The Rogers service was restored after an outage across Canada, blaming faults on the router

General Overview of the Rogers Building, The Quarters of Rogers Communications in Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 22, 2021. REUTERS / Carlos Osorio

July 9 (Reuters) – Rogers Communications (RCIb.TO) said on Saturday that their services were close to fully operational after a massive power outage due to a router failure after maintenance work.

The power outage at one of Canada’s largest telecom operators shut down banking, transportation and public access for millions of people.

“We now believe that we have limited the cause of 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 in a statement.

Canadians crowded into cafes and public libraries that still had Internet access and hovered outside hotels to catch a signal on Friday. The country’s border service agency said the power outage affected the mobile app for incoming travelers while cashless payment systems stopped working. Police across Canada said some callers could not reach the emergency services via 911 calls. read more

The outbreak, Rogers’ second in 15 months, provoked outrage from Canadians and called on the government to expand competition in the telecom sector.

With around 10 million wireless subscribers and 2.25 million Internet subscribers, Rogers is the best provider in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and home to the largest city in Toronto. Rogers, BCE Inc (BCE.TO) and Telus Corp (T.TO) 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 power outage disrupted their services. The Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) said their ATMs and online banking services were affected.

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

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

Ericsson said on Saturday that they were aware of the power outage and were in regular communication with the company to restore the service.

Critics said the power outage showed a need for more competition in telecom, which contributed to criticism of the company’s industrial dominance.

Earlier this year, Canada’s competition agency blocked Rogers’ attempt to take over rival Shaw Communications (SJRb.TO) in a $ 20 billion deal, saying it would hamper competition in a country where telecom prices are some of the highest in the world. The merger is still awaiting a final verdict. read more

Reporting of Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Further reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Edited by Alison Williams, Diane Craft and Chris Reese

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