Rogers offers apology for glitch that KO’d cell service

Rogers Communications says it has fixed a network software problem that temporarily shut down text and phone service to about two-thirds of its 10 million cellphone customers.

The telecom giant restored services late Wednesday night after services went down for several hours.

“Due to a software glitch, the mobile network switches couldn’t handle a sudden spike in all of the network signals they were receiving that contain instructions needed to put through cellphone calls and text messages,” chief technology officer Bob Berner said from Toronto.

“Regardless of why it happened, it’s not going to happen again,” Berner said.

Marketing expert Raymond Pirouz said Rogers’ reputation will take a hit.

“Ultimately, the Rogers brand will deteriorate in the mind of the consumer,” said Pirouz, who lectures at the Ivey School of Business at Western University in London, Ont.

“But when the consumer has little choice to make a move, the situation becomes a sad state of affairs,” he said, referring to the lack of competition in Canada’s wireless sector.

CEO Nadir Mohamed acknowledged the service breakdown was “unacceptable.”

“I sincerely apologize to all of our customers for this significant inconvenience and appreciate their understanding and patience,” Mohamed said in a statement early Thursday.

Rogers and Fido postpaid wireless customers, those on a contract and who pay monthly, will receive a credit on their bills for one day of service because of the outage, said Rogers.

The Toronto-based company said its data services did not appear to be affected by the outage.