On July 8, 2022, a failure inside the Rogers network cut service to more than 12 million mobile and internet customers across Canada. Some customers were without service for upwards of 15 hours. The outage also disrupted Interac payments and affected health care and law enforcement services, as Global News reported after the federal regulator released its review.
The network came back. The communication questions it raised took years to work through, and they apply to any organization that runs a service people depend on. Municipalities, utilities and infrastructure owners all face a version of the same test: when your service stops, how quickly can you tell people what happened and what to do next?
Service fails nationwide. Rogers posts that it is aware of issues affecting its networks. Interac debit and e-Transfer go down for many Canadians.
Police services advise Rogers users to find a landline or another carrier to call 911. The CEO issues an apology and says the company is still working to understand the root cause.
The federal Minister of Innovation directs major carriers to agree on mutual assistance, emergency roaming and a protocol for informing the public and authorities during outages.
Rogers raises its customer credit from two days of service to five days of service.
Carriers sign a memorandum of understanding on emergency roaming, mutual assistance and communications protocols.
The CRTC publishes a summary of an independent review of the outage and its causes.
Sources: CBC News, Rogers, The Wire Report, Daily Hive, Rogers MOU statement, CRTC
What Went Wrong Inside the Network
According to the summary of the independent review, staff removed a filter during a router configuration update. That change flooded the core network with traffic. The company's change management process did not flag the error before it went live.
The review also found that staff relied on Rogers' own networks to communicate with each other. When those networks failed, the people working to restore service lost their main way of coordinating. It took about 14 hours to pinpoint the root cause.
When the network went down, the team responsible for fixing it lost the tools it used to talk to each other.
This detail matters for any organization with a crisis plan. A communication plan that depends on the system in trouble will fail at the moment it is needed. Backup channels for internal coordination are part of the plan, and they need to be tested before an incident.
We help organizations build crisis communication plans with backup channels and approved holding statements before an incident happens.
Explore Crisis CommunicationsWhere Public Communication Fell Short
In the first hours, the public heard that Rogers was aware of an issue. There was no cause and no estimate for restoration. People could not tell whether to wait, switch to another device or find another way to reach emergency services. CBC reported that Winnipeg police told Rogers users to find a landline if they needed to call 911. Local police services stepped in with their own guidance.
Emergency alerts were affected too. In Saskatchewan, devices on the Rogers network missed up to four public alerts, including one from the RCMP and three tornado warnings. Our post on how emergency alerting evolved in Canada looks at why alert reliability depends on the networks behind it.
The compensation message also shifted. The CEO's July 8 statement promised an automatic credit with details to follow. A two-day credit was announced first, and on July 12 it was raised to five days of service. Each change meant another announcement to customers who were already frustrated.
Accessibility was raised as well. On the day of the outage, a coalition representing Deaf and hard of hearing Canadians joined the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in asking the CRTC for an inquiry. People who rely on text and data services to communicate had fewer ways to get information or call for help.
A September 2022 memorandum of understanding set out emergency roaming, mutual assistance and a protocol for communicating with the public during major outages.
Since February 2023, telecommunications providers must notify the CRTC within two hours of a major outage.
The CRTC reported that measures taken by Rogers corrected the cause, with a follow-up report from Rogers due by July 4, 2025.
Sources: Rogers, Global News, CRTC
Lessons for Organizations That Run Essential Services
Most organizations will never manage an outage at national scale. Many will manage a water main break, a transit shutdown, a road closure or a system failure that affects thousands of residents. The same principles apply at any size.
Say what you know early, and say what you do not know yet. A first statement can confirm the problem, name who is affected and give a time for the next update. People can plan around a clear update schedule.
Give people an action to take. The most useful guidance during the Rogers outage came from police services telling people how to reach 911. If your service affects safety, your first message should include a safe alternative.
Decide on remedies before you announce them. Compensation, refunds or fee waivers that change after release extend coverage. Agree on the remedy internally and announce it once.
Plan for the loss of your own tools. Identify backup channels for staff and partners that do not depend on the affected system, and test them as part of regular exercises.
Coordinate with partners who will hear from the public. Police, municipalities, health providers and community organizations will field questions during your incident. Sharing accurate information with them early keeps messages consistent. Our post on the cost of miscommunication looks at what happens when partners send mixed messages.
- Who approves the first public statement, and can they do it within the first hour?
- How will staff coordinate if email, phones or internal chat are unavailable?
- Which partners need to hear from us before the public does?
- What safe alternative can we offer people who rely on our service for safety?
- How will we reach residents who depend on text, data or accessible formats?
Is your organization ready to communicate during a service disruption?
We help public and private organizations in Alberta prepare crisis communication plans and train the spokespeople who deliver them.
