Bell, Telus spar over blame for 40-hour cellphone outage

Winnipeg Free Press

10 hours ago

Bell is pointing the finger back at Telus as the Canadian telecoms fight over which is to blame for a 40-hour outage during which a Manitoba man suffered a fatal heart attack and desperate family members couldn't get through to 911.
In an eight-page letter sent to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on June 27, Bell said the technical failure happened on the Telus side of the 911 cellphone system.
Telus has said publicly and to the CRTC that the problem was due to 'an equipment failure on the Bell facilities' and 'Telus does not know the reason for this failure.'
Philippe Gauvin, Bell's assistant general counsel, disputed that in the letter.
'As Telus knows, that explanation is inaccurate and unsupported by the facts,' he wrote.
'Telus misleadingly portrays a recent 911 outage for its customers in Manitoba as being due to an equipment failure on Bell facilities.'
SUPPLIED
Dean Switzer of Fisher Branch died of a heart attack on March 23, two days before his 56th birthday.
SUPPLIED
Dean Switzer of Fisher Branch died of a heart attack on March 23, two days before his 56th birthday.
Gauvin said Bell is committed to ensuring all parties maintain the highest level of reliability for 911 service and that Canadians have confidence in it.
Dean Switzer, 55, died on March 23, two days before his 56th birthday, while family and friends near Fisher Branch placed 22 calls to 911 — only to receive a message that said 'hang up and call back later.' They frantically performed CPR on him for 90 minutes.
An ambulance finally came after an off-duty RCMP officer went to their detachment to call emergency services.
Last month, Telus reported to the CRTC that a review of the incident found 177 unsuccessful calls had been made to 911 by 59 Manitobans from the time the service went down on March 22 at 8:15 p.m. to when it was restored at about noon on March 24.
Telus said after it became aware of the problem, it was fixed in a little more than an hour. It said it has disciplined an employee over the incident and has since added a double backup system if the 911 system goes down, as well as a third backup where calls would go to a live operator.
Raymond Switzer, Dean's father, said Wednesday the family is considering legal action against Telus.
'(Originally), I didn't want anything from Telus,' Switzer, 78, said. 'I just said I didn't want what happened to us to happen to another family. That's all I wanted. I've changed my mind since then.
'They don't give a rat's ass what happens to us.'
Switzer said Telus sent a letter to the family, which angered him further.
'They asked for a photo of my son so they could always remember what happened — I said that's not happening.'
Switzer, who said he backs calls by the Progressive Conservative party for an inquiry, said he still doesn't understand why an audio message told callers to call back rather than just saying the system was out of service.
'Because of that, they just kept calling,' he said.
'I'm not sure if my son would be around with us if he'd got help faster, but it didn't help.'
'They don't give a rat's ass what happens to us.'–Raymond Switzer
Bell noted in its letter to the CRTC that Telus reached out with questions the day before Telus submitted its final report on the incident on May 16. Bell said it hadn't had a chance to respond before the report was submitted.
Bell said those questions Telus had 'indicate that, far from being final and despite Telus' misleading claims regarding the cause of the failure, Telus was still uncertain, and may still be uncertain, with respect to the actual root cause of why Telus ceased sending 911 traffic to Bell during the outage.'
Bell said only Telus, and no other cellphone carrier, was affected with an outage to its 911 calls, after one of its two gateways for emergency calls did a four-minute reset.
The telecom also noted 'that media reports continue to indicate that Telus is, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, attempting to shift the blame publicly for the outage experienced by its customers to Bell.
'While we tried to give Telus the opportunity to correct the record itself, it has chosen not to do so.'
A Bell spokeswoman said the company would not be commenting further on its CRTC submission.
A spokesman for Telus said in a statement that Bell's submission 'largely aligns with Telus' previous reports, acknowledging the initial network disruption originated on Bell's network.
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'There is no evidence to suggest our 911 services would have been disrupted had the initial Bell outage not taken place, and action was required by both Bell and Telus to bring Telus' 911 connectivity back online, as it was the sequencing of the reset that fully restored service. We have been transparent about the process failure on our side, acknowledging that our outage notification procedures with Bell were not properly followed.'
A spokeswoman for the CRTC said the regulator is reviewing the information it has received from Bell and Telus.
'As this remains an ongoing matter, we cannot comment further at this time,' said Mirabella Salem.
PC MLA Derek Johnson (Interlake-Gimli) said a public inquiry is necessary.
'(The two companies) are playing the liability hot potato, not me, not me,' Johnson said.
In a statement, Natural Resources Minister Ian Bushie said 'our No. 1 priority is the safety of all Manitobans and we will continue to work with the CRTC and the federal government to ensure that rural and remote Manitobans have access to 911 services when they need it most.'
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Kevin RollasonReporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press's city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
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