Rogers Communications on Sunday announced steps it says will make sure what happened during a nationwide service outage on July 8┬аdoesn’t happen again.
In a letter to customers, CEO Tony Staffieri outlined the company’s “enhanced reliability plan.”
On 911 calls тАФ which were disrupted in many parts of the country during the outage тАФ he said Roger is working on a formal agreement with competitors “to switch 911 calls to each other’s networks automatically тАФ even in the event of an outage on any carrier’s network.”
On the wireless and internet front, he pledged that┬а the company will “physically” separate those services to create an “always on” network so customer won’t experiences outages for both at the same time┬атАФ something that happened to many on July 8.┬а
Staffieri┬аalso said the company will invest $10 billion over the next three years on such things as oversight, testing and artificial intelligence.
“I know that it is only through these actions that we can begin to restore your confidence in Rogers and earn back your trust,”┬аStaffieri┬аsaid.
Monday, July 11 – The Canadian economy, and everyday life, is tethered to our communications networks, and when they go down, like Rogers did for much of the day Friday, there is no universal Plan B to keep widely-used тАУ and vital тАФ services online.We’ll talk about the need for a backup plan.
The letter to customers comes two days after Rogers sent a letter to Canada’s broadcasting regulator detailing the cause and immediate aftermath of the┬аservice outage тАФ which started early on July 8 and for some customers lingered for days тАФ that left millions of Canadians without cellphone and internet service.
Rogers told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that coding from an update to its network deleted a routing filter that “allowed for all possible routes to the internet to pass through the routers,” which flooded and overwhelmed the core network, causing it to stop processing internet traffic altogether.
The letter┬аmet a deadline by the CRTC for Rogers to answer questions about the outage, but┬аit has many redactions┬аwhere Rogers is believed to have offered more specific details.
On Monday, officials from Rogers┬аand a slew of other stakeholders are set to appear at a parliamentary committee┬аin Ottawa to further explain the cause of the outage┬аand to outline the steps they are taking to make sure it won’t happen again.
