TORONTO – It has been a rough Friday morning for Rogers customers.
The telecom has been experiencing network issues across the country since early this morning, according to an online service map and London, England-based global Internet monitor NetBlocks.
A tweet from TekSavvy Assistance also indicates there is an incumbent outage impacting third-party providers with no timeline for things to be up and running again.
“Please note that there is currently a large spread incumbent outage that is impacting all internet and wireless (including cellphone) users, as well as third-party customers like TekSavvy,” the tweet says. “This also impacts our contact centre phone lines. There is currently no ETA.”
Rogers confirmed it is aware of the issues in a tweet just before 9 a.m.
“We know how important it is for our customers to stay connected,” the tweet reads.
“We are aware of issues currently affecting our networks and our teams are fully engages to resolve the issues as soon as possible. We will continue to keep you updated as we have more information to share.”
Bell Support tweeted at 9:40 a.m. to reassure customers Bell’s networks are not impacted.
“Some Bell customers may be experiencing issues when trying to call or text Rogers subscribers due to current interruptions in Rogers network services,” the tweet says. “The Bell network is operational and calls and texts between Bell customers or to other providers are not impacted.”
(Telus Support sent out a similar tweet at 12:22 p.m. ET.)
Other service providers who have indicated their customers are experiencing a service disruption include Tbaytel, Execulink, VMedia, Xpolrnet and Wightman.
At 10:55 a.m. ET, the CRTC tweeted to inform everyone their phone lines have been affected by the Rogers outage but, their website is still up.
At 11:26 a.m. ET, Rogers apologized on Twitter for the outage and indicated they are working on the problem.
“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,” the tweet says.
“On behalf of all of us at Rogers, 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. Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve this issue.”
At 11:41 a.m. ET, Canada’s Industry minister, Françoise-Philippe Champagne, issued a statement about the outage.
“We’re aware of the current Rogers outage and my team has been in contact with the company,” the statement reads. “We expressed how important it is that this matter be resolved as soon as possible and for the company to provide prompt and clear communication directly to those impacted.
“We will continue to monitor the situation closely and use any tools at our disposal to ensure Canadians stay connected and that the company meets the high standard Canadians deserve.”
At 3:20 p.m. ET, Rogers indicated they have been making progress on restoring their services.
“Our technical teams are working to restore our services alongside our global technology partners, and are making progress,” a statement posted on Twitter reads.
“We know how much you rely on our networks. Today we have let you down. We are working to make this right as quickly as we can. We will continue to keep you updated, including when services will be back online.”
The post did not include any information on why the telecom’s networks are down or on when customers can expect to have service again (despite it being estimated the outage has lasted for nearly half a day at this point).
It is 5:40 p.m. ET and while Rogers still does not know when its networks will be back up, the company has provided another update.
“We acknowledge the impact our outage is having on your life,” the update reads. “We have every technical resource and partner fully deployed to solve the problem. As soon as we know the specific time the Networks will be fully operational, we will share that with you. Right now, we are focused on the solution. Some of our customers have raised the question of credits and of course we will be proactively crediting all customers and will share more information soon.”
We received word via email at 9:20 p.m. ET that Rogers’ wireless services are recovering.
“Our wireless services are starting to recover and our technical teams are working hard to get everyone back online as quickly as possible,” a statement from the company reads. “As our services and traffic volumes return to normal, we will continue to keep our customers updated. As previously announced, we will be proactively crediting all customers and will share more information on that process soon.”
