Rogers plans to build a $250 million “always on” network as a precaution against future outages, company CEO Tony Staffieri told the House of Commons Industry and Technology committee on Monday (via Global News).
In the wake of the network outage earlier this month that left millions of Canadians without cellphone and internet service, Rogers has vowed to safeguard its network against such disruptions. The company has also said it plans to spend $10 billion over the next three years to make its network more reliable.
More immediately, Rogers will introduce redundancy to its back-end infrastructure by splitting up its wireline and wireless core networks.
“To be frank, this added layer of protection will be expensive. We estimate it will cost at least a quarter of a billion dollars, but we know it is the right thing to do,” Staffieri testified before the committee.
Rogers’s July 8 network outage crippled telephone and cellphone service, prevented subscribers from dialling 9-1-1, and even affected the INTERAC banking network. “On that day, we failed to deliver on our promise to be Canada’s most reliable network,” Staffieri said.
During the same hearing, the Rogers CEO insisted that Canadians have “alternatives and choice” and that the outage lasted “little less than a day.”
According to recently publicized documents, Rogers has told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that a simple code error was responsible for the entire debacle. A bit of code pushed during a planned upgrade deleted a critical data filter, causing a cascade of issues that ultimately resulted in a network-wide outage.
CRTC chair Ian Scott was also in attendance at Monday’s committee hearing. The NDP’s Brian Masse asked Scott what penalties Rogers could potentially be looking at in the conclusion of the watchdog’s own investigation of the incident.
Scott said the CRTC could levy several monetary penalties on Rogers as part of its verdict, but added that such penalties are designed to ensure compliance with regulations and not as “punitive” actions. The regulator can also issue a variety of orders to operators.
Scott added that he has not reviewed the entirety of Rogers’ response to the CRTC’s probe yet, so it was premature to talk about its outcome.
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne has ordered Rogers, Bell, and Telus to create a network safety plan, which would include resource pooling and emergency roaming services for users, by September.
One MP also asked Staffieri if he or anyone else from Rogers’s board of directors would lose their job over the outage.
“I’m accountable to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” the Rogers CEO said. Rogers last week replaced its chief technology officer, Jorge Fernandes, with Ron McKenzie, former president of Rogers for Business.
The industry committee’s inquisition into the network breakdown isn’t over yet. Executives from Rogers will appear before the House of Commons for at least one more hearing before the end of the month.
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I don’t need to know the cost of the redundancy. It should have been in place since forever. And this should be the cost of staying in business, not passed to consumers.
Absolutely!
With their track record, there’s likely another outage when splitting the wireline and wireless networks.
They can take $250 million out of their executive bonus fund and the execs will STILL get bonuses.
Well, honestly, since you know yourself that you failed to keep your promise of being “Canada’s most reliable network”, the right thing to do Mr. Staffieri, is to provide free service, and pull all those profits you stole from Canadians out of your aass and use THAT to build a network that can stand on its own two feet.
But we know you won’t do that, now, would you?
THIS is how we know you’re full of fukcing shtit!
Let me help you with the math: that’s 2$/month per mobile subscriber Tony. Problem solved, ARPU goes up, profit stays flat, you get to keep your job.
Kinda like the a restaurant listing how much it costs them to wash their dishes isn’t it?
Like ok, this is the business you’re in, what exactly is the point you’re making here?
Other networks do not go down like Rogers. Do they have a “aways on network” too? If other networks can stay up, Rogers need to do the same or this CEO need to go.
“To be frank, this added layer of protection will be expensive” lol
To be frank, having a redundant system to fall back on is a pretty basic requirement for a tech company. Especially one that affects emergency services like 911 if it goes down!
And he’s complaining that it will be expensive?!?! Has he seen the rates he’s been charging us? Pretty sure they have the money to do this.
But, of course, the translation is he’ll be raising prices. Again. As usual.
It’s already expensive, so how come we don’t already have it?
We need to get rid of this clown and so many others. Surely the prices we’re paying justify, you know, at least 1 billion in that department. Such a basic requirement being ignored is laughable but not at all surprising.
So how much my bill increase next year?
Wouldn’t us be possible for the “Always On” Network to only be activated once the Primary network falls, disrupting service only the amount of time it takes for the handoff, mitigating over usage of an expensive service?
This is a solid backup, but in my mind deployed to also drive up costs, as there’s no way they Aren’t going to shift the cost to us users.
People would literally die during the handoff time.
I want to see criminal negligence charges brought over this. It never should have happened, was easily preventable with even the smallest due diligence and industry best practices, and it had a massive impact on people like me who aren’t even Rogers customers.
do it for $100 million or get your company nationalized. problem solved.
F**k Rogers. Monopolies are killing Canada. My Rogers ignite service has been out since July 6th. 7 technicians have come to my house. Each one having no idea what the other has done. I still have no service and my Rogers bill is $485 a month. They don’t care because they know there are no other services in my area. Filed a formal complaint with CCTS but don’t expect any action. It’s unbelievable what they are allowed to get away with.