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Damage to fibre optic lines caused by thieves trying to steal copper wire left has some Rogers customers in southeast and southwest Calgary without home phone, internet and TV services.
Rogers said six crews were on site as of Monday afternoon, with more than 20 technicians working to repair the damage, but that service won’t be fully restored until 9 a.m. Tuesday.
The company told CBC News that the network outage began just before 3 a.m. Monday. Rogers said it is working with Calgary police on the incident.
“Like other providers, we’re seeing a troubling rise in vandalism and attempted theft to our network infrastructure across the country, causing service interruptions and affecting Canadians who rely on our networks to stay connected,” Rogers said in a statement.
Rogers says outages caused by vandalism, including attempted copper theft, can be very complex to fix, requiring fibre splicing, which is very specialized and detailed work.
Outage ‘drastically impacts’ Calgary businesses
Many businesses and organizations around the city were hit by the outage, including the Calgary Board of Education. Its website was down on Monday, which it said was due to an unplanned technical outage resulting from an issue with its service provider, Rogers.
Rick Barr, general manager at Straightline Kia in southeast Calgary’s Glendeer Business Park, says the outage “drastically impacts the business.”
Barr says the dealership’s phone lines are completely off, which prevents customers from calling in to get updates on their vehicles and makes it difficult for staff to notify clients if their vehicles are ready or delayed.
He said staff have to use their personal cellphones to call and update customers, and they have resorted to posting on social media to explain why they are not responding to calls.
“We’re working off our hotspots on our cellphones just to even get by, but we can’t print anything, we can’t take any deposits,” he said.
Paul Hunter at Martindale Physiotherapy says being unable to receive phone calls or access the clinic email has also taken a toll on that business.
“We’re kind of getting through right now, but each of the physiotherapists and our office manager are having to tether their laptops to their phones and having to do their charting and get all their information that way,” he said.