Rogers outage affects banks, others

This was the second significant outage to afflict one of the main telecom companies in the nation in the past 15 months, and it had a significant impact on banks, police emergency lines, and customers across Canada on Friday.

As customers flocked to coffee shops and public libraries to access alternative networks, banking institutions reported issues with everything from automated equipment to cashless payment systems.

“We are currently experiencing an outage across our wireline and wireless networks and our technical teams are working hard to restore services as quickly as possible,” Rogers said in a statement.

The outage is probably going to increase worries about Rogers’ dominance of the market and the lack of competition. The firm, which has 2.25 million retail internet subscribers and about 10 million cellular subscribers, is the top service provider in Ontario and, along with Telus and BCE, dominates 90% of the Canadian market.

The Canadian Competition Bureau earlier this year rejected Rogers’ bid to acquire Shaw Communications in a C$20 billion transaction, claiming that it would limit competition in a nation where telecom rates are among the highest in the world.