The massive Rogers Communications outage last Friday, which prevented many Canadians from accessing key services, demonstrates the need for better regulation of the country’s telecommunications sector, experts say.
On Monday, Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne convened a meeting of telecommunications chief executives, including Tony Staffieri of Rogers, to discuss ways to prevent similar service disruptions in the future.
Champagne said he wants to see the companies create a plan within 60 days to mitigate the impact of future outages on consumers, which includes providing emergency roaming.
But experts say the problems facing the industry go beyond a quick fix.
The outage halted basic communication and internet access, halted financial payments and in some cases blocked people from making emergency calls, highlighting the essential role of ISPs.
“The fact that we can have one provider go down and take down so much of our internet really, I think, raises significant questions about how we approach regulating the internet, given that it’s an increasingly critical capacity in our daily lives,” said Fenwick McKelvey, an associate professor of communications at Concordia University in Montreal and an expert on telecommunications policy.
On Monday, Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne called a meeting of telecoms chief executives, including Tony Staffieri of Rogers. Champagne said he wants them to create a plan within 60 days to mitigate future disruptions. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Concentrated ownership
Five companies — Rogers, along with Bell, Shaw, Telus and Videotron — account for 90 percent in the Canadian telecommunications market. (Rogers and Shaw are in the middle of a proposed $26 billion merger, but are facing questions from Competition Bureau.)
Part of the challenge in Canada is that these companies own many of the steps in the supply chain, McKelvey said.
Rogers has control over both the infrastructure and the services provided that use that infrastructure, he said. “You have the same company in the same system responsible for many, many, many parts of the communication supply chain.”
McKelvey suggests turning infrastructure into a public service, which has been done in Australia, and then opening up more competition between companies for mobile phone contracts and other services.
“We’re talking about something that’s so fundamental to the very functioning of society,” McKelvey said. “I think what we’re missing now is an imagination for different ways to administer and manage the Internet.”
Dwayne Winsek, a communications professor at Carleton University in Ottawa and director of the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project, said increased competition among service providers could help lower costs for consumers.
But that alone won’t solve the infrastructure problem that led to the outage, Winsek said. Given the high costs of installing cables and towers, additional competition is unlikely to lead to more reliable networks.
“What you would have is competitors buying the most profitable markets and cutting costs on the margins,” he said. “Into those margins will be the acceptance of higher levels of risk for crashes and so on.”
It is imperative, Winsek said, that the federal government and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) better regulate telecommunications companies.
“We have a small number of players in what we might call a tight oligopolistic market – basically a market with very few players,” he said.
Ottawa needs to be more aggressive, the expert says
Rogers has not yet provided details on the cause of the outage, blaming a network system failure following a maintenance update.
Champagne said the CRTC would launch an investigation into the outage. In a statement released to CBC News on Monday, the independent body did not confirm plans for an investigation.
After Monday’s meeting, Staffieri said he welcomed Champagne’s proposals and added that Rogers would work with other companies to put the plan into action.
“We are united in our commitment to provide strong, reliable wireless and Internet connections that meet the high standards Canadians expect,” Staffieri said in a statement.
WATCH | Rogers outage needs investigation, consumer group says:
Consumer group asks telecoms watchdog for inquiry into Rogers outage
John Lawford, executive director of the Center for Public Interest Advocacy, has asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to conduct an investigation into the nationwide Rogers outage and set new rules for all telecommunications providers.
Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and an expert on Internet regulation, said the first step should be to determine exactly what caused the outage.
The breadth of the impact — from downed Interac machines to blocked 911 calls — shows that many sectors and the federal government were ill-prepared to handle such a situation, Geist said.
The government should introduce standardized compensation and rights for consumers affected by such disruption, he said, as was done with air travel in 2019.
Geist said the next government-appointed CRTC chairman should focus on stricter oversight of the industry. Current chairman Ian Scott’s five-year term is due to end later this year.
“There is frustration with the government that it has been reluctant in recent years to take a concrete, combative approach to telecoms providers,” Geist said.
“I think Canadians will expect the government to take a more aggressive, serious tone, recognizing the seriousness of a situation where you can literally lose connectivity for millions of Canadians.”
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