Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri penned another letter to Canadians on Wednesday attempting to explain the company’s devastating nationwide network outage last week.
“Our network outage last Friday was unacceptable. Simply put, we failed on our promise to be Canada’s most reliable network,” said the Rogers CEO.
“This outage caused real pain and significant frustration for everyone. Canadians were not able to reach their families. Businesses were unable to complete transactions. And critically, emergency and essential calls could not be completed,” said Staffieri.
“No one – not our customers, our governments, and not us – is anywhere close to finding what happened acceptable. Now we have to make things right,” expressed the CEO.
Staffieri detailed, “Our network is fully operational to the standards you have come to expect. Our customer service representatives are working around the clock and have caught up on the backlog of issues. We have also increased the credit on all our customers’ bills, as some of you experienced longer delays in resuming services.”
Rogers is now offering 5 days of credits instead of two as originally announced.
“In speaking to many of you, it is clear that what matters most is that we ensure this doesn’t happen again. You have my personal commitment that Rogers will make every change and investment needed to help ensure that it will not happen again,” said Staffieri.
“As well, working with governments and our industry, we will implement what is needed to ensure that 911 and essential services can continue, no matter what outage may occur,” wrote Staffieri.
Shane Eby says his aunt in downtown Hamilton was unwell on Friday, and his father didn’t have a cellphone. He asked strangers to call 911 but nobody had a Rogers signal. His aunt later died in hospital.
“I understand that it is only through our actions, and with time, that we can restore your confidence in us. We can and will do better,” concluded Staffieri.
The federal government has ordered Rogers, along with Telus and Bell, to come up with a network safety plan in 60 days. The CRTC has also ordered Rogers to answer questions about the outage within 10 days.
The Rogers network outage lasted well over a day, shutting down the entire INTERAC network, some 911 services, while taking down cellphone and internet services for consumers and businesses, including those of Fido, Chatr and wholesale resellers of the company’s internet, such as TekSavvy.
