Last week some Rogers customers in Strathroy were again affected by an outage that Rogers later stated was caused by vandalism. myFM reached out to Rogers to get some answers and here is the statement that was sent to us Wednesday morning:
Statement from Rogers Spokesperson:
“Like other providers, we’re seeing a troubling rise in vandalism to our network infrastructure across the country, causing service interruptions and affecting Canadians who rely on our networks to stay connected. Beyond being a significant inconvenience for our customers, these acts can have a serious impact on public safety. On October 23, some customers in parts of Strathroy near Metcalfe St and Caradoc St experienced an interruption to their residential services due to a fibre cut caused by vandalism. Local law enforcement was engaged and our crews worked around the clock to repair the extensive damage to our fibre, with the issue being resolved overnight.”
Additional Background facts:
This is the 24th service interruption due to vandalism in the Southwestern Ontario alone in the last 12 months.
We’ve experienced 4-5 times increase in outages due to vandalism since 2022.
Outages caused by vandalism (including attempted copper theft) are often complex requiring fibre splicing, highly specialized and detailed work with longer restoration times due to the extent of damage and associated repairs.
We support calls from across the industry requesting the federal government take action against these network tampering acts by creating a new Criminal Code offence specifically targeting damage to and theft of critical telecommunications infrastructure.
Written by: L. Dickson