Rogers Hi-Speed / General Questions


Contacting Support

1.1: How do I contact Rogers Hi-Speed support?
1.2: Where is the Rogers Hi-Speed support website?

Connection Problems

2.1: What is the definition of the term "Block Sync"?
2.2: My Online/Block Sync light is out - what do I do?
2.3: What can I do to avoid sync problems?

General Questions

3.1: How fast is Rogers Hi-Speed?
3.2: Is there anything I can do to improve my network performance?
3.3: What are the differences between the Nortel LANCity & Terayon TeraPro cablemodems?
3.4: What is the difference between Rogers Hi-Speed and Rogers Hi-Speed Lite?

Security of your home PC

4.1: Are there security issues when using Rogers Hi-Speed?
4.2: What is a firewall and should I be using one?

Installation/Configuration

5.1: What does the Rogers proxy do and should I use it?
5.2: Can I use the Rogers service without installing their software?
5.3: What is "dynamic" setup?
5.4: What is "static" setup?
5.5: What are the advantages to using a dynamic or static setup?


1.1: How do I contact Rogers Hi-Speed support?

Toll Free Support Line : 1-888-288-HOME (4663)
Email Support:
internetsupport@rci.rogers.com

1.2: Where is the Rogers Hi-Speed support website?

Rogers maintains a website at http://www.rogershelp.com/ for customer support. This site contains numerous pages which may be of interest to Rogers customers experiencing problems, including:

  • Troubleshooting guides
  • Rogers Hi-Speed User Guides
  • Various Nic Driver updates
  • The Rogers Hi-Speed User Policies, including:
    • End User Agreement
    • Acceptable Use Policy
    • Customer Support Policy, and
    • A checklist for moving your Rogers Hi-Speed connection to a new computer
  • Network News (including scheduled maintenance notices and notices of unplanned outages)
There is a considerable amount of information available on this site.

2.1: What is the definition of the term "Block Sync"?

Block sync is a technical term used in conjunction with the LANCity cablemodems. It is the condition in which a LANCity is allowed transmission access to the local cable infrastructure. Block sync can be lost if either your local upstream or downstream signal strength is too powerful or too weak. It can also be lost if either your upstream or downstream channels are plagued by noise and/or interference. The intermittant loss of block sync will cause packet loss, jitter (uneven packet latencies) and poor upstream/downstream throughput. It is basically your worst enemy, with respect to cablemodem internet access. The loss of block sync is indicated by a flickering or complete absence of the bottom of the two, bright lights on the side of the LANCity cablemodem. Both of those lights should always be completely solid and should never flicker or go out. If that is not the case, you definitely have a problem on your hands. If the block sync light flickers or goes totally dark on a regular basis, your connection is in serious jeopardy and should be corrected ASAP by Rogers Cable.

The block sync term, although originally used in conjunction with the LANCity, is often associated with the Terayon cablemodems and many others. All cablemodems have some sort of "online" light on them. This is the equivalent of the block sync light on the LANCity and should be looked upon with the same importance.

2.2: My Online/Block Sync light is out - what do I do?

Sync problems are unfortunately one of the most common, and least quickly diagnosable problems that we as subscribers deal with. They're a nightmare for any cable operator to ascertain, let alone rid themselves of.

Now, besides reporting your condition to technical support- and even us if you're not receiving quick enough results- please make sure to try out the following:

  1. Cycle the power on your modem. Yes, this sometimes is all that is needed - just getting the modem to reinitialize itself may fix your problem. Or it may not.

  2. Try pinging your gateway - if you can ping it, you may not have a sync problem after all (though I've yet to hear of a cablemodem with a burnt out sync LED, it is possible!)

  3. Check your CATV - if it's fuzzy, then perhaps there's an infrastructure problem affecting you and your area - there's little you can do in this instance.

  4. If you have alternate (dialup) access, check out the Network News pages mentioned in section 1.2 of this FAQ.

  5. Call support and listen for outages in your area prior to being connected to a live support person. If you find out there IS a problem - then there is no reason to continue waiting for a live person - the problem is being worked on, and you should free the line for someone who may have a different, or as of yet undetermined problem. Be sure to send them a message indicating you experienced a problem - this is vital in a recurring problem situation, since it provides a paper-trail of your problem.

2.3: What can I do to avoid regular connection or sync problems?

  1. I always recomend that users ensure that their network cards (NICs) are using the most recent drivers available. It sounds strange, but I know that drivers have in the past been at least partially responsible for perceived sync problems.


  2. If you've recently installed new software, try uninstalling it and see if that makes a difference.


  3. Make sure the patch cable between the modem and the NIC is not wound up on itself, or in with other cables. CAT-5 cables are supposed to, by design, prevent cable cross talk, but you may have one which just isn't up to par.


  4. If you have intermittent sync problems, try a new coax cable - they are relatively inexpensive, and who doesn't need a spare network cable at one time or another?


  5. Plug your cable modem into a different electrical outlet - or move it off a powerbar that has other items plugged into it - small electrical variations in the input power can prove to confuse the delicate electronics of your modem.


  6. Don't dismiss calling support and asking them to test your connection. They may, if they find something strange, schedule an in-home visit to diagnose things further. This is especially important, considering that technical support can check your upstream/downstream signal strength and noise/interference ratios. Non-compliant numbers are a definite indicator to Rogers that something is very wrong with your connection.

If that doesnt fix things up for you, feel free to contact one of the regional representatives, as listed on our
Contact Us page. They can often arrange for your local Rogers maintenance departments to investigate your problem more deeply than support has been able to. Please note however, that the RBUA's arrangement with Rogers is that the proper avenues of support must be followed prior to involving the maintenance departments - so please make sure you've done all of the above.

3.1: How fast is Rogers Hi-Speed?

The maximum download speed with the Rogers Hi-Speed service is 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second), or the equivalent of 187.5 KB/sec (kilobytes per second). Conversely, the maximum upload throughput is 400 Kbps (kilobits per second), or the equivalent of 50 KB/sec (kilobytes per second).

Hi-Speed Lite Customers can only achieve a maximum download speed of 128kbps (kilobits per second), or the equivalent of 16KB/sec. Maximum upload speed is limited to 64kbps, or 8K/sec. That's what the service can deliver under optimal line conditions, data segment load and distribution/ backbone circuit load. However, a more realistic top end download speed, due to protocol overhead, is generally in the 150 KB/sec to 160 KB/sec for Hi-Speed customers, and around 13K/sec for Hi-Speed Lite customers.

Of course, this doesn't mean that you will see that high a speed - there are many factors which influence the effective throughput of your connection - and many of them are outside the control of Rogers. Just as with any other internet service, cable is susceptible to widely varying network performance depending on how busy the network and servers you're trying to reach, who else is using the system at the same time as you, and what they are trying to do. As such, you may see considerably less throughput than you might expect - even on a perfectly functional network.

That said, no subscriber should be paying a premium price for a less-than-premium service. Unofficially we've learned that Rogers' Support people will try to ensure that Hi-Speed minimum throughput speed, on a reliable test, exceeds 100 KB/sec (or roughly 50% of the theoretical maximum). While we believe this information is reliable and acceptable, Rogers support personnel continue to deny any knowledge of this guideline, even as they implement it.

3.2: Is there anything I can do to improve my network performance?

Well, you could talk your neighbours into one of the "other" services available, but that would certainly ruin your midnight Quake games (and we wouldn't want that, would we?).

The first basic principle to apply is that your internet connection will not be quick, if your computer is busy doing other things. Shut down all those taskbar "quickies".... they're just stealing CPU cycles from you. Close down applications which are not in use. Don't overburden your computer with other tasks if it's not capable of handling all of them. (I will point out that while it may be enjoyable to listen to a CD while surfing the internet, doing so on a P100, with 32MB of ram, and using a software-based wavetable synthesis sound card is almost certainly a death knell to low priority tasks such as screen rendering).

Ok - now that you've got all the unneccessary programs shut down - how about your hard disk? When was the last time you defragmented it? Surfing, by nature, results in a lot of information being written to the disk cache for later reference. If your disk is fragmented, then you will find that it takes longer to write the files to disk for caching purposes. Clean up some free space and defragment regularly (this will help in many operations, not just with surfing).

Finally, there are registry changes which some people suggest will increase your speed. The most common of these are the MTU (the Maximum Transmission Unit, or most amount of information your computer is allowed to include per packet) and the RWIN (the receiving TCP window size, or the amount of information your computer will buffer before requesting more). If statically configured, I recommend that the MTU (Windows registry value of MaxMTU) be set to 1500, with an accompanying RWIN (Windows registry value of DefaultRcvWindow) of either 32120 or 64240- no larger. If dynamically configured, I recommend that both the MTU and RWIN values be completely removed and that MTU discovery be enabled. The relevant registry values are PMTUDiscovery and PMTUBlackHoleDetect. They should be both set to 1. The dynamic solution is preferred because performance-degrading packet fragmentation won't occur with this setup. I am able to meet all the maximum performance parameters of the Rogers Hi-Speed service (i.e. 1.5 Mbps downstream, 192 Kbps upstream, <10 millisecond latency, etc.), provided that the proper conditions exist, with the latter setup. Please see
this thread at DSL Reports for more information on how to implement the dynamic setup. Their tweak page contains links to discussions on the RWIN and MTU values.

It must be kept in mind that some versions of Windows contain a default RWIN setting of 8192, which will barely accomodate a 56K dialup modem. Due to this shortcoming, it is imperative that the registry be tweaked if everything but the downloading speeds of your service seem fine. If you are the curious type, checking your registry for the DefaultRcvWindow value is a good idea. If it's set to 8192, either remove it completely and implement a dynamic setup, or tweak it according to the above recommendations. And remember, if nothing is wrong with your connection and the speeds are great, looking for more through registry tweaks probably isn't a good idea. Don't fix it if it ain't broke!

3.3: What are the differences between the Nortel LANCity & Terayon TeraPro cablemodems?

First off, the LANCity is a dark grey colour, metallic and looks like a slightly-rounded rectangle with ten little fins on top. The TeraPro comes in two versions: one that is jet black and rectangular, and another version that is dark blue, which some subscribers liken to a shark fin. Both mainly consist of a plastic construction.

The LANCity was one of the first kinds of cablemodems that ever appeared on the market, way back in 1995. Developed by Massachusetts-based LANCity Corporation, the company was soon bought out by Bay Networks. In turn, Bay Networks was acquired by Nortel Networks in 1998. Sadly, Nortel chose to discontinue the production of these impressive pieces of hardware after it consolidated Bay's operations with its own. The LANCity architecture is based on the 10Broad36 Ethernet standard and uses a mixture of both reserved and contention time slots for its MAC (media access control) mechanism. Its physical layer makes use of Q-PSK (quadrature phase shift keying) modulation on two different 6 MHz channels- one for upstream transmission and one for downstream. The LANCity is rated to deliver a maximum of 10 Megabits per second in both directions, provided that it is not rate-limited and in the proper environment. Symmetric broadband access products are a true rarity nowadays, so this is definitely notable. The LANCity architecture is bridged, rather than routed, and makes no use of any virtual circuit-based technologies like Frame Relay or ATM. Its design is simple, elegant and efficient, delivering the maximum possible performance under a carefully managed and maintained cable plant.

The TeraPro is among the "next generation" of cablemodems. It first appeared in 1999 as Terayon's newest, full-featured offering to cable operators and their subscribers. The TeraPro architecture is fully ATM-based, allocating a virtual circuit to each subscriber on the cable network. Since ATM is a cell-based protocol, subscriber traffic can be managed with precision and data segments can be loaded more aggressively. The TeraPro contains an extra feature, however, not found in most other cablemodems: an Advanced "PHY", or physical layer. This feature is made possible by Terayon's implementation of CDMA (code division multiple access), which is normally used in the newer digital cellular phones. CDMA is a technology that spreads a signal, or carrier wave, over a particular range of frequencies. By being able to spread a signal over a whole range of frequencies, the TeraPros can leverage the cleaner part of the transmission spectrum against those parts that contain noise and interference. For this reason, the TeraPro is one of the most resilient cablemodems out there when it comes to combatting less-than-ideal line conditions. The rest of its physical layer makes use of 16-QAM (quadrature amplitude) modulation on a 6 MHz downstream channel and a 5 MHz upstream channel. The use of Q-PSK is an option on the upstream, depending on how noisy line conditions are. The TeraPro has the ability to transmit and receive at 14 Megabits per second, provided, again, that it is not rate-limited and in the proper environment. The LANCity and TeraPro may be the only symmetric cablemodems that exist in the world right now. Although I am confident that the last statement is accurate, I'm not 100% sure of its validity. If anyone can find another such device, please let me know.

For more information on the TeraPro, please check here. Technical specs no longer exist on the LANCity since it was discontinued, but I do have some copies of those specs. I'll see if they can be posted here. Additionally, I wrote an (rather technical) article comparing these two devices which can be found here at Cablecaster Magazine. Please have a look at it if you are curious about this sort of thing.

3.4: What is the difference between Rogers Hi-Speed and Rogers Hi-Speed Lite?

There single most defining difference is a difference in thruput speeds - with the Hi-Speed Lite thruput being cut back to 128kbits download, and 64kbps upload speeds. Rogers clearly states on their website that the lite service is "Up To twice as fast as dial-up".

Hi-Speed Lite also restricts you to one @Rogers.com email address, doesnt include WebSpace, and isnt applicable to the 10% VIP discount.

We have also been told that Hi-Speed Lite customers also are unable to acheive any VPN connectivity through a Hi-Speed Lite account. Additional unmentioned restrictions may also exist, however, this is what we have been able to find out to date.

4.1: Are there security issues when using Rogers Hi-Speed?

There are two types of security issues to be concerned about: one is the Windows file sharing problem, while the other is the presence of trojan horse servers. These problems, however, can affect not only Rogers Hi-Speed subscribers, or even cablemodem users in general, but all users who have Windows operating systems installed on their machines. The internet service in question has absolutely no bearing on these vulnerabilities.

Addressing the first of these, the file sharing problem is a gaping security hole in the various Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the most notorious vulnerability of the Windows OSes. This weakness can allow an outside machine access to all of your computer's files. This is possible because the NetBIOS file sharing ports are left open by default on all Windows machines. FYI, these are ports 137, 138 and 139 and you can view them by doing a "netstat -na" in a DOS window. It is up to the user to disable them manually. To do this, you must go into your network configuration and remove all the listed file sharing components. When that is completed, you will no longer see those ports listed with the netstat -na command. FYI, subscribers with LANCity and TeraPro cablemodems need not worry about this issue since Rogers blocks, by default, all incoming and outgoing packets to the NetBIOS ports.

Addressing the second issue, trojan horse servers are hidden pieces of software on some computers that can allow unfettered outside access to those machines. The best known trojan servers are Netbus and Back Orifice. They affect Windows machines exclusively. You can only be infected by one of these hidden servers by unwittingly opening an executable file, designated by the .exe or .com suffix, which contains the trojan server initialization files. For this reason, you should never, ever open any executable attachments or downloaded files before checking them first with the latest virus scanner definitions. You can immediately see if you're affected at any point in time by doing a "netstat -na" in a DOS box. This command will allow you to see which ports on your system are listening, or open, to outside connections. If you see ports 12345 (Netbus) or 31337 (Back Orifice) listening, you can be sure you are infected with one of these servers. Luckily they are fairly easy to disinfect with the appropriate programs. Fixes can be found at SecurityFocus or Packet Storm Security by doing a search on either site. Also, if you see any port in the 0- 1023 or 5001-65535 range that is listening and, as far as you know, have no apps running knowingly in the background, you may be infected by one of the countless clones of these trojans. Again, you can do a search to find out what you are infected with and then find the fix. A program called Inzider by Arne Vidstrom can help you determine what ports are bound to which programs, thus allowing you to identify any trojans lurking on your system.

4.2: What is a firewall and should I be using one?

A firewall is a piece of software - or an expensive piece of dedicated hardware - that controls access to various TCP and UDP ports. With a firewall, an administrator can state which ports they want to be accessible and to whom. For instance, a corporate admin may only allow certain departments to get at certain services on their designated machines. This may be done for security purposes (that is, after all, the primary function of a firewall), or for other reasons like internal traffic management. There are numerous firewalls out there for home users concerned about their systems' security. ConSeal is one of the better known personal firewalls, but there are many others one can experiment with. A good firewall will allow the user to state which networks are allowed to access resources on their system, along with what ports may be accessed, and by which transport and upper layer protocols. The more specifics included in the configuration, the better, especially if you are intent on running any casual servers. I strongly recommend against installing one of the "dumbed down" firewalls, since they generally make it much more difficult to block by specific port numbers and IP subnets. I recommend running a firewall, not out of fear of an intrusion, but mainly for curiosity's sake. They can tell you who is querying your system and on what ports. FYI, the various Unix OSes, particularly Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD, carry, for the most part, far superior firewalls products to Windows. If you are very concerned about system security, you might think about switching over to one of those OSes.

Ports that should be blocked right from the start are the NetBIOS ports (UDP and TCP 137-139), along with Back Orifice (UDP 31337) and NetBus (TCP 12345). If you are concerned about being ping flooded, you should also block incoming ICMP Type 8 (echo request) and outgoing ICMP Type 0 (echo response) packets. You should log any incoming packets to ports 0-1023 and 5001-65535. Repeated attempts by particular IPs on any ports, especially 23, 1243, 12345 and 31337, should be reported immediately to the administration of the attacking IP's domain. You can find out specific domain admin contact info by doing a "whois" on the whois.arin.net database server. FYI, repeated attempts on TCP port 119 by authorized-scan.net.rogers.wave.ca (24.112.31.170), authorized-scan.security.home.net (24.0.94.130) and authorized-scan1.security.home.net (24.0.0.203) can be ignored, as they are routine scans for compromised NNTP news and SMTP mail servers.

Finally, it must be noted that subscribers with LANCity cablemodems may experience what would at first appear to be constant intrusion attempts. This is because the LANCitys make use of a bridged Ethernet topology, which contains quite a bit of broadcast and multicast traffic. Many firewalls won't filter out this type of traffic by default, so it will seem like these packets are attempted intrusions on your system. They are not, so there's no need to panic. To verify, just check your logs to make sure that the destination address is an address other than your own. If it's broadcast or multicast traffic, the destination address will always differ from your own. For this reason, it is important to configure your firewall to ignore (i.e. disable logging and allow) any broadcast or multicast packets on the network. Only cablemodems like the LANCity, which make extensive use of broadcasting and multicasting, need to have their corresponding firewalls configured in this manner.

5.1: What does the Rogers proxy do and should I use it?

The proxy is a local HTTP (web) server internal to a regional/main data center, which caches (stores) frequently requested content. It was originally implemented in order to greatly reduce unnecessary network traffic, particularly backbone traffic leading to the @Home Network in the US. When you want to access a website via your proxy, you send a request to your proxy, which then checks to see if any of the related content is stored locally. If it isn't, the proxy will access the remote server and send back the information you originally requested. The new information is then cached on the proxy for a predetermined period of time.

The proxy is a good idea to use, particularly if your performance is good. If performance is waning, then turn off the proxy and see if it improves. If it does, you may want to avoid the proxy altogether. The main thing to keep in mind here is that if every subscriber avoided the proxy, a substantial amount of traffic would be placed on the backbone. So please use it if the performance is reasonable.

Rogers Provides information for setting up the proxy here - though it is for V5 of Internet Explorer. For V6, the only change to the process necessary is that the second step is not necessary - you can go directly to connections.

For manual configuration of the proxy, follow the steps mentioned above, but rather than using automatic configuration, put a checkmark next to "Use a proxy server", and use the Address of "http://cache" and the port "8080". (remove the quotes when entering).

5.2: Can I use the Rogers service without installing their software?

You certainly can. This is one of the most notable advantages of Rogers cablemodem service over other broadband competitors' offerings. Many others require you to install client software, without which, you are unable to achieve connectivity. Some of these proprietary pieces of software are highly problematic and even pose compatibility issues under particular operating systems. With a Rogers service, you are not obligated to keep or install any software on your system, although you should certainly give it a try sometime. All you really need is to enable DHCP (disable any static configuration). Rogers keys accessibility based on your MAC address.

5.3: What is "dynamic" setup?

A dynamic setup is described in the previous answer. It makes use of the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), to automatically initialize your computer's network settings via a remote configuration server. To repeat: enable DHCP (disable any static configuration), specify your computer's name (in the format crXXXXXX-Y for Rogers, where the X's are a number supplied on your invoice and the Y is an a, b or c) and renew your IP via winipcfg (in Windows). To specifically disable a static configuration, you need to go to TCP/IP properties under your network configuration in Windows and disable WINS, DNS, NetBIOS, all bindings, remove all listed gateways and set it to retrieve an IP address automatically. FYI, when renewing your IP manually, never, ever choose the "release" or "release all" options under winipcfg. If you do this and your DHCP server fails, you'll lose all network connectivity. Always choose the "renew" or "renew all" options when manually renewing your IP.

5.4: What is "static" setup?

A static setup relies on your network configuration information to be manually entered into your settings, as opposed to being automatically initialized by a remote configuration server. To do this, you need to enter the information originally supplied to you in your invoice. You need to specify your IP address and its subnet mask, your primary and secondary DNS servers, your default domain (in the format segment1.on.wave.home.com, where segment1 is the name of your segment), your domain suffix search order (again, in the format segment1.on.wave.home.com), and add your corresponding gateway.

5.5: What are the advantages to using a dynamic or static setup?

This is a question that we hear a lot. In general, there really are no advantages to using one or the other. If the DHCP server in your regional data center is functioning properly, the use of a dynamic configuration is strongly recommended. However, if it is not, a static configuration is strongly recommended, particularly under Windows 98. This is because Win 98 will automatically assign your computer an IP address in the 169.254/16 class B address space, with a dynamic configuration, in the absence of a DHCP server. In other words, if you're using Windows 98 and your DHCP server fails, you won't be able to get a proper IP and thus, won't have any connectivity. Win95 doesn't have this problem because it will keep the last IP that was assigned via DHCP. As long as you don't choose the "release" or "release all" options under winipcfg, you'll be able to keep your IP and preserve your network connectivity. Again, this is only a problem if your RDC's DHCP server is down.

It is worth noting that, under the Rogers Hi-Speed service, not only are DHCP leases 7 days in duration, but IP addresses are bound to subscriber accounts. For this reason, your IP, although technically dynamically allocated, may never change. As a matter of fact, my own IP address is still the same on this very day as it was roughly 2 years ago, when I first had my service installed. FYI, the only thing that must be kept in mind from time to time when using a static configuration, is that IP addresses are renumerated on the rare occasion. Although it isn't very likely that anyone with a LANCity will ever have their IP change on them, TeraPro subscribers are more vulnerable to such a transition. This is due to the differences in how IPs are allocated under each of the two architectures. For this reason, anyone with a static configuration must be fully aware that they will lose complete network connectivity upon an IP address renumeration. If this ever happens, you'll have to go back to a dynamic configuration to get your new IP and then reconfigure statically using the new address and subnet mask.


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