July 27, 2022
A hearing was held by the House of Commons on July 26, 2022 requiring Rogers to explain the nationwide outage on July 8, 2022 including the inadequate actions they took to handle the crisis and keep the public informed.
Ron McKenzie, Rogers' chief technology and information officer, explained that the loss of connection was due to a coding error that made its way into the system during a weeks long update. Tony Staffieri, CEO of Rogers, pledged to take preventative actions by separating the company's internet and wireless networks at a cost of $250 million. He also explained that the lost connection caused delayed their public announcement.
The Rogers network was down for more than 24 hours (even longer for others) shutting down internet, Interac debit and bank machines, and telecommunications (including 911 emergency calls) across Canada.
The company made an announcement hours after services were lost to customers and businesses.
Customers took to social media (for those that could find an internet connection) to air their grievances and outrage at the company's failure to inform the public until hours after the network went down. Others demanded rebates or compensation for lost wages while some announced they were leaving the service provider. Some questioned how the network giant was able to even post on social media with no internet connection.
Rogers had previously entered a bid to purchase Shaw, a telecommunications company operating in Alberta and British Columbia. It is unclear whether that will still proceed as there are fears a substantial amount of the country's available networks will be controlled by one company. It's been proposed that the big three, Telus, Bell and Rogers, be obligated to provide network support when incidents like this happen in the future.
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