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Bell Fibe: App-solutely ridiculous




I'm a cranky little old lady, sitting here in my chair, buffeted by pugs, anticipating another few days of having a crazy battle with the old gallbladder.

Easter, what can I say?

Writhing in pain, waiting the results of my ultrasound which was performed by an evil-scientist looking Russian named Yuri (sorry for the racial profiling, but he could have played the villain in the upcoming 24 series), I have taken to the Lazy Boy and I'm dividing my time channel surfing and playing Candy Crush Saga.

Yesterday, I was treated to a seminar on the virtues of Bell Fibe television, as part of an infomercial on the CTV Ottawa newscast. I have Bell Fibe. I loathe it, but I'm stuck with it. So why not learn its many features?

I was excited to discover that I can use my Smartphone as a remote in case Sophie the Pug runs off with the channel changer in her mouth. How cool is that?

So after the infomercial, er, newscast, I got the Bell Fibe app from the Playstore for my Android device and prepared myself for the delight of changing channels willy-nilly, during my timeouts on Candy Crush. I opened my app, scrolled around a bit, and closed it right up again.

Like all things with the Bell Fibe, this app is counter-intuitive. It would literally take you three hours to program it, or "filter it" so you can actually find the stations you normally watch. It's akin to trying to program the old VCR, and we all know how many of us could do that.

The app wasn't convenient. It wasn't fun. It wasn't even free when you consider how much we pay for Bell Fibe.

Somebody asked me last week whether I thought it was worth getting Bell Fibe, which we've now had for a year. He said he was simply fed up with Rogers.

I don't blame him. That's why we switched to Fibe. Bell is a better company to deal with. At Rogers, the call centre attendants all lie, and the company is quick to cut you off during a disagreement about the bill. I love Bell's customer service and wouldn't go back to Rogers for that reason alone.

But if I were a Rogers customer, would I switch?

Probably not. The service still has a lot of bugs. The picture cuts out at least 10 times a day for no reason. The channel guide is ridiculous and it does take hours to program it, which you have to do unless you want to scroll through endless French stations or memorize the numbers of your favorite stations -- out of 1,500 offerings.

As for the app, I won't use it. I'll never use it. Unless of course, Sophie eats the remote.

Too bad there isn't an app that would zap her every time she gets her mouth around the remote, my underwear or the toilet brush.

Call me when you've created one.

Unless you're an app creator and you work for Bell.
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