rogers outage

Massive Rogers wireless outage causes total chaos in Toronto

A widespread service outage on the Rogers wireless network is proving more than an annoyance for the many customers affected — it's preventing some first responders from doing their jobs.

Toronto firefighters and paramedics told CP24 last night that they'd been experiencing high volumes of dropped 911 calls since the outage first took hold.

Dispatchers had been forced to treat all dropped calls for service as "unknown trouble" due to a lack of details and the inability to call anyone back for context. 

Toronto police and fire services were furthermore unable to communicate with each other by phone, according to CP24, as calls were being dropped as soon as they were answered.

Rogers says that 911 services have since been restored and that emergency calls are now going through.

A representative for the company also confirmed by email on Monday afternoon that "voice services are being restored with a very limited number of customers experiencing intermittent interruption to voice calls."

The troubles began Sunday afternoon when voice calls started dropping en masse for people using Freedom Mobile, Rogers, or its sub-brands Fido and Chatr. 

Internet, data and text services are still working, by all accounts, but as of Monday morning Rogers has yet to get its phone network up and running sufficiently.

"Please be advised some customers may be intermittently experiencing dropped calls or are unable to place or receive calls on their mobile phone or wireless home phone service," reads a note on the company's website.

"We are working diligently to restore services as soon as possible," continues the notice, which lists the outage location as "National." 

"We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience."

Rogers doesn't know what's causing the outage, nor does it have an estimated time of restoration, based on what the telecom is telling customers on Twitter.

And the masses are growing increasingly frustrated as the hours wear on.

"For a multi-million dollar company to have a day-long service outage on a Sunday is unacceptable," wrote one customer on Twitter. "I spend between $400 to $500 a month for cell phone service for multiple lines. I expect compensation for this."

"Without service for past 12h," wrote another. "Now getting annoying as I have critical calls to make."

While the outage does appear to be largely a Rogers network issue, Bell and Telus customers are also reporting dropped calls.

"Some customers may experience calling issues as the result of a service interruption on other carriers' networks," wrote Telus in an update Sunday night. "We are continue to monitor the issue as the providers work to resolve their outage."

Lead photo by

Mitchell Group


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