(Toronto) Canada’s telecommunications watchdog has ordered Rogers to provide a detailed explanation for the widespread service outage last week that affected millions of Canadians and made it difficult to access telephony services. emergency and banking transactions.
Posted at 5:42 p.m.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said on Tuesday it had asked Rogers to respond by July 22 to detailed questions it sent to the company, including on “why » and the « how » the breakdown occurred and on the measures it puts in place to prevent such a situation from happening again in the future.
CRTC Chairman Ian Scott said in a statement that the request was the first step the agency was taking to improve the resilience of the network.
“Events of this magnitude, which cripple parts of our country’s economy and jeopardize the safety of Canadians, are simply unacceptable. »
The request comes a day after federal Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced the CRTC would investigate the outage and met with Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri and executives from several other providers. telecommunications.
At the meeting, Mr Champagne asked the companies to come up with a crisis plan, including emergency roaming agreements, a “mutual assistance” framework during outages and a communication protocol to “better inform the public and authorities during telecommunications emergencies”.
Concerns from a communications veteran
This requirement carries the risk of creating a situation where a competitor’s network is overwhelmed and service is ultimately degraded, fears a former telecommunications executive.
Former Telus finance chief Robert McFarlane said that while devising a strategy to ensure everyone’s phones can work on other networks in the event of a service outage makes “extreme sense”, telecom providers will need to be very thoughtful in their approach.
Tricky questions could arise over whether or not a supplier should favor its own customers over those who use that supplier as a backup during an emergency, he explained.
Mr. McFarlane also said that if Quebecor succeeds in acquiring Freedom Mobile, the wireless operator owned by Shaw, it would allow the Montreal-based company to increase its national presence and strengthen its business, thus opening the door to that Rogers and Quebecor potentially become a back-up network for each other.
The deadline for Rogers, Shaw and Quebecor to reach a definitive agreement on the sale of Freedom is July 15.
Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton University, for his part, believes that consumers could have more power in emergency situations if they had the option of temporarily switching to another network on their own during scenarios. unforeseen events like last week’s breakdown.
Mr Winseck believes that Google’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service in the United States, Google Fi, which allows people to switch operators using a web application, could be worthwhile to be replicated here in Canada.
“For emergency situations, the government and the CRTC could impose daily roaming charges for subscribers who have hopped onto another network,” he said.
The federal government is giving the telecom companies that participated in Monday’s meeting about two months to develop a clear network resilience plan. If suppliers aren’t able to find one within that time, the professor thinks there are some levers Ottawa can pull.
“They can issue a decree under section 8 of the Telecommunications Law. They can also impose such obligations as a condition of license in the next round of spectrum auctions,” he suggested.
The Minister of Industry could also factor the lack of a comprehensive resilience plan into his ongoing review of Rogers’ $26 billion bid to buy Shaw, and in doing so, “tilt the balance in opposition to the agreement,” Mr. Winseck adds.