The CRTC is asking for details on Rogers’ plans to separate wireless and wireline networks, among other questions
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has asked Rogers to provide more information regarding the July 8th outage.
In a letter dated August 5th, the CRTC said more information is needed “for the Commission to assess this situation.”
The CRTC sent the Toronto-based telecom company initial questions following the outage last month. Rogers responded with a heavily redacted document that kept various details hidden from the public.
Since then, Rogers has vowed to separate its wireline and wireless networks to prevent all services from going down at the same time in the future.
Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri told the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology the process will cost $250 million, and the CRTC wants Rogers to provide information on how they got to this figure.
The commission is requesting a cost breakdown of the $250 million, details of implementation timelines and how separating networks will improve resilience. The CRTC is also asking for similar details regarding Roger’s plans to invest $10 billion in Artificial Intelligence and further testing and oversight.
Additionally, Rogers has to provide details on the direct economic losses of the outage and confirmation if residential and small business customers receive the credit the company promised. Rogers pledged to credit customers for five days of service, a move that’s estimated to cost $150 million.
Rogers is also asked to provide information on reports of network issues prior to the nationwide outage. Furthermore, the company has to answer questions related to 911 services and emergency alerting.
The CRTC initially asked Rogers to answer these questions by August 15th. However, the company has asked for the deadline to be extended by a week to August 22nd.
The CRTC said it’s still making a decision on PIAC’s request to make Rogers’ initial answers to the CRTC public.
“[Rogers] response has excessively redacted critical information that the public requires to understand what occurred during the outage and how Rogers plans to mitigate future risks and harms,” the PIAC said in its request.
Source: CRTC
