Canada urges Rogers Communications to compensate customers for massive outage

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said he told telecom operator Rogers Communications to compensate its customers for a massive recent outage it blamed on a router malfunction after maintenance work.

The minister added he has directed telecom companies to assist each other during outages and develop communication protocol to better inform Canadians and authorities during emergencies.

The Rogers network outage disrupted nearly every aspect of daily life, cutting banking, transport and government access for millions, and hitting the country’s cashless payments system and Air Canada’s call center.

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Chris Reese)