At a Starbucks in Toronto, there was no quick swipe of a debit card to get your caffeine fix as the outage affected online payment systems across the country. Passengers in Vancouver were told they may not be able to they pay transport fares with debit cards. Cafes and libraries that still offered Wi-Fi became makeshift offices. Any convenience of working from home has become a hassle for those who rely on the telecom giant’s services.
It’s Rogers’ second major upset in about 14 months. The company admitted that 11 million wireless subscribers: “Today we let you down.”
The Canadian economy and everyday life are tied to our communications networks, and when they go down, as Rogers did for much of the day Friday, there is no universal Plan B to keep widely used – and vital – services online.
The implications are serious.
At least a half a million merchants use Interac debit payments, based on the Rogers network. Government services, including the ArriveCan app, have been affected. The Niagara health authority had to cancel radiation therapy supplies. Some cities have warned Rogers customers that they may have trouble contacting 9-1-1 in emergencies.
“We’ve become extremely fragile because of the rapid pace of innovation and the rapid pace of implementing new techniques and new forms of technology,” said economist Dan Ciuriak, a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance and Innovation.
This should be a “wake-up call,” he said, not just for Rogers but for Canada’s wireless communications infrastructure as a whole.
“We’re talking about going into the Metaverse. We’re still in the dinoverse unfortunately, and that’s very bad for Canada business-wise.”
Loyalty to 1 company leaves you vulnerable
In an email to some corporate customers, Rogers blamed the outage on an outage in its core network. There was no estimate of a full restoration, although some services appeared to be returning to normal late Friday. While Rogers will have to further explain what led to such a major failure, Ciuriak said Canada has “fallen behind” in the development of wireless network hardware compared to other countries, as well as in terms of its security. ATTENTION Should the government diversify Canada’s telecommunications market?:
Should the government diversify Canada’s telecommunications market?
Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne explains what he heard from Rogers about its shutdown and whether Canada needs to diversify its telecommunications market. Tyler Chamberlain, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, is less critical of the country’s wireless communications infrastructure, noting that these types of service outages are more common in other countries. He said it would be “really expensive” to build any system that “never fails”. Merchants at Covent Garden Market in London, Ont., told customers it was cash only Friday because of the Rogers shutdown. The Interac system for debit payments is based on Rogers. Credit payments will also be discontinued at businesses using Rogers Internet. (Kate Dubinski/CBC) Part of the problem is that, whether it’s in our professional or personal lives, we often rely on one company for all of our telecommunications services, Chamberlain said, which companies like Rogers, Bell and Shaw offer as an incentive for slightly lower prices. . “[That’s] one of the things you might want to … reconsider because if you’re all-in-one and that goes down, you’re really isolated,” he said, especially for those who work from home full-time. However, he admitted that it is not necessarily an option in rural areas of the country. Businesses that rely on wireless networks may want to think the same thing, added David Soberman, a marketing professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. “If cashless payment systems are based on one network, you may find that some companies basically happen with two different ones [wireless or internet] suppliers so they have one option if the other fails,” he said. “But not all companies can afford all these backups.” WATCHES | How Canadians told us the Rogers outage affected them:
Major Rogers outage affects businesses, customers across Canada
Rogers customers were caught off guard by Friday’s massive outage affecting both mobile and Internet networks, which also caused widespread disruption to banks, businesses and some emergency services across Canada.
Who is to blame?
The responsibility lies with a company like Rogers when its services fail, Soberman said. “I think the real issue here is that Rogers has a problem with their systems and they’re obviously not managing it very well,” he said, noting that Canada’s other major wireless and Internet providers haven’t had such large outages in such a short period of time. as much as Rodgers has in the last two years. Critics of the federal government are demanding an investigation into the termination of the Rogers service. “Given the critical infrastructure affected and the CRTC itself affected, the cause of the Rogers shutdown should be explained immediately,” said Conservative MP Michelle Rebel Garner. he said in a statement shared on Twittercalling for an emergency caucus to “make sure it doesn’t happen again”. leader of the NDP Jagmeet Singh claimed the widespread disruption to businesses and services is a consequence of the Liberal government “protecting the profits of the telecom giants”. Ciuriak said the government has a regulatory responsibility, but it stops there. “You wouldn’t expect a government bureaucrat to understand the software requirements to ensure systems are robust and resilient,” he said. WATCHES | Regulations need revision, says expert:
Telecom expert says Canada’s system needs overhaul
Ben Klass says the Rogers outage is another lesson in why Canada’s telecom regulations need to be completely overhauled to ensure consumers and businesses can rely on them when they need them most.
A vital service that needs regulation?
Although the CRTC has declared Broadband is a basic telecommunications service, not a utility like water or electricity, which are mostly run by Crown or quasi-Crown companies, Chamberlain added. But Soberman said the government may want to consider handling wireless and Internet services in a similar way to ensure there is limited disruption to business and vital services like 911. “[The] The internet provides an infrastructure that is as important as the electrical system, it is as important as water, it is certainly as important as the postal system,” he said. There could be a way for other wireless or Internet companies to step in to mitigate a disruption like this, he suggested. “Maybe you’d be able to create some kind of law or regulation that would ensure that service is continuously provided to people, even if one of the suppliers has a problem.” The CRTC has rules about telecommunications networks that ensure cell phone users can still contact 911 even without wireless service. However, the regulator did not immediately respond to CBC’s question about whether that rule was violated as a result of the Rogers shutdown. WATCHES | 911 is supposed to be protected, government official says:
Rogers’ outage does not appear to be a cyberattack: government official
“At this point, I think we can reassure Canadians that this is not a cyber attack,” Rogers Parliamentary Secretary Greg Fergus said of the all-Canadian outage, citing early analysis from the Communications Security Foundation.
