch.
What this means is that TekSavvy customers are second rate customers who not only rely on two companies, they are getting the worst Rogers customer service experience possible that meets the 48 SLA rules. This made me think that even if I did weather the 10 days downtime opon switch, any problem with the connection in the future meant that I would receive the same poor service from Rogers, which is a big red flag.
So I decided to cancel my TekSavvy switch and went back to Rogers, and sure enough, it only took 10 minutes to activate the modem without needing a tech visit!
So should you switch to TekSavvy? It depends, I wouldn't. But if you use internet as a secondary service and don't care if you had downtime for a while you can certainly save some. If you on the other hand consider internet an essential service, think elsewhere
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| From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: | October 12th, 2012 03:26 pm (UTC) |
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| | Consumerism | (Link) |
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Hi, while I do understand your need to have reliable internet, at some point I hope more consumers like you, chose to weather the storm. I appreciate your candidness about the fact that Rogers is intentionally providing terrible service to you indirectly. As a consumer, it could be wise to not go back to a company that is monopolizing an industry, like Rogers or Bell, to show them that you also have some say in how they run things.
I'm with a second tier ISP and for me, its worth it. My ISP's internet runs really well, and I don't feel as if I am losing out with my speed, my monthly rate or the huge amount of monthly data I get.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/101083513/27669517) | | From: |  torontodude |
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| Date: | October 13th, 2012 03:42 am (UTC) |
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| | Re: Consumerism | (Link) |
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While I understand your point, I don't think the is the appropriate way to handle it.
It is TekSavvy's responsibility to defend its customers. When Rogers responds with intentional poor service TekSavvy needs to step up and fight for their own customers. Especially when it is obviously a blatant tactic like activating a modem which Rogers can do over the phone. So in a sense, part of the reliability is TekSavvy's inability to defend their own customers.
Being a passive reseller of internet might have its benefits, but to me the most important aspect is most reliability and I don't mind paying more if that's the only way to get it. | From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: | April 19th, 2013 04:25 am (UTC) |
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| | Re: Consumerism | (Link) |
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What a lame response. You acknowledge that rogers is intentionally trying to stifle competition. Which makes the consumer pay more. Yet you blame teksavvy, when they have absultely no control over the situation, then recommend that people just pay rogers for "reliability". We're not talking about pennies here, we are talking about $20 - $50 per month per user for the same crtc mandated service.Even the crtc isn't as crooked as you. Expensive is in the eyes of the beholder. Some people buy Apple products because they know if something goes bad you can easily walk into an Apple store and have it replaced on the spot. Yes, you might actually do more things with a different brand but you pay for the convenience. Others buy 20,000 cars or even 100,000, you can also buy a $500 beater that takes you from point A-B but it might breakdown too. It really depends on how valuable your time is and what a disruption means to you. To me, losing internet for 1 day is a big deal, let alone for a whole week.
I am not saying that Rogers is right, in fact I have an entire posting about how they suck, but if you want to compete don't make your customers second rate citizens, TekSavvy needs to standup for their own customers, and they don't. That to me is a deal breaker, you cannot tell your customers, "well sorry, we don't control our service because we simply rent the infrastructure and rent the tech support from our competitor who is trying everything they can to give you a horrible service".
If TekSavvy cannot get their customers better service they need to go back to CRTC and demand more power, or build their own network.
Finally, there is no need to insult me on my blog, you don't even know me.
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