IT HAS NOW BEEN over two weeks since the start of Rogers Communications’ nationwide network outage, which impacted the company’s phone, Internet and cable subscribers – some, for days.
Rogers’ president and CEO Tony Staffieri has issued an apology and attributed the outage to “a network system failure following a maintenance update in our core network”, the company submitted a detailed report to the CRTC about what happened, and a House of Commons standing committee spent the day yesterday hearing from witnesses about the outage – what went wrong, why and what needs to be done…
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BELL CANADA’S PRESIDENT and CEO Mirko Bibic (above) posted an explanation of how Bell configures its networks on LinkedIn late Monday night.
The post followed the appearance of Rogers Communications executives at the House of Commons standing committee on industry and technology earlier in the day, during which they explained the cause of Rogers’ nationwide network outage on July 8.
“As more details emerge regarding the root cause of Rogers’ network outage, it’s important for us to outline to Canadians how Bell’s networks are configured differently,” Bibic wrote in his post.
“Bell’s wireless and wireline networks use different network infrastructures so…
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By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – The House of Commons INDU committee heard from a series of witnesses today about the July 8 Rogers Communications outage that impacted Canadians across the country, including those trying to access emergency services.
Both meetings the committee decided to hold before the end of July were held today back-to-back.
First among the witnesses there were older white men in suits including François-Philippe Champagne, minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. While the soon fired Rogers CTO, Jorge Fernandes was in Portugal, the minister was in Japan when he heard in the middle of the night…
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Includes physically separating wireless and Internet services
TORONTO — In a letter to customers published Sunday on Rogers Communications’ website, company president and CEO Tony Staffieri outlined the steps the telecom is taking “to learn from” its nationwide network outage earlier this month “and deliver the reliable network you should expect from Rogers.”
Calling it the company’s “Enhanced Reliability Plan”, Staffieri said Rogers is making changes and investments to ensure a network outage like this doesn’t happen again, as part of a personal commitment he pledged in a previous letter posted to the Rogers website shortly after the…
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Bell, Telus offered to help, but Rogers determined it was not possible
OTTAWA – There were no other measures Rogers Communications could have taken to restore 911 services any quicker than it did during the July 8th network outage, the company has told the CRTC in a response to a demand for a detailed report on what happened that day and why.
In a heavily redacted document made public by the CRTC last Friday, Rogers explained it explored the possibility of shutting down its RAN (radio access network), because if customers were unable to connect to it, they would…
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OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau is seeking to have the Competition Tribunal add more time to the pre-hearing process and hearing on the merger of Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications due to Quebecor subsidiary Videotron’s request to participate in it.
The Commissioner of Competition filed a motion today seeking the changes, which would see oral examinations for discovery start on Sept. 19, 2022, instead of Aug. 15, 2022, as currently scheduled.
The commissioner, Matthew Boswell, is further requesting the tribunal include an additional week for oral examinations and another additional week for the hearing. He is requesting the tribunal modify other…
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TORONTO – Jorge Fernandes is no longer Rogers Communications’ chief technology and information officer.
While no official announcement has been made, the company’s leadership page on its website indicates Ron McKenzie (above) was made the company’s chief technology and information officer in July 2022. A Rogers spokesperson confirmed the change happened yesterday.
“Rogers can confirm Jorge Fernandes will be stepping step down from his role as Chief Technology and Information Officer,” reads a statement from the spokesperson. “Effective immediately, Ron McKenzie becomes Chief Technology and Information Officer.”
The change comes nearly two weeks after Rogers networks went down across the country.
Fernandes…
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TORONTO — toober, a Toronto-based live television app*, announced earlier this month it has launched six new channels.
Launched in June, the new channels include Euronews English, Euronews French, RAI Italia, RAI World Premium, RAI News 24 and Universal Vision TV (Spanish, Portuguese and English programming).
toober “aims to fill a gap in the live streaming market by providing subscribers access to all of their favourite channels from around the world at one low price,” a press release says.
The toober app is currently available in Canada on Rogers, Shaw, Videotron, Apple TV and Google TV Playstore. It will launch globally…
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QUEBECOR PRESIDENT AND CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau released a statement yesterday criticizing an opinion piece published in the Globe and Mail last week, which itself criticized the pending merger of Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications generally and the sale of Freedom Mobile to Quebecor as a remedy for competition-related concerns about the merger specifically.
The opinion piece was written by Centre for International Governance Innovation fellow Keldon Bester (who co-founded the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project) and Carleton University PhD candidate and consultant Ben Klass in the wake of the nationwide Rogers outage earlier this month.
Péladeau is calling three…
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THE LEAD PARAGRAPH in your July 14th story on the success of Blue Ant in global markets begins:
“A CONSTANT REFRAIN from Canadian broadcasters is they do not have the heft to battle U.S.-originating streaming services, and so need protectionist relief from the feds to survive a post-cable, border-straddling future.”
I can’t say I have ever heard Canadian broadcasters say they need protectionist relief or else they can’t expand into global markets. In fact I expect Corus and Videotron would hotly deny that (while asking for less regulation) while Bell and Rogers would say the same thing, but perhaps in more diplomatic language.
On…
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