Rogers corrects problem with third-party ISP customer disconnects

Rogers Communications Co. says it has taken steps to “plug holes” in a disconnection process that had caused technicians to cut off service to customers served by third-party Internet service providers (ISPs) operating on Rogers' network. Small, third-party ISPs lease access to Rogers' network and resell Internet services to residential customers, and some Internet users with the small ISPs were accidentally disconnected by Rogers. Ddin Morbi, Rogers' general manager of wholesale services, said in an interview that the company received a number of calls this summer from third-party providers complaining that Rogers technicians were cutting off paying customers from service. The problem, he said, was a series of “holes” in a process that allows technicians to identify the connections of third-party providers' customers when disconnecting inactive or illegitimate connections on Rogers' network. “It wasn’t anything like rocket-science in nature. It was just finding little gaps that were happening from time to time,” he said. “Given the size and the volume of activity, holes come up from time to time.” Morbi did not go into detail about the problems but several posts in online message boards earlier this year appear to identify some of the possible issues. Several forums identified improper cable tags on third-party customers’ lines as a problem. In the online message board for “DSL Reports,” a person using the username “DDT” wrote in April that many third-party ISP lines were not identified at all. “When tpia connects came out in our region, they were being done before a lot of the contractors had the tags, so a lot of lines were being disconnect because there was no feasible way to check tpia,” DDT wrote, who said they worked as a technician. “As a tech if I roll to your house with a disconnect order and I don't see a tag, your line will be disconnected … This is were the problem lies, as of now, tpia's are considered 2nd accounts which a tech can not see. We can only see Rogers products.” DDT also acknowledged that part of the problem may have been on Rogers’ end. “I completely agree that there needs to be a better system put in place. They need to start checking disconnect orders before they're sent out and determine whether it's a tpia address or not and note it on the order,” the person wrote in a follow-up post. Mel Cohen, founder and president of third-party Internet provider Distributel Communciations, agreed that this was the most likely problem in cases where its customers were accidentally disconnected by Rogers technicians. “The installer is supposed to mark the line in this way to indicate it has been sold through a TPIA agent,” Cohen said. “There have been some occasions where the cable has been disconnected where it hasn’t been marked correctly.” Morbi said Rogers started receiving complaints about the disconnections about three months ago and that the company worked quickly to fix the identified problems. “When it was brought to our attention by all of the third-party Internet providers that a few disconnect errors were happening, we investigated, and we plugged the holes to the best of our ability,” Morbi said. Kate do Forno, director of government and public relations for third-party ISP TekSavvy Solutions Inc., confirmed that Rogers has solved the issues causing the disconnections. “It actually used to be an issue, but over the past couple of months it’s improved exponentially,” do Forno said. As a part of the solution, do Forno said, TekSavvy agreed to follow timelines when informing Rogers of new TekSavvy customers or of any who were leaving the provider. She said the disconnection problems tailed off after that agreement was put in place. “We are definitely seeing an improvement and I’m happy to be able to report that,” she said. Morbi said Rogers has not received any complaints about third-party ISP customers getting cut off in over a month. “It’s normal course of business,” he said. “Things like this happen from time to time. You hear about them or find out about them, you investigate them, you fix them.” nkyonka@thewirereport.ca

Rogers corrects problem with third-party ISP customer disconnects

News | November 17, 2011

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