CRTC demands answers from Rogers following mass outage

A Rogers storefront. (Public domain photo via Flickr.)

(Via the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission)

On Tuesday, the CRTC ordered Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Rogers) to respond to detailed questions and provide a comprehensive explanation regarding the national service outage millions of Canadians experienced on Friday July 8, 2022.

This widespread network outage not only disrupted Canadians and Canadian businesses across the country, it prevented access to services such as 9-1-1 and emergency/public alerting, as well as other critical infrastructure services.

The CRTC is requesting a detailed account from Rogers as to “why” and “how” this happened, as well as what measures Rogers is putting in place to prevent future outages.

We take the safety, security, and wellness of Canadians very seriously and we are responsible for ensuring that Canadians have access at all times to a reliable and efficient communications system.

This is the first step the CRTC is taking to improve network resiliency for all Canadians in response to this significant outage. Events of this magnitude paralysing portions of our country’s economy and jeopardizing the safety of Canadians are simply unacceptable.

We acknowledge the actions taken by Minister Champagne to direct the major telecommunications companies to reach agreements on (i) emergency roaming, (ii) mutual assistance during outages, & (iii) a communication protocol to better inform the public and authorities during telecommunications emergencies. Once we are satisfied with Rogers’ response to our questions, we will determine what additional measures need to be taken.

Rogers has until 22 July 2022 to provide its responses.