Massive Rogers outage was caused by faulty software update

Apr 20 2021, 1:53 pm

Rogers says an Ericsson software update caused a massive outage affecting cellphone customers across Canada on Monday.

Many Rogers and Fido customers woke up Monday to find they couldn’t make voice calls or use their phone’s cellular data. The outage lasted for hours, leaving many frustrated because they rely on their cellphone for work-related communication during the pandemic.

Service was restored for most on Monday evening, and Rogers Chief Technology Officer Jorge Fernandes issued a statement Tuesday morning about what happened.

“We know how much you rely on us, and yesterday, we let you down. On behalf of all of us at Rogers, we sincerely apologize,” he said.

After the two companies worked together to fix the problem on Monday, Fernandes said the outage was caused by a recent software update from the Swedish firm.

The software update affected a piece of equipment in a central part of the network, and it created congestion and service impacts.

Rogers announced Tuesday afternoon that it would give bill credit to affected customers equal to one day of service. The bill credit will be applied automatically and will not require action from customers, the telecom provider said.

“Connecting Canadians is at the heart of what we do every day. Yesterday’s events did not meet the level of service we strive to provide to our customers,” Fernandes said. “We know that there is a lot of uncertainty in your daily life right now. One of the things we don’t want you to have to worry about is staying connected.”

 

Megan DevlinMegan Devlin

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