PIAC, CNOC detail disclosure request on Rogers outage

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has asked the CRTC to mandate that Rogers Communications Inc. reveal more about the details of what led to a nationwide outage across the telecom’s network on July 8. In a Friday letter to the CRTC, PIAC wrote that Rogers’ disclosure “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 – and to make consumer choices based on these answers and otherwise protect their consumer interests.” Chief among the redacted information PIAC is seeking access to is a more detailed timeline of the outage and more transparency on the root causes of the outage, both redacted in Rogers’ filing with the commission. “Disclosure of the detailed outage timeline is important for affected customers of both Rogers and its wholesale customers to corroborate and understand how they were impacted by the outage, and to seek clarification and compensation accordingly,” PIAC wrote. “This will reveal the choices Rogers made and may support conclusions regarding what Rogers chose to prioritize and why and whether those choices appropriately protected consumers rather than, say, coveted enterprise customers.” Information about Rogers’ relationships with third-party telecommunication service providers, PIAC argued, has already been publicly disclosed to a large extent, and thus “its disclosure would not prejudice Rogers’ competitive position.” PIAC pointed to public communications and tweets from TekSavvy Solutions Inc., Shaw Communications Inc.’s Freedom Mobile, Start.ca, and CanNet Telecom, all experiencing subsequent outages based off Rogers’ network. PIAC also requested more information about what critical infrastructure and government services were impacted and how, citing the experience of Service Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, the cities of Ottawa and Toronto, as well as the Interac debit system. In addition to information about what happened during the outage itself, PIAC also requested further disclosure about how Rogers plans to improve its network in the wake of the outage. “Particularly critical to disclose are Rogers’ processes of updating networks and restoring service, as well as Rogers’ plans to improve network resiliency and operations,” the organization wrote. “Though PIAC acknowledges that many technical details of Rogers’ internal processes and plans may be commercially sensitive and security adjacent, it is in the public interest to disclose enough information to provide a general basis on which to determine whether Rogers’ current and future procedures are adequate.” The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC), for its part, also requested a more detailed explanation of the outage, focusing particularly on the company's third-party wholesale customers. "The outage had a devastating impact on Rogers’ wholesale customers, resulting in significant direct monetary costs as well as reputational harm," CNOC wrote. "Wholesale customers should be able to understand what Rogers has told the Commission about the impact of the outage upon their services and end-users so that they may comment upon whether Rogers has accurately described the impact." Like PIAC, CNOC also requested the public disclosure of Rogers' "priority sequence for service restoral," which the cable company filed in confidence with the regulator. CNOC wrote that it "is particularly keen to understand if Rogers treated any of its wholesale services in a less favourable manner than its retail services in terms of service restoration priority," and added that such a treatment would be contrary to the Telecommunications Act. — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

PIAC, CNOC detail disclosure request on Rogers outage

News | August 8, 2022

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PIAC, CNOC detail disclosure request on Rogers outage

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