The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is ordering Rogers to explain in detail what caused last week’s network outage, how it affected emergency services and what the company plans to do to compensate customers.
In a letter addressed to Ted Woodhead, Rogers’ senior vice president of regulatory affairs, the CRTC chided Rogers for not being fully transparent with its customers.
“In the first several hours of the outage, it became clear that Rogers was either unable to reassure, or ineffective in reassuring, its customers and providing critical information about what to expect,” the letter reads.
Rogers has yet to explain in detail what caused the outage. Company CEO Tony Staffieri released a statement Saturday blaming a network system failure following a maintenance update. He didn’t provide further details.
The CRTC listed dozens of questions it wants Rogers to answer. Among other things, it wants Rogers to explain the root cause of the outage and how they plan to honour Staffieri’s promise to proactively credit customers’ accounts.
The company has until July 22 to respond to the CRTC’s questions, the letter says.
On Monday, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne convened a meeting of telecom CEOs — including Staffieri — to develop a plan to blunt the impact of future outages on consumers.
“I wanted to make sure that in no uncertain terms they understand how Canadians found the situation unacceptable and they need to take immediate initial steps to improve the resiliency of our network in Canada,” Champagne told reporters after the meeting.
The CRTC letter says that a number of customers have contacted the commission to complain, and some have even asked for a public inquiry. The letter didn’t rule out a full inquiry but said the company providing answers would be “an initial step.”
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