A freelance BC tech journalist weighed in on Rogers’ massive service failure.
Andy Baryer, former host and producer of GetConnected, Canada’s longest-running tech show, said Rogers’ outage highlights many concerns experts have.
Read more:
Rogers service recovering but key BC services still affected
“It’s been about 24 hours and we still don’t know what the cause was,” Baryer told Global News on Saturday morning.
“On Friday I suspected it was a cyber attack, but that doesn’t seem to be the case (now).”
He continued, “a company called Cloudflare, which manages internet traffic around the world, suspects it’s an internal error.”
Read more:
Rogers says wireless services restored for ‘vast majority’ as blackout drags on
Cloudflare posted on their site saying the same thing.
“Based on what we’re seeing and similar incidents in the past, we believe this is likely an internal error, not a cyberattack,” Cloudflare staff wrote in a blog post.
Baryer said a glitch this big is not only concerning but also puzzling, since protocols are supposed to be in place to prevent a glitch this big.
“These networks are designed with redundancies to ensure something like this doesn’t happen. The fact that it has happened is very, very alarming,” said Barryer.
“This is not seen in other countries and this is the second time in 15 months that the Rogers network has gone down.”
The tech expert said one of the obvious concerns that has been highlighted by the outage is Canada’s dependence on just three big telcos.
“It just shows how unfair it is in Canada that we only have three big trucking companies,” Baryer said.
“We already pay high prices for our internet and cell phone bills and now we have these kinds of service interruptions. It’s bringing back the talk that we’re bringing in a fourth aircraft carrier.”
Compensation for clients has been a big debate online, and Barber said it’s hard to say how much compensation might be on the way.
“That’s going to be an interesting thing, to see how much they compensate their users,” Barryer said.
“Compensation for your clients (is up in the air). They still have to make up for the Canadian economy and all the small businesses that suffered on Friday.”
This disruption has also led to thoughts that the Rogers-Shaw merger may be “dead in the water,” according to Barryer.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.