The Rogers Communications sign is marks the company's headquarters in Toronto, April 25, 2012. A number of Rogers customers in southern Ontario who lost access to their wireless data and home Internet services Wednesday night were all back online by early Thursday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Vincent Elkaim
January 09, 2013 - 9:28 PM
TORONTO - A number of Rogers customers in southern Ontario lost access to their wireless data and home Internet services Wednesday night.
Rogers acknowledged the problem on Twitter, saying it was working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
"Some Rogers customers may be experiencing issues with Internet service. We are working to resolve asap and apologize for the inconvenience," the company's official Twitter account said.
Many customers took to social media to vent their frustration and the company was even trending on Twitter under the hashtag #rogers late Wednesday night.
"Internet is not working and #Rogers tech support lines aren't working ..nice...how come their billing system never fails?" tweeted one man.
"A lot of productivity lost tonight from #Rogers outage. For the length of time, customers should see some compensation," said another.
Some customers in New Brunswick said their Rogers Internet services were down as well, although those outages weren't confirmed by the company.
It was not immediately clear what caused the outage.
By late Wednesday, after what some customers said was a five-hour outage, a number of people began tweeting that their service was being restored.
Many affected by the outage had threatened to switch service providers, while others demanded compensation for the lost hours of online productivity. There were some, however, who saw the time offline as a welcome break.
"I got some reading in, played with the kitties, watched a DVD... almost sad my Internet came back on. #Rogers," tweeted one customer.
Earlier, some had shared tips on a workaround during the outage, tweeting links to instructions on switching to Google's public DNS, or Domain Name System, which allowed some home Internet users to access the web.
Throughout the incident, many observers mused online about just how crucial a part the Internet now plays people's daily lives.
"Why people are not patient ? How was life before Internet?" tweeted one person.
"That Internet standstill felt like an eternity. Really puts into perspective how much we rely on social media," said another.
Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI.B) identifies itself as Canada's largest provider of wireless voice and data services and one of country's top providers of cable TV, high speed Internet and phone services.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2013