Key takeaways:
- Industry minister arduous plan to mitigate service disruptions forced by future outages.
- Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry François-Philippe Champagne stated a plan to manage service disruptions during outages would be just a ‘first step.’
Canada’s industry minister states he is calling on Rogers and other telecommunication firms to develop a plan to strengthen the resiliency of Canada’s cellular and internet networks after Friday’s colossal outage left millions offline and impacted some essential services.
On Monday, François-Philippe Champagne called a meeting of telecom CEOs — including Rogers’ Tony Staffieri — to discuss ways to control similar service disruptions in the future.
“I wanted to make sure that in no doubtful terms they understand how Canadians saw the situation unacceptable, and they ought to take prompt initial steps to improve the resiliency of our network in Canada,” he stated.
Rogers has yet to clarify completely what drove the outage. Staffieri released a report Saturday accusing a network system failure following a maintenance update. He didn’t provide further details.
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Champagne said the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) would examine the outage. The autonomous body didn’t approve plans to investigate in a report given to CBC.
Champagne said that, in the meantime, he would like to see the firms forge a plan within 60 days to mitigate the impact of future outages on customers.
That plan, he stated, should secure telecom firms to offer mutual assistance during outages, and no clients are left without access to 911 service. Champagne said he’s also requesting companies to develop a “communications protocol” to keep Canadians reported during such outages.
Champagne said such a plan would be a “first step.” Questioned if new rules or regulations to protect customers are on the horizon, he didn’t exaggerate.
Source – CBC News
