Andy Baryer, former host and producer of GetConnected, Canada’s longest-running tech talk show, said the failure of Rogers’ service underscores many concerns experts have.
Read more: Rogers service recovers but essential BC services still affected
“It’s been about 24 hours and we still don’t know what the cause was,” Baryer told Global News on Saturday morning. “On Friday, I suspected it was a cyber attack, but that doesn’t seem to be the case (now).” He continued, “a company called Cloudflare, which manages Internet traffic around the world, suspects that this is an internal bug.”
Read more: Rogers says wireless service restored for ‘vast majority’ as massive outage extends
Story continues below ad Cloudflare posted on their website saying as much. “Based on what we’re seeing and similar incidents in the past, we believe this is likely an internal bug, not a cyber attack,” Cloudflare staff wrote in a blog post. Baryer said such a large failure is not only alarming, but frightening, as protocols are supposed to be in place to prevent such a large failure. “These networks are designed with redundancies to ensure that this does not happen. The fact that it happened is very, very troubling,” Baryer said. “You don’t see this in other countries and this is the second time in 15 months that the Rogers network has gone down.” 2:17 Rodgers begins service restoration Rodgers begins service restoration The technology expert said one of the obvious concerns highlighted by the outage is Canada’s reliance on just three major telecommunications companies. Story continues below ad “It just shows how unfair it is in Canada that we only have three major carriers,” Baryer said. “We already pay high prices for our internet and mobile phone bills and now we have this kind of outage. It brings back the conversation that we’re bringing in a fourth carrier.” Compensation for customers has been a hot topic of discussion online, and Baryer said it’s hard to say how much compensation could be on her way. “That’s going to be an interesting thing, seeing how much they compensate their users,” Baryer said. “Compensation for their clients (is up in the air). They still have to compensate the Canadian economy and all the small businesses that suffered on Friday.” That disruption has also led to speculation that the Rogers and Shaw merger may be “dead in the water,” according to Baryer. 2:34 A day of frustration for millions of Canadians after a nationwide network outage at Rogers Communications A day of frustration for millions of Canadians after a nationwide network outage at Rogers Communications Related News © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
