Rogers service restored after Canada-wide outage, blames router malfunction

General view of the Rogers Building, Rogers Communications neighborhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 22, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

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

The outage at one of Canada’s largest telecommunications operators closed banking, transportation and government access to millions of people.

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

Canadians thronged cafes and public libraries that still had Internet access and stood outside hotels to catch a signal on Friday. The country’s border services agency said the outage affected its mobile app for incoming travelers while cashless payment systems stopped working. Police in Canada said some callers were unable to reach emergency services through 911 calls. read more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earlier this year, Canada’s competition office blocked Rogers’ bid to take over Shaw Communications. (SJRb.TO) in a C$20 billion deal, saying it would hamper competition in a country where telecom rates are among the highest in the world. The merger still awaits a final verdict. read more

Information from Akanksha Khushi in Bangalore; Additional reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Edited by Alison Williams, Diane Craft and Chris Reese

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