I have made a point over the past two years to avoid complaining about my high speed Internet provider, Rogers@Home, a business of Canada's largest cable television company in partnership with Excite@Home. During the service interruptions, difficulties with tech support, and the disappearance of my Web site (twice), I wrote nothing about the problems. At one point, my primary login name, used to control my account and also my default email address, simply disappeared. This took a week and several calls and emails to the poor Rogers tech support folks to fix, and the fact that this could happen at all still boggles my mind. Rogers' service is so poor, people are suing them.

Today I received an email from Rogers telling me that the domain names for both my Rogers Web space and my email address would be changing on November 22nd. For me, this is actually little trouble: Rogers email has been so poor over the past three years that I have stopped using it for anything, including my eBay auctions. However, for others, specially the average home user, the shift is a major problem, especially for those who have used Rogers as the primary email. Many @Home users are not, I expect, all that enthusiastic about being identified with Rogers. Part-and-parcel with the change: Web sites will be erased when the domain is moved.

I now recommend that Rogers@Home users not rely on Rogers for either Web hosting or email services. If you are a current Rogers@Home user, I suggest you visit the Residential Broadband Users' Association for support in dealing with Rogers and some good technical and security tips. If you are considering becoming a Rogers@Home subscriber, you should know that there are most likely other high speed providers in your area including Bell Sympatico, ExpressVu/DirecPC, and, here in Ottawa, Magma Highspeed.