Telecommunications giant Rogers says it is making progress in resolving a massive network outage on Friday that is affecting wireless, cable and internet customers across the country.
The shutdown began in the early hours of Friday morning, with a variety of services affected.
Later that day, Rogers told CBC News in a statement that he is close to finding a solution.
“Our technical teams are working to restore our services together with our global technology partners and are moving forward,” the company said.
“We know how much you trust our networks. Today we have disappointed you. We are working to make it right as soon as possible. We will continue to keep you updated, including when services will be back online.”
In an earlier statement, the company apologized to its customers and said the outage occurred “through our wired and wireless networks.”
Internet monitoring group Netblocks.org reports that total Internet traffic in Canada was at 75 per cent of its normal level on Friday morning.
Wide variety of services affected
Rogers-owned flankers brands such as Fido and Chatr are also offline, but even services not directly controlled by Rogers, such as emergency services, travel and financial networks, are having problems.
Debit payment services have also been discontinued.
“A national telecommunications disruption with a network provider … is affecting the availability of some Interac services,” an Interac spokesman confirmed to CBC News.
“Debit is not currently available online and at the time of payment. Interac’s electronic transfer is also not generally available, which affects the ability to send and receive payments.”
Banking machines and other financial networks across the country were falling apart, apparently due to Rogers’ problems. (Angela MacIvor / CBC)
Bell confirmed he has no problems with his network, though he says customers have a hard time connecting to anything on a Rogers network.
“Bell’s network is operational and calls and text messages between Bell customers or other providers are not affected,” the company said on Twitter.
The CBC radio station in Kitchener, Ontario, has been disconnected and disconnected as a result of the outage.
911 problems
The Toronto Police Service tweeted that Rogers customers in that city had trouble connecting to 911, but stressed that the 911 service was working properly, as long as people did not call from a Rogers-affiliated device. .
“We are working to solve these problems,” the force said.
Other emergency services reported a similar condition.
“While Rogers is experiencing a disruption nationwide, our tests have shown that 911 still works,” a Fredericton police service spokesman told CBC News.
Winnipeg and Vancouver officials also stressed that emergency services are operational, but it appears people on the Rogers network cannot access them.
Under the rules of the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Commission of Canada (CRTC) in place since 2017, telecommunications networks are supposed to ensure that mobile phones can contact 911 even if they do not have service.
The Canadian telecommunications regulator did not immediately respond to a request from CBC News as to whether the 911 problems observed on Friday violated those rules. In a tweet, the CRTC said it also does not have reliable telephone service due to Rogers ’disruption.
Please note that our phone lines are affected by the Rogers network outage.
Our website is still available: https://t.co/Sws6CGGQ2m
– @CRTCeng
“Incomprehensible” shutdown for Canadians
They are not the only ones. Ordinary Canadians told the CBC on Friday that the disruption is unacceptable.
“This can’t happen again without changes being made,” Toronto Rev. Andrew Revai told CBC News. “People can tweet all the memes they want about the loss of connectivity, but how will Rogers prevent this from happening again?”
MIRAR | Here’s what regular Canadians told us about Rogers’ interruption:
Rogers ’major disruption affects businesses and customers across Canada
Rogers customers were unaware of Friday’s massive disruption involving mobile and Internet networks, which also caused widespread disruption to banks, businesses and some emergency services across Canada.
Ottawa resident Robert Hubscher said it is “incomprehensible” that a company as large as Rogers could have such a widespread disruption for so long.
He uses Rogers for his cell phone and Internet at home, and said in an interview Friday that he’s happy to have some services with other companies to keep connections right now.
“It’s a little scary for regulators not to take it more seriously,” Hubscher said.
Government services are also affected, including passport offices that are already bottlenecked, Service Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada and the Tax Agency of Canada.
The Canada Border Services Agency says the ArriveCan app is disabled as a result of the interruption, so anyone arriving in Canada will need to have a paper copy of their vaccination status.
People crowded around a Toronto Starbucks to use their free wifi on the Bell network Friday morning during a major disruption to Rogers Communications’ mobile and Internet networks that was causing widespread disruptions across Canada. (Chris Helgren / Reuters)
Rogers offered discounts after the last interruption
Telecommunications analyst Vince Valentini of TD Bank, which covers the company, says it is not good for the company’s reputation to have an outage of this scale, especially because it appears to be in all its services, from d ‘Internet to wireless network.
“The longer this situation lasts, we believe there could be less risk for losing customers,” he said. “And there could also be credibility issues for Rogers in the future as it tries to increase sales.”
It is the second time in so many years that Rogers has been hit by a major disruption, as the company’s wireless and cable networks fell similarly in April 2021. Rogers then blamed a problem with an upgrade. of software at one of your telecommunications equipment providers.
That time, the company offered customers discounts for its services, which ended up running at a few dollars per customer. If the same metric is applied this time, Valentini says the company could be stuck for about $ 28 million in discounts.
Technology analyst Ritesh Kotak says he suspects the cause of the outage is “an update that has failed” in one of Rogers’ internal systems.
Economic vulnerability
Regardless of why, Kotak says it underscores the vulnerability of Canada’s economy to disruptions like this, and says it makes sure all of its telecommunications services come from different providers for that exact reason.
“It shows how we depend on this technology,” he said in an interview. “From some government services … to working from home, all of this has literally closed.”
Canadian telecommunications giant Rogers said it was working to restore services as early as Friday morning. (Patrick Morrell / CBC)
Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University’s Master’s in Public Policy in Digital Society, says the disruption underscores a long-standing problem with Canada’s telecommunications network, which is that both the infrastructure and the services themselves they are owned by private companies.
This is not the case worldwide, where private sector actors control one or the other, and often compete with a public option.
“The Internet and mobile services … seem like a public good,” he told CBC News in an interview Friday. “They look like a critical digital infrastructure that we all need to use, and yet they are privately owned and managed.”
“Maybe it’s time for Canadians to seriously rethink.”