Yahoo Finance Rogers to credit customers for massive outage, CEO says, as service returns
Rogers Communications Inc. said on Saturday “networks and systems are close to fully operational” after a massive outage left thousands of customers without service for much of Friday, sending many scurrying to restaurants and libraries in search of working connections and highlighting the economy’s growing dependence on telecom infrastructure.
Tony Staffieri, chief executive and president of Rogers, said in a statement Saturday afternoon that Rogers is continuing to monitor its network for problems and investigate the root cause of the issues.
“We now believe we’ve narrowed the cause to a network system failure following a maintenance update in our core network, which caused some of our routers to malfunction early Friday morning,” he said.
Staffieri apologized for the outage in an earlier open letter and said that Rogers would proactively credit all customers, with more information to be made available soon.
“We know going a full day without connectivity has real impacts on our customers, and all Canadians,” the CEO said in the letter.
“On behalf of all of us here at Rogers, Rogers for Business, Fido, Chatr and Cityfone, I want to sincerely apologize for this service interruption and the impact it is having on people from coast to coast to coast.”
The disruption, which began early in the morning and affected users in several provinces but particularly in Ontario, not only knocked individual and business customers offline, but also caused problems for police, government agencies and the Interac payment network.
The Canadian interbank network said Interac Debit was unavailable online and at retail checkouts and that Interac e-Transfer services were also unavailable at most financial institutions, affecting the ability to send and receive payments.
As a result, retailers using Interac point-of-sale terminals were unable to accept credit or debit payments, leaving cash as the only option at some businesses.
Earlier in the day, some police services, including Toronto’s, indicated people were having trouble calling 911 because of Rogers’ technical difficulties. Those reports apparently led some to use the emergency number to test their connections.
“While we are aware that Rogers network customers are experiencing a Canada-wide outage affecting cell and internet services, please do NOT test your phone by calling 9-1-1,” the London Police Service said on Twitter, warning that such a use could tie up their system for those in need of emergency assistance.
Several social media users throughout the day posted photos of busy cafés and restaurants such as Starbucks, where customers had flocked to use free public Wi-Fi.
“Today we have let you down,” Rogers said in a statement online in the midst of the outages. “We know how much you rely on our networks.”
The company said its technical teams were working with its global technology partners to fix things.
In a statement Friday, the federal minister of innovation, science and industry said the government has been in contact with Rogers and was continuing to monitor the situation.
“We expressed how important it is that this matter be resolved as soon as possible and for the company to provide prompt and clear communication directly to those impacted,” François-Philippe Champagne said.
The outage comes at a sensitive time for Rogers, whose proposed $26-billion merger with Shaw Communications Inc. is being challenged by the Competition Bureau.
It also comes as Canadians have increasingly come to depend on telecom networks in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In May 2020, Rogers — which has about 10 million wireless subscribers and 2.25 million retail internet subscribers — told a House of Commons committee that home internet usage was up more than 50 per cent and voice call usage on its wireless network was up 40 per cent as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns. The pandemic also induced a sharp increase in e-commerce spending and digital payments, which rely on online networks.
Vass Bednar, a McMaster University professor who specializes in technology and public policy, said the scope of the outage was a sign of how dominant Canada’s leading telecom providers have become.
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“The outage is illuminating the general lack of competition in telecommunications in Canada,” Bednar told the Canadian Press.
She added that people should be compensated for the disruption.
Friday’s outage was the second significant outage in the past year and a half for Rogers. In April 2021, Rogers’ chief technology officer apologized after a countrywide outage left many of its customers unable to make calls, text or use network data.
Jorge Fernandes attributed the network problems to a software update “that affected a piece of equipment in the central part of our wireless network. That led to intermittent congestion and service impacts for many customers across the country.”
—With additional reporting by the Canadian Press
