Rogers mired in problems with @Home service
Barbara Shecter
Financial Post
Rogers Communications Inc. is mired in problems with its high-speed Internet service, @Home, for the second time this year --problems that are hurting its reputation and could make it difficult to attract customers.
"It could cause a little turbulence in the fourth quarter," said Doug Kirk, an analyst at BMO Nesbitt Burns in Toronto. "The effect could be that people will just go to the phone companies [for their new high-speed Internet service] and say, 'I won't even go to the cable companies because they've had this spotty record.' "
Phone companies, such as BCE Inc., have been moving into the high-speed Internet market and are gaining ground on cable firms with a competitively priced service.
For instance, BCE's Bell Sympatico is getting 47% of new high-speed customers, up from about 10% a year ago, Mr. Kirk said.
At the very least, some analysts are expecting Rogers, which releases third-quarter results today, to be hit with the cost of rebates when it reports year-end results.
"If they think the marketing backlash will be great, then they'll credit everyone," said another analyst, who asked not to be named.
In the past few weeks, some of @Home's 266,000 customers have not been able to access their e-mail accounts for days. There have also been Net access problems.
Ted Rogers, chief executive of Rogers Communications, cancelled an appearance today to "showcase the latest in state-of-the-art technology" at a Toronto condominium development. Jan Innes, a spokeswoman, said he had decided instead to talk to analysts on a conference call scheduled for the same time.
Taanta Gupta, of Rogers Cable, said there are intermittent problems for some @Home customers, due in part to a hardware problem.
bshecter@nationalpost.com |
