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Toronto is furious after waking up to a massive Rogers and Fido phone outage

A widespread service outage on the Rogers network has people all over Canada freaking out this morning as they try to do literally anything without cell phone or internet access.

Customers of both Rogers and its subsidiary Fido first started reporting problems with connectivity just after midnight on Monday morning.

"Some wireless customers are experiencing an intermittent service interruption for wireless voice and data services," said the Big 3 telecom in a statement issued via Twitter around 8 a.m., roughly eight hours after the first complaints started rolling in.

"Our team is working quickly to restore services as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and will continue to provide regular updates."

While the exact number of customers experiencing issues has not been revealed by Rogers, online reports suggest that "some" is not quite an accurate estimate. 

The website downdetector.ca, which tracks service outage reports in real time, was showing nearly 13,000 active complaints related to the Rogers situation as of 8:30 a.m.

About half of complaints are currently classified under the category "mobile phone," while another 35 per cent pertain to mobile internet. Some 13 per cent of customers indicated that they had no mobile network or reception at all.

The wireless juggernaut's own customer service forum has listed the outage location as "Canada Wide" and says that affected services include both wireless voice and wireless data.

Rogers itself did not immediately reply to a request for comment, but customer service reps for the company have been replying to complaints on Twitter all morning to say that "our team is working quickly to restore services as soon as possible."

"We apologize for the inconvenience and will continue to provide regular updates here," reads one version of the canned response. "Our technical teams have already been engaged and full service will be restored as soon as possible."

Vague as the official company statements may be, customers seem to be having more success getting in touch with Rogers via Twitter than they are by phone.

People are reporting wait times of up to three hours for the Rogers customer service hotline and are growing increasingly frustrated as the outage drags on.

On a normal day, this would be bad. On a Monday morning in the middle of a pandemic while stay-at-home orders are in effect and most people are working remotely... well, it's a bit of a disaster.

"Hey Rogers, I don't know why I pay $700+ a month for all my services. And this happens," complained one Twitter user. "Thanks for letting me get work done today!"

"I haven't been able to call, text or use data since midnight. With no 'breaks'. That's not intermittent. That's a chronic outage," wrote another.

"I predict Rogers is gonna lose a lot of money today."

Like Rogers, Fido says that it is aware of the outage and working to resolve it as soon as possible.

People aren't only ticked off about the outage, but about a lack of communications from the ISP and wireless provider — especially in light of how quick Rogers is to follow up on such things as overdue bills and missed payments."

"Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, I have Rogers and they have been down for over 10 hours however when billing time comes, they be sure to collect!" joked one Twitter user.

"I find it funny how y'all quick to take extra $$ from us when we're a day late, but your service can just be down today," wrote another. "Better see some compensation on my bill."

Even local police services are turning to social media with information about the Rogers outage, warning citizens that calls to 911 are tricky right now.

"Peel Regional Police wants to notify our community that Rogers cellphone service is currently dealing with a Canada-wide outage," reads a statement issued by PRP on Monday morning.

"We want to inform everyone that if you call 9-1-1 and hang up, our communicators are unable to call back, so please stay on the line."

"Hamilton, Rogers cellphone service is currently dealing with a Canada-wide outage. If you call 9-1-1, PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE," wrote police in Hamilton similarly.

"Rogers customers are able to call 9-1-1, however are not able to receive call backs should you hang-up."

Said Rogers in a new statement issued around 11:30 a.m. on Monday amid mounting outrage: "Especially during these times, we know how important it is to stay connected. For those experiencing outages, we are working hard to get your services back up and running ASAP. We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience."




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