Customers were angered by last Friday's service failure.
Rogers Communications Inc.'s corporate campus is located in Toronto.
The photo is from the National Post.
Rogers is facing a daunting set of challenges as it tries to navigate the aftermath of last Friday's massive service outage, which has angered customers and brought intense scrutiny from regulators and politicians just as a July 31 deadline to complete its $26-billion merger with rival Shaw Communications Inc looms.
The sale of Shaw's Freedom Mobile to Quebecor was supposed to be completed by Friday, but was delayed due to the Competition Bureau's objections.
The negotiations of the definitive transaction documents are progressing as expected, and the parties will give an update in due course, according to a Rogers spokesman.
During the summer parliamentary break, the House of Commons standing committee on Industry and Technology will hold a special meeting to look into the Rogers outage. Rogers said it was committed to improving network resilience.
We will make every change and investment necessary to make sure it doesn't happen again, and we understand how frustrating it was for Canadians.
Rogers has another week to get answers from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission about what happened and what it must do to avoid a repeat of the outage.
Richard Leblanc is a professor of governance, law and ethics at York University.
Edward Rogers is the Chairman of Rogers Communications Inc.
The photo was taken by the Canadian Press.
The situation is critical enough for him to call for a statement from Edward Rogers, the company's controlling shareholder, who was involved in a family fight that led to a court battle.
Leblanc said that the messaging would go a long way to restore faith and confidence in the company. There needs to be a public commitment to enhance governance, strengthen crisis management, and provide adequate compensation for customers.
Mark Goldberg, a veteran telecommunication consultant, said the intense regulatory and government scrutiny, which comes amid the competition watchdog's challenge of the Shaw merger and an ongoing push by the federal government to increase competition and lower consumer prices in wireless services, reminded him of a quote from a former senior
He said that nothing changes the profitability of a telecom company quicker than the stroke of a pen.
Rogers has a role to play in facilitating emergency calls in the wake of the network failure.
She said that the former would be a bigger concern due to the Commission's requirements.
A person uses their cell phone to navigate to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's website.
The photo was taken by the Canadian Press.
Rogers has until July 22 to tell the CRTC how many calls couldn't be made because of the service interruption, broken down by province and platform, and how Rogers prioritized restoring alerting capabilities on its network.
The number of public alert that did not reach Rogers customers is one of the things the regulators want to know.
Rogers has to tell the regulators how it arrived at the level of compensation it is planning for customers. The regulator wanted to know if there would be a distinction between residential and business customers.
In a letter to Rogers, Gilfillan said that events of this magnitude paralyzing sectors of our country's economy and jeopardizing the safety of millions of Canadians for several hours or days are simply unacceptable.
Comprehensive information is needed in order for the Commission and Canadians to understand what happened prior to, during, and after the national service outage. It's important that we understand what's being done to prevent future disruptions.
Rogers was directed by Gilfillan to "disclose information on the public record to the fullest extent possible" because of the "immense public interest in understanding what happened."
The initial costs to Rogers were thought to be $65 million to $75 million, but that was based on two days' compensation, not five. Some customers are going to Churn as they are frustrated by the Rogers outage and others are going to unbundle some of their services to prevent the full loss of internet.
There is a sign on a storefront.
There is a photo by the Canadian Press.
Interac Corp., which manages several networks that power a large share of electronic payments and cash withdrawals across Canada, said it is planning to add supplier diversity.
Lauren Mostowyk said this would strengthen existing network redundant so Canadians can continue to rely on their services.
According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, some small businesses lost thousands of dollars because they couldn't process online orders, use food delivery apps, or use debit transactions because they relied on the Rogers network.
Even if the month-end merger deadline is extended, Kaan Yigit, president of Toronto-based consultant Solutions Research Group, said Rogers is facing an "uncomfortable amount of scrutiny."
Yigit said that decision-makers will look more broadly and include an assessment of what blocking the deal would mean for Shaw customers.
Shaw's management and owners decided before the sale of the company to Rogers last year that it was not economically feasible to continue as a stand-alone company. Shaw and its customers would be in a state of uncertainty as a result of the Rogers deal being blocked.
There are no easy decisions to make here.
Bshecter@nationalpost.com is the email address.
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