As an update on yesterday’s post, I have my Internet back now and obviously I’m happy. However, I’m still not happy because of the nature of the outage and I will explain below.
Remember, yesterday we had maintenance in my neighbourhood and this of course included Internet, TV and home phone service for those who had either or, or all with Rogers. If there is to be such a reason for deprivation of internet, TV and or, home phone service we should be warned about this so we could prepare for however long the outage may be. The warning should come in the form of an email, to customers and should include the following message.
Dear customer
We (your internet and TV provider) will be doing planned maintenance in your area of our services on XX XX and there for, we will be discontinuing service for a few hours. You will be notified by text message when the work is complete and we can return internet, TV, or home phone service to you, are loyal customer. We value you and wish to keep you informed of any problems which may arise, so we may send you further emails informing you about any snags which may appear. However, we will inform you by text message at your cell phone number when the work has been completed.
The maintenance will begin at (for example:) 8:30 AM and potentially end at 6:00 PM today.
We are sorry for the interruption and we will keep you in the loop, if needed and will text you when the outage is over. In the meantime, you may wish to turn off your wi-Fi when the Internet ceases, as you will repeatedly receive a message (falsely) stating that we can not detect a connection and to please check that all cables are plugged in. We realize that they probably are, but sometimes they may not be and it would be worth checking, to make sure. When our work is completed, you will certainly get a text message from us at the number on your account and this means that your can turn your wi-Fi on your cell phone back on and resume normal activities on the Internet. Thank you for being a loyal customer and we appreciate you.
That is what any and all phone and Internet companies should be doing, but are currently not and I hope that someone who works at any of the big 3 phone and Internet companies in Canada reads this, or for that matter anywhere else around the world as I and others in my area, should have been informed beforehand, would create a better relationship with the customer and the provider. It may be annoying to some, but in a case like this where as the provider has created the outage, it is up to them to inform us and not for the customer to be scrambling, to find out answers as to why they cannot access the Internet at home, or wherever else they have Wi-Fi with a particular service provider, at home or at work. The email should also include an estimated time of the outage ending, so if the customer is out for the day, they can stay away long enough for everything to go smoothly and when they get home, their Internet is back and they do not miss a beat.
Something else which is another reason for informing the customer of something happening like this is that if you use wi-Fi, it is easier on your phone and you will have less potential of overheating the device after the discovery of the outage and having to scramble, in order to find out what is going on. Sure, if your phone gets a little warm it is safe, but there is that potential for some users to experience their phone getting unnecessarily hot, for no reason other than they are trying to find out the problem and having to do all sorts of things on the Internet.
This outage came on a day, when in Toronto all cell phone providers were told that they must provide service on the TTC subway, in the stations and in the tunnels by October 3. Could this be ironic that this happened to me yesterday, when the announcement came down about potentially all of us getting cell service when riding the subway throughout the entire area on either line? My provider was first and I hope that everyone else will work together, for the benefit of the customers, because it is a safety issue. Will this eventually spread to analogue radio signals? Probably not, but that’s what I would use in order to gauge whether I can use my phone on the subway in a particular area in the past. Now, I won’t need to confirm with older technology whether I can make a quick call, or send a text letting my friend know that I am on the way and where I am.
Anyway, everything is alright again for now and I hope that this does not happen for a while, especially today, because of the apple event coming in less than 12 hours from now. I hope to be able to watch it on Youtube and not have to deal with anything distracting me from it, or an outage like yesterday the same with next Monday, when we could get iOS 17 and it is a must, that I have Internet on that day and it must be stable, so I can download the software and do my own maintenance on my phone, which may be needed.. Anyway, that’s enough from me about yesterday’s internet deprivation.
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