Rogers outage: Ottawa demands telecoms create backup plan, help each other out

Last Friday’s outage that suspended Rogers wireless and internet service across Canada – an incident that disrupted consumers and businesses, including aspects of the travel industry – has prompted a new directive from Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who is calling on telecoms to help each other out when networks fail.

During a conference call Monday (July 12), Minister Champagne called on telecommunication CEOs to bolster the resiliency of Canada’s cellular and internet network and devise a plan for preventing future blackouts, according to a report in the Globe and Mail.

The Minister is asking telecoms to provide customers with emergency roaming capabilities and develop new protocols to ensure that Canadians can stay connected when major outages occur.

The plan should also ensure that no customers are left without access to 911 service, he said.

READ MORE: “It was a little crazy”: Rogers outage disrupts travel pros, ArriveCAN & passport offices

It’s a framework similar to one that was mandated by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on July 6 and telecommunication companies in Canada have 60 days to unroll a new strategy, Champagne said.

Monday’s meeting with telecom heads, which included Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri, was held to discuss ways of preventing future disruptions.

"I wanted to make sure that in no uncertain terms they understand how Canadians found the situation unacceptable and they need to take immediate initial steps to improve the resiliency of our network in Canada," Minister Champagne said.

Travel, disconnected 

The outage on July 8, the second for Rogers in the past 15 months, made everyday tasks challenging for all as it crippled modern-day conveniences such as cashless payments (like Interac), emergency services, online banking, and riding-sharing apps.

In the travel industry, where professionals are accustomed to working from home or remotely, the outage interrupted routines, transactions and operations.

“It was a little crazy,” said TravelOnly’s Amanda Beaver, who had her internet and cell phone suspended for 24 hours.

At the time, Beaver, owner of GLOW Travel and Events, was in the middle of processing final payments and assisting several groups. 

Fortunately, other members on Beaver’s team were able to step in as backup and keep operations going.

“We got through it,” said Beaver, who had her Rogers connection restored at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning.

The Ontario-based travel advisor told PAX that she’s already looking at switching providers for her travel business.

“We’re all working remotely and travelling all the time. We need something reliable,” she said.

Trouble with ArriveCAN, passport renewals

The outage also altered government-led programs that play a role in travel, such as the mandatory ArriveCAN app, which was temporary replaced with a Traveller Contact Information Form.

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) was also instructing travellers impacted by the shutdown to use paper copies for their proof of vaccination.

Service Canada tweeted that its call centres and offices were impacted by the suspension, which only exacerbated passport delays that have left Canadians lined up outside offices for lengthy periods as Ottawa tackles a backlog.

It appears that customers of Air Canada, too, were inconvenienced too.

In a tweet Friday, the airline said it was experiencing "technical issues" with its "telephone service provider" as it responded on Twitter to a passenger who was asking about a lost bag and couldn’t get through to Air Canada by phone.

Investigation underway

Minister Champagne said yesterday that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will launch an investigation into the outage, which, so far, has been blamed on a system failure following a maintenance update.

It is unclear exactly how many Canadians were left without service, but Rogers has more than 11 million wireless customers and also supports Fido’s roughly three million clients.

An additional 300,000 TekSavvy customers were impacted as that company buys its network access from Rogers and customer with Chatr, a mobile company run by Rogers, were also cut off.

Representatives at Monday's meeting expressed support for implementing internet and cell resiliency initiatives.

Mr. Staffieri endorsed Minister Champagne’s directive, saying Rogers is “committed to solutions to protect Canadians from serious outages.”

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