Rogers executives try to quell anger over outage during committee appearance

Rogers Communications Inc. CEOTony Staffieri attempted tosoothe publicanger over his company'smassive network outage earlier this month during aMonday appearance before aparliamentary committeebut still faced some pointedquestions fromMPs.

On the morning of July 8, the entireRogers network cable television,internet and wireless telephoneservices went downand stayed downfor much of the day while the company scrambled to figure out what happened.

The outage triggered a series of seemingly unrelated systems failuresbeyond the company itself, leavingdebit payments, 911 services andgovernment servicesunavailable to Rogerscustomersfor much of the day.

"As Rogers' CEO, I'm accountable for the outage," Staffieri said told MPs on Monday."On that day, we failed to deliver on our promise to be Canada's most reliable network."

The companysaid at the time that the outage was caused by a software update gone wrong, which then cascaded into a massive chain reaction that took down the entire system.

Rogers' newly minted chief technology officer Ron McKenzie went into more details with MPs,saying the updatecaused an unexpected reaction from certain equipment that began to push high amounts of traffic toward the "core network."

"The core of the network you can think of as the brain of the network that controls all access of flow of information and flow of connectivity for all services," McKenzie said. When the core became "flooded" it shut down, he said.

WATCH|Here's what regular Canadians told us about the outage on the day:

Major Rogers outage hits businesses, customers across Canada

2 years ago

Duration 1:45

Rogers customers were caught off guard by Friday's massive outage involving both mobile and internet networks, which also caused widespread disruption for banks, businesses and some emergency services across Canada.

Staffieri repeatedto MPs what the company said on Sunday when itreleased more details of what it plans to doin response to the outage.

Rogers says it wants to ensurethat911 calls switch automatically to other carriers during an outage, separate its wireless and cable systems so that an outage affecting one system doesn't affect the other, and spend $10 billion to strengthen its networks.

Staffieri still had to field sometough questions from MPs. Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith pushed the Rogers CEO on the lack of competition in the Canadian telecom market. Staffieri disputed that point, saying Canadians have "alternativeand choice."

WATCH | Rogers CEO called to task for massive outage:

Rogers CEO grilled about network outage

2 years ago

Duration 2:03

For the first time, Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri faced questions from MPs about his company's country-wide network failure, and whether the lack of competition in the telecom industry made it worse.

"You're saying that with a straight face?" Erskine-Smith shot back at Staffieribefore moving to other questions.

Conservative MP Tracy Graypressed Staffieri to describetheprotocolsin place to ensure 911 and other emergency services can still operate during an outage.

Staffierisaid911 calls are supposedto be directed to other networks duringan outage. He attributed the failure to redirect those callsduringthe recent outage to "very specific technical reasons," which he did not explain.

Staffieri said Rogers consideredoptions to restore911 serviceduring the outage.Gray took that to mean the company did nothave aplan to maintainemergency services.

"It sounds like while you were considering different options that there weren't strict protocols actually in place considering what happened, so that's not overly reassuring to the public," she said.

Minister says he 'demanded' plan from industry

Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Franois-Philippe Champagne took questions from MPs before Staffieri's appearance.

Champagne insistedthat, during a meeting earlier this month,he"demanded" that Rogers and other telecom companiescome up with a plan for mitigating the impacts of future outages on consumers.

NDP MP Brian Masse pushed Champagne to do more, arguing that Canada's current legislation includeslittle in the way ofpenalties for companies.

"What is the government doing to actually restore this as an essential service and put some legislative teeth behind this issue?" Masse asked the minister.

Champagne said that his request ofthe telecoms was just an "initial step." He didn'tsay if the government is pursuing newrules or regulations.

Masse latergrilled Staffieri over the plan requestedby the minister, suggesting it implieda lack of transparency.

"So we have to rely on private meetings amongst the CEOs and boards and private meetings with the minister to find a solution? Is that really what's being presented here?" Masse asked.

Staffieri said that Rogers has been "as transparent as [it] can be" since the outage.

Outage mayknock out Shaw merger, too

The hearings come against the backdrop of Rogers trying to finalize its $27-billion takeover of Calgary-based Shaw in a deal that would make Canada's concentrated telecom industry even more top-heavy.

Rogers pitched the merger more than a year ago and the marriage already has proven to be harder to get to the altar than anticipated.

About a month after the merger plan was announced last year, Rogers' wireless network went down across most of the country for about a day, irking customers and raising questions about whether it's in Canadians' best interest to allow Rogers to buy up Shaw, the owner of Freedom Mobile, which is a distant fourth in Canada's wireless industry.

Last year, the CRTC signed off on allowing Rogers to buy Shaw's broadcasting assets, but much of the focus has been on the wireless side of the business. Rogers seemingly solved that problem when it announced a deal to sell the wireless business to Quebec-based Quebecor, but hurdles remain.

The company set a self-imposed deadline of July 15 to finalize the sale of Freedom to Quebecor,but that day came and went with no update from anyone involved. With regards to the entire Shaw deal, Rogers earlier this year set a revised date of July 31 to finalize the merger, and doubts are mounting as that day nears.

Investors certainly don't seem to think it's a done deal.Shaw shares were trading for about $35 a share on Friday well below the more than $40 Rogers has pledged to pay for the company.

Securing the OK for the merger from Canada's competition watchdog, the Competition Bureau, is proving to be the highest hurdle of all.

In May, the Competition Bureau filed an injunction seeking to stop the merger until it can decide whether it would be bad for consumers. Rogers and Shaw agreed to talks with the regulator, but evenbefore the outage, they expressed concerns that those talks were going nowhere.