Rogers Outage Hits Waterloo and St. Jacobs After Reported Vandalism

Rogers customers in Waterloo and St. Jacobs, Ontario, lost TV, internet and home phone service on Saturday, September 26, after a fibre line was intentionally damaged in what the company linked to vandalism. The outage is the latest in a series of incidents affecting Canadian telecommunications infrastructure.

According to CTV News, the fibre line was cut just before midnight by vandals, causing service disruptions across parts of the two communities. Rogers said customers began reconnecting around 10 a.m. Saturday, with services fully restored by mid-afternoon.

The company said it is working with local police following the incident and noted it has seen “a troubling rise in vandalism to our network infrastructure across the country.” CTV News reported it contacted Waterloo Regional Police to ask about any related investigation.

The Waterloo outage follows a similar fibre sabotage in Cambridge, Ontario, last October. At the time, the company said it was the 15th vandalism-related outage that year across the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge and Guelph region, occurring four to five times more often than in 2022.

Other Canadian carriers have also reported increasing damage to their networks. Bell said it recorded 993 copper thefts by the middle of 2026, representing a 78 percent increase, with 88 percent of its physical security incidents involving copper theft. Telus experienced a major outage across northern B.C. in August 2026 after cable theft.

Telecoms have been adding new security measures in response. Bell has been installing silent alarms on lines, increasing security patrols, working with metal recyclers to identify stolen wire and taking legal action against thieves. The company previously won $24,000 in damages from a Quebec copper thief. Telus has also been removing unused copper infrastructure, with more than 4,000 tonnes pulled from the ground to reduce the incentive for theft.

The federal government introduced Bill C-14 in October 2025 to make copper theft and vandalism targeting telecom infrastructure aggravating factors during sentencing, which could lead to tougher penalties. Robert Ghiz of the Canadian Telecommunications Association welcomed the legislation, saying vandalism against critical infrastructure is a serious crime.

But even with this legislation in place, vandalism hasn’t stopped. Besides targeting telecoms, thieves are also cutting charging cables at EV charging stations for the copper inside.