Rogers is Back!

 Saturday July 9 2022

I know I’m not alone in this thinking, but just how dependent have we become on being ‘connected’? The massive Canada-wide Rogers outage of July 8 2022 has driven the point home.

Double that with our lack of available cash – and having ATM machines down as well -what do you have?

For 24 hours I was without internet, but also cell phone usage including text messaging.

If I’d been working from home I wouldn’t have been able to work, and not even been able to call into work to explain. Total loss of internet, phone and text capabilities.

Unable to access bank accounts, cash only at most retail establishments. Thinking of a friend scheduled to fly – how can you check flight status if your cell phone depends on Rogers. Oh, you have a landline? Great – but what does the other end of that call depend upon?

Thank goodness for the small transistor radio in the house, so at least we had access to the limited updates which were available.

And before you think, well, I have Bell, or another internet provider and am not affected. Are you sure about that? What if the business or service you need to connect with runs on the Rogers network, or that email you sent and are anxiously awaiting a reply to, was sent to a user on the Rogers network. The ripple effects reach far and wide.

Would love to hear how your life was impacted - please leave a comment.

Personally, as one half of Jamie Tremain, and with various writing projects on the go, I depend on the internet to keep in touch with my writing partner, but also for research and for writing. We’ve always used Google Drive in order to work collaboratively, but that’s not happening when the network crashes.

But for me, I think it’s being without phone access that is most worrisome. If I were disabled, living alone, and dependent on a cell phone for outside contact... It’s not my reality, yet, but I’m sure it has been today for far too many.

It’s made my husband and I reconsider the idea of not having a landline. Our biggest complaint today? Waiting on deliveries. Being in a highrise, means the drivers either try to call or use the lobby access code – which connects to our cell phone!  Fortunately, we have a view of the parking lot and half an hour ago, saw CanPar pull up in front of the building.  My husband took the elevator down and was in time to be handed the package we’d been waiting for. Perhaps if ‘porch pirating’ wasn’t so epidemic this wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But we’ve lost packages within minutes of them being delivered. First thing I wanted to do Friday morning was check on the status of supplies shipped via Purolator – not sure if its Friday or Saturday for delivery day! Once this is posted, I have to sift through the tsunami of email I now have to find tracking information!

I’m not a news junkie – in fact I tend to avoid it because of its relentless oppressive diet of doom and gloom, but I really felt out of the loop during this unprepared for cut-off.

Finally at 6:30 a.m. July 9, I was back in contact. First thing was to check how the disruption affected life and business. Truly a wake up call as the disruption impacted online payment systems across the country. If Rogers didn’t have a backup plan for such an event they darn well better get their eyes on one now. Even using 911 for emergency calls was not a sure thing!

As in the days when Bell Telephone had the monopoly on telephone usage, so too, Rogers, Bell and a handful of other internet providers have too much control. Another beef of mine over the years. We need more competition and hey, perhaps costs of these services would be more reasonable as well.

So much more I could say, but I have email to check!

Cheers!

Liz