A general view of the Rogers Building, Rogers Communications quarters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 22, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
I am registering
TORONTO, July 8 (Reuters) – A major outage of Rogers Communications Inc’s ( RCIb.TO ) mobile and internet networks caused widespread disruption across Canada on Friday, affecting banks, police emergency lines and customers in the second outage to hit one of the country’s largest telecommunications providers for 15 months.
Customers flocked to coffee shops and public libraries to access alternative networks, while financial institutions reported problems with everything from automated machines to cashless payment systems.
“We are currently experiencing an outage on our wired and wireless networks and our technical teams are working hard to restore service as quickly as possible,” Rogers said in a statement.
Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
I am registering
The outage is likely to heighten concerns about competition in the industry, which is dominated by Rogers.
The company, which has about 10 million wireless subscribers and 2.25 million retail Internet subscribers, is Ontario’s leading service provider and, along with BCE Inc ( BCE.TO ) and Telus Corp ( T.TO ), controls a 90 percent market share in Canada.
Earlier this year, Canada’s competition bureau blocked Rogers’ attempt to take over rival Shaw Communications ( SJRb.TO ) in a C$20 billion deal, saying it would hinder competition in a country where telecommunications prices are among the highest – the tallest in the world. Read more
“Today’s outage illustrates the need for more independent competition that will drive more network investment so outages are much less likely,” said Anthony Lacavera, managing director of Globealive, the investment firm that bid for the wireless provider involved in the deal Rogers/Shaw.
Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources, showed reports of outages starting at 4:30 a.m. ET, reaching more than 20,000 users by 7 a.m. ET. Reports fell to about 8,000 by 11:30 a.m. ET.
The nationwide outage led to some callers having difficulty reaching emergency services through 911 calls, police said in Canada, including Ottawa and Toronto, the largest city.
Interac, which operates an email money transfer service used by several Canadian banks, said the outage affected its services. Toronto-Dominion Bank ( TD.TO ) said it is facing systemic issues with its Interac e-Transfer service.
Bank Of Montreal ( BMO.TO ) said the outage affected financial institutions, toll-free numbers as well as transactions, while Royal Bank of Canada ( RY.TO ) said its ATMs and online banking services were affected.
Canada’s Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said his team is in contact with the company.
“We have expressed the importance that this matter be resolved as soon as possible and that the company provide prompt and clear communication directly to those affected,” he tweeted.
NO CREDIT, CASH ONLY
It was Rodgers’ second major layoff in just over a year. In April of last year, thousands of its customers reported intermittent outages to wireless voice and data services for several hours before the company was able to restore full operations to its network.
In downtown Ottawa on Friday, coffee shops including Tim Hortons were not accepting debit and credit cards and were turning away customers who did not have cash. Tim Hortons did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the impact on its business.
Torontonians flocked to and around a downtown Starbucks offering free wifi on a network unaffected by the outage.
“There’s a lot of people out here with their laptops just running wild like they would at home because they don’t have service at home,” said customer Ken Rosenstein.
Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
I am registering
Reporting by Yuvraj Malik, Eva Mathews, Shubam Kalia and Maria Ponezhat in Bengaluru; Katherine Jackson in Washington; Divya Rajagopal and Chris Helgren in Toronto; Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Written by Ankur Banerjee; Editing by Shinjini Ganguly
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Add Comment