The disruption of the Rogers Communications network on Friday left consumers and businesses out of service for almost an entire day, and they are now seeking compensation.
The outages affected wireless service, Internet connectivity and telephone lines, as well as major infrastructure such as the Interac payment network.
Rogers finally told frustrated consumers that there was a maintenance issue behind the dropped service and promised users would be “proactively credited” for the outage.
Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri told Global News on Monday in an interview that the company would “do the right thing” when it comes to reimbursing affected users and businesses alike.
So what do Rogers customers owe and when will the compensation arrive in your account? This is what we know so far.
5:46 The Consequences of Rogers Interruption and Tips for Staying Proactive The Consequences of Rogers Interruption and Tips for Staying Proactive
What is the status of the Rogers network?
Saffieri said Monday that the telecommunications giant did a “root cause analysis” of the system crash that confirmed initial assumptions about a code error in a network maintenance update.
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This error was transmitted through the Rogers system, which overloaded the network with data and caused the computers to fail, he said.
The company is still seeing “very few intermittent problems,” but Staffieri did not have an exact figure on how many customers are still out of service Monday afternoon.
Read more: Rogers CEO apologizes and says “maintenance update” behind major outage
He said the company’s goal is to regain connectivity and ensure network resilience in the coming days.
“What happened on Friday is unacceptable and we are committed to taking every step under our control to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
How much will Rogers give to customers? When?
The director general of telecommunications said Monday that Rogers will find out what is owed to each customer in a “prorated manner based on the length of the outage.”
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He confirmed that the credits will be automatically applied to customer accounts.
1:26 Rogers’ interruption makes customers wonder how this happened. Rogers ’interruption makes customers wonder how this happened
Compensation should automatically appear on your next month’s bill, although he said some could be processed the following month.
This approach is similar to how Rogers handled refunds for his outage in April 2021.
Affected customers will not be required to request a refund in any way: text messages that claim to be from Rogers and ask users to enter information or click on links to claim compensation must be treated as possible spam.
No matter how uncomfortable Friday’s interruptions were for consumers, the inability to process payments or, in some cases, answer the phone meant a significant loss of revenue for many Canadian businesses.
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“This comes just after two years of pandemic-related restrictions and closures is devastating. Every day of revenue in this period is absolutely critical,” Dan Kelly, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Businesses, told Global News on Monday Independent (CFIB).
Many companies were struggling to find different payment solutions after running out of cash during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kelly noted.
Read more: Businesses lost more than the Internet during Rogers’ outage: “Our sales fell”
The CFIB hopes there will be more significant recognition by Rogers of the widespread impact of its disruptions on the Canadian economy.
Kelly said she would like to see a month of Rogers utility charges covered for the affected businesses, not just one day, to reflect the disproportionate impact for business owners.
“I will lose it if Rogers believes that a day of (commissions) is the right compensation for a small business,” he said.
Global News asked Saffieri if companies would be treated differently from personal accounts.
He did not respond directly, but reiterated that the company is holding individual conversations with customers on a case-by-case basis to address service and compensation concerns.
“Our main goal is to make sure they have the connectivity and continue to work with them and keep them as customers. It’s in our best interest to do that,” Staffieri said.
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NPD leader Jagmeet Singh said Monday in a statement that Rogers “has a responsibility to pay small businesses that lost revenue during the disruption.”
1:10 NDP opposes Rogers-Shaw merger, Singh says NDP opposes Rogers-Shaw merger, says Singh – November 22, 2021
Kelly said a lesson for those affected by the outage is that while pooling services with a telecommunications company could keep costs lower in advance, diversifying phone and Internet offerings could protect a business when the service falls.
“From a business contingency perspective, the best advice we have for business owners is not to put all your apples in a wagon here,” he said.
How do we know this won’t happen again?
The outage has provoked a rapid reaction from Rogers, the government and other stakeholders to ensure that network outages are not as lasting or widespread.
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“You can expect changes in the future to make sure we improve the resilience and redundancy of our networks so that this doesn’t happen again,” Saffieri said.
Rogers will announce the exact changes to its network infrastructure in due course, the CEO said, but hinted that there will be operational changes and network shutdowns to prevent cases where a single error can spread quickly through the system. .
Saffieri also said the company had identified the problem that prevented some customers from being able to call 911 during the outage, and said Rogers would share this information with other industry stakeholders to keep critical services running when any provider experiences an outage.
Saffieri will meet with Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne and other telecommunications officials on Monday afternoon to discuss ways to improve network reliability across Canada.
Read more: Canada’s Minister of Industry will meet with Rogers’ CEO after an “unacceptable” disruption.
Meanwhile, Interac said Monday it was adding another network provider to its system after the Rogers outage left millions of Canadians blocked for online payments.
The widespread impact of the Rogers disruption reveals an over-reliance on a number of major telecommunications providers in Canada, industry stakeholders say, and consumers may play a role in promoting competition in the industry.
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The Center for the Defense of the Public Interest (PIAC) on Friday filed a letter to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) during the interruption calling for an investigation into the problems.
The NDP also called for an investigation Monday and suggested it would call on Champagne, Rogers and Interac on the committee to hold them responsible for the lost service.
PIAC also seeks to establish a set of basic service requirements in the event of a disruption to keep Canadians informed of issues and create a standard for compensation in these incidents.
Yuka Sai, a PIAC lawyer, told Global News that the lack of these standards leaves consumers in the dark about what is owed to them when their network crashes.
He said the disruptions reveal gaps in Canada’s telecommunications landscape, where service outages could have an amplified impact.
Read more: Rogers Interruption Illuminates Need for Competition in Canada’s Telecommunications Sector, According to Expert
“The national magnitude of the disruption really calls into question whether it is prudent to rely on a large national provider in many cases to offer a wide range of network services, Internet services, and this, in the absence of real competition, is a real problem, “she said.
Rosa Addario is an Open Media communications manager who advocates for an open, affordable and unattended Internet in Canada.
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Both she and Sai said the best thing consumers can do now if they are upset by Rogers ’interruptions is to write letters to Champagne and its local members of Parliament calling for a more competitive telecoms landscape in Canada.
Addario said the need to put pressure on policymakers is especially high, as Rogers is seeking regulatory approval for his $ 20 billion proposed acquisition of Shaw Communications.
“At this point we should be angry and angry and we should take this as an opportunity to light a fire under us …