Phone services disrupted across B.C., but emergency calls still working

Cellphone services for manyBritish Columbians across the province, including local community services and RCMP non-emergency lines, were down for muchof the day on Saturday and into Sunday.

Cellphoneservices, including LTE connection and calls, were interrupted across B.C. for customers with a number of different carriers, including Rogers, Telus, Bell and Fido.

Rogers Communications said a landslidedamaged a fibre cableand caused the outage. Other carriers said they do not have specific details about what happened.

Into Sunday, Bell Canada was still experiencing disruptions with no estimated time of repairs. Issues include no service, disruptionsplacing and receiving calls, and dropped calls.

B.C.'s 911 service says emergency calls from all carriers are getting through, but itadvisespeople to use landlineswhen possible. The non-emergency line to some B.C. RCMP detachments and to the Metro Vancouver Transit Police were impacted.

Several municipalities in the Lower Mainland arereportingproblems with their landlines and askingpeople to be in touch over email, instead.

Rogers Communications'customers reported issues with the cellularnetwork across B.C., Alberta,Saskatchewan and Manitoba throughout the afternoon. Service with the carrier was restoredmid-afternoon Saturday, a spokesperson with Rogers said.

Commercial internetremaineddown in the evening, impacting some organizationsincluding the CBC News bureaus.