Canada’s Rogers Communications is working to resolve its ongoing network outage, which has resulted in major internet cable and cellphone network disruptions across Canadian provinces.
“We are currently experiencing an outage across our wireline and wireless networks, and our technical teams are working hard to restore services as quickly as possible,” Rogers tweeted on Friday. “We sincerely apologize to our customers, and we will continue to keep you updated as we have more information to share, including when we expect service to be back up.” The company did not elaborate on what may have caused the outage.
The outage has affected people’s ability to go online, make phone calls, conduct simple bank transactions like using their debit cards, as well as their ability to make 911 calls for emergencies. Police in Toronto and Ottawa issued warnings that some Rogers customers might not be able to connect to 911 calls during the outage, the New York Times reported. The outage also affected the financial services at Interac, an email money transfer service used by a number of banks in Canada, according to CNBC. Bank of Montreal also reported being affected by the outage.
Downdetector, which keeps track of internet outages, recorded thousands of outage reports throughout the day, peaking at more than 20,000 reports at 7 a.m. from Rogers consumers. Rogers first acknowledged the outage at 8:54 a.m. Eastern through its Twitter account.
Canada’s wireless network is dominated by three companies: Rogers, Telus and Bell. Rogers has about 10 million wireless subscribers, and is the leading service in Ontario. The outage took place as Rogers is working on a deal to purchase its rival Shaw for $20 billion, although the deal is currently on pause as they settle an antitrust case.
