Canada cellular company Rogers Communications to credit 5 days of service to customers after massive network outage

Previously Rogers had agreed to “proactively crediting” all affected customers for just two days of lost service cellular and internet service and that this credit would be automatically applied to their accounts.

Rogers blamed the outage on a network system failure following a maintenance update in its core network.

But the federal government, as well as the telecommunications regulator, were under criticism for the outage that started Friday and lingered for many into the weekend.

Last week was the second time when the company’s wireless and cable networks went down in a similar fashion in April 2021.

Small business owners were among those hardest hit by the outage, which left them unable to process debit card payments.

A number of customers have reportedly complained to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and some have even asked for a public inquiry.

The CRTC listed dozens of questions it wants Rogers to answer including Rogers explaining the root cause of the outage and how they plan to credit customers’ accounts proactively.

Earlier this week a meeting was convened of telecom CEOs, including  Tony Staffieri, the Company’s CEO by François-Philippe Champagne, Industry Minister to develop a contingency plan to minimize the impact of future outages on consumers

Champagne reportedly told reporters after the meeting that he wants to ensure that they understand how Canadians found the situation unacceptable and that they need to take immediate initial steps to improve the resiliency of the network in Canada.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)