Rogers service restored after outage across Canada, blames router failure

A general view of the Rogers Building, Rogers Communications district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 22, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

July 9 (Reuters) – Rogers Communications ( RCIb.TO ) said on Saturday its services were almost fully operational after a massive outage it blamed on a router failure following maintenance.

The outage of one of Canada’s largest telecommunications carriers shut down banking, transportation and government access for millions of people.

“We now believe we have narrowed down the cause to a network system failure following a maintenance update on our core network that caused some of our routers to fail early Friday morning,” Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri said in a statement.

On Friday, Canadians crowded into cafes and public libraries that still had Internet access and hovered outside hotels to pick up a signal. The country’s border services agency said the outage affected its mobile app for arriving travelers, while cashless payment systems stopped working. Police across Canada said some callers were unable to reach 911 by calling 911. Read more

The outage, Rogers’ second in 15 months, has outraged Canadians and calls on the government to expand competition in the telecommunications sector.

With approximately 10 million wireless subscribers and 2.25 million retail Internet subscribers, Rogers is the top provider in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and home to its largest city, Toronto. Rogers, BCE Inc ( BCE.TO ) and Telus Corp ( T.TO ) command 90% of the market share in Canada.

Financial institutions and banks, including Toronto-Dominion Bank ( TD.TO ) and Bank Of Montreal ( BMO.TO ), said on Friday that the outage had disrupted their services. Royal Bank of Canada ( RY.TO ) said its ATMs and online banking services were affected.

In a statement, Staffieri said the company would “proactively” credit affected customers on Friday and invest in its network and technology.

Last year, Rogers attributed a major outage to a glitch related to an Ericsson ( ERICb.ST ) software upgrade.

Ericsson said on Saturday that it was aware of the outage and was in regular communication with the company to restore service.

Critics said the outage demonstrated the need for more competition in telecommunications, adding to criticism of the company’s industry dominance.

Earlier this year, Canada’s competition authority blocked Rogers’ attempt to take over rival Shaw Communications ( SJRb.TO ) in a deal worth C$20 billion, saying it would distort competition in a country where telecommunications rates are among the highest in the world . The merger is still awaiting a final verdict. Read more

Akanksha Khushi News in Bengaluru; More news from Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Editing by Alison Williams, Diane Craft and Chris Reese

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