Canada’s Rogers Communications has until July 22 to get back to Canada’s government about what led to last week’s outage that left millions without mobile phone and internet service.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) this week ordered Rogers to respond to detailed questions and provide a comprehensive explanation regarding the outage, which it said disrupted the lives of several millions of Canadians and prevented access to such services as 911 and emergency alerting in addition to other critical infrastructure and services.
Rogers, the largest wireless carrier in Canada, has more than 10 million phone subscribers and about 2.25 million internet customers.
It’s been trying to seal a $16 billion transaction to merge with rival Shaw Communications, but the Canadian government thus far has blocked the deal on the grounds it’s anti-competitive.
Router malfunction
Rogers initially explained that the outage happened after a maintenance update in the core network, which caused some of routers to malfunction.
The CRTC said it’s reminiscent of another significant network outage in April 2021 that Rogers similarly attributed to a software update.
“Events of this magnitude paralyzing sectors of our country’s economy and jeopardizing the safety of millions of Canadians for several hours or days are simply unacceptable, and telecommunications service providers such as Rogers should have mitigation strategies in place to address such possibilities,” the CRTC told the company.
In a statement, the CRTC said it’s requesting a detailed account from Rogers as to “why” and “how” the network outage happened, as well as what measures Rogers is putting in place to prevent future outages.
In an update posted on Wednesday, Rogers President and CEO Tony Staffieri said the company is doing everything in its power to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and it’s working with governments and industry to implement what’s needed to ensure 911 and essential services can continue in the event of a future outage.
The outage started on the morning of July 8 and reportedly lasted for days for many. The company said it will credit customers for the equivalent of five days service on their August bill.