Major Rogers network outage affects millions of Canadians

Rogers Communications, one of Canada’s largest telecom companies, suffered a network outage for hours this week. Due to the outage, millions of Canadians were unable to use the internet and telephone. Banks, government agencies and emergency services were also affected.

During the outage, it was not possible for many people to use ATMs and to make debit card transactions in shops and restaurants. Government agencies and banks were also affected. Passport offices, among others, closed their doors and the tax authorities of the country could not be reached either. Canadian police say some callers were unable to contact emergency services via 911, reports Reuters.

The network outage has brought some criticism due to a lack of competition. Rogers is with over 11 million subscribers one of the largest telecom providers in the country and together with BCE and Telus, it holds about 90 percent of the market share in Canada.

The outage is said to have started around 4:30 am on Friday and slowly recovered about 19 hours later. It’s the second time in 15 months that Rogers has suffered a major network outage. Last April, thousands of customers reported problems with voice and data services that persisted for hours. There was also a major phone and internet outage in Japan earlier this month. Nearly 40 million people were affected there.