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RBUA
The Residential Broadband Users’ Association
February 5th, 2002
Rogers Meeting Agenda:
- Review of the Success of the Transition Away from Excite@Home
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Presented by John Tory, President and CEO, Rogers Cable
- comments made regarding the difficulty of the transition, the lack of time that was available to perform it and how successfully Rogers implemented it in the end
- Network Architecture Issues, Problems and Planned Improvements Involving the Transition
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Presented by Dermot O'Carroll, Senior VP of Network Engineering and Operations, Rogers Cable
- Call Center Stats, Customer Service Issues, Problems and Planned Improvements
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Presented by Vic Pollen, Senior VP of Customer Care, Rogers Cable
RBUA Meeting Agenda:
1. Shaw -> Rogers Cable Asset Swap and Integration
- Rogers inherited many problems from Shaw
- Rogers saw a 40% increase in subscriber bandwidth usage in November and a further doubling of usage since then
- most Motorola performance issues caused by ingress noise
- the noise problem can be caused by an array of sources of electromagnetic radiation ingressing into older cabling
- total network rebuild is currently underway in ex-Shaw areas and will consist of a 750 MHz, fiber-to-the-feeder architecture; could take another year to complete
- Rogers is currently investigating short term fixes to problems and will implement “band-aid” solutions, such as plant rehardening, until the network rebuild is complete
- further performance problems were due to a moratorium imposed on all capacity upgrades during the transition; capacity upgrades have since recommenced
- Rogers does not believe that CMTS (i.e. cablemodem termination system, or the cablemodems used to serve subscribers' connections at the primary hubs) overloading is the problem
- deployment of DOCSIS cablemodems to subscribers in the aforementioned 7 problematic areas, around June of this year, may possibly help the situation; Rogers is pessimistic
- Rogers will communicate with subscribers in these areas to let them know what's going on with their service and what will be done about it
2. Mail Server Issues
- over a million mailboxes had to be transitioned from @Home to Rogers; there were some errors inputting e-mail IDs; Excite@Home was not cooperative at the onset of the conversion
- many mistakes were made due to the time constraints and pressures of the transition
- Rogers / Compaq / Openwave is aware of the issues with the e-mail forwarders, mailing lists and Mac Eudora mail clients, and is working to resolve them; no time frame given
- problem with Rogers Postmaster address bouncing will be corrected immediately; it wasn't corrected earlier due to a miscommunication with us
- Rogers is not in direct control of their mail servers; this contracted out to Compaq / Openwave; Rogers has to wait for them to resolve issues
- web-based e-mail launch was pushed back; security audit found some problems, which were subsequently corrected; some questions remain regarding capacity; hopefully will be launched in a few weeks
3. Mass Network Performance Issues
- all capacity upgrades halting during transition; some areas slightly loaded; upgrades were recently recommenced; all congestion relief / provisioning is 3 months behind schedule
- DOCSIS deployment was also pushed back 3 months to mid-May of this year
- Rogers's new regional IP network outperforming @Home's old network
- new Rogers internet connectivity provided by Teleglobe and private peering arrangements with various backbones
- complete cutover from @Home's network to new transit / peering arrangements is to be done gradually by the end of February
- Rogers to have a second transit backbone provider by March
- regular bandwidth will be load balanced and connectivity will be 100% redundant
4. News Server Issues
- as with mail, Rogers is not in direct control of the news servers
- concerning the binary retention and completion problems, the newsfeeds are functioning properly and 1 terabyte of storage capacity was added last week
- Rogers is currently investigating other problems, both hardware- and software-related as the cause of poor binary retention; no time frame given for resolution
5. Customer Support Issues
- Rogers continues to maintain that the vast majority of those calling the customer support line experience hold times no longer than 5-10 minutes in duration
- no other points addressed; please see points 4 and 5 of Important Odds and Ends below
6. Disclosure of Information to Customers
- Rogers's own market research shows that the vast majority of their subscribers don't want to be inundated with the technical details of their internet service
- an opt-in mailing list, or website section is a possibility for subscribers who wish to obtain such information
- no other points addressed; please see points 4 and 5 of Important Odds and Ends below
7. Transition from Excite@Home to Rogers
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Revisited / Pending Issues
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8. Compensation / Credit for Faulty or Nonexistent Service
- again, not addressed due to the pending lawsuit against Rogers
9. DOCSIS Details
- DOCSIS deployment was pushed back 3 months to mid-May of this year
- Rogers plans to introduce 3 separate service tiers, but wouldn't reveal what the parameters of those tiers are, what the price ranges would be, or even when they would be implemented
- Rogers has promised to work with us to determine the characteristics of the 3 tiers
- an official statement regarding our stance on service tiering will be forthcoming
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Prepared by Christopher Weisdorf
President and Technical Director,
Residential Broadband Users’ Association
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Major contributions by Bryan Samis
Senior Member, Toronto
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