Canada’s Rogers Communications Restores Wireless, Internet Service

Rogers said Saturday afternoon that technical teams were monitoring for remaining intermittent issues. Canada’s Interac system, a not-for-profit electronic network that operates a national debit network and handles on average 18 million transactions a day, said its services were now widely available. On Friday, it said debit-card transactions online and at checkout counters weren’t available, and certain electronic payments—such as transferring money from one bank account to another—also couldn’t be executed.

Some retailers on Friday either required customers to pay strictly with cash, or they closed operations.

Rogers Chief Executive

Tony Staffieri

issued an apology to its over 12 million wireless and home internet customers for the outage. Rogers “let you down. We can and will do better,” he said.

In an update sent Saturday afternoon, Mr. Staffieri said the outage was due to a network-system failure following a maintenance update, which he said caused some of the company’s routers to malfunction starting early Friday morning.

The CEO said the company made the decision to disconnect certain equipment and redirect internet traffic, “which allowed our network and service to come back online over time.”

Mr. Staffieri added: “We know how much our customers rely on our networks and I sincerely apologize. … I take full responsibility for ensuring we at Rogers earn back your full trust.”

The company’s disclosure confirms findings from Canadian security officials, who on Friday said there was no evidence to suggest the Rogers outage was due to a cyberattack.

According to corporate filings, Rogers has about 10 million wireless phone customers and more than two million clients who subscribe to its high-speed internet service.

Write to Paul Vieira at [email protected]