Hard lessons on cold cash and software

Friday gave all Canadians a lesson in telecommunications and its fragility. Our phone book of district listings has shrunk to become just a fraction of the listings it was ten years ago. Instead of one phone listing in our homes, which has disappeared as district residents have moved to cell phones often having multiple phones in our homes. A recent survey in Canada found that 45 per cent of Canadians have no land line and rely on cell-phone service. Three different providers of service, Shaw, Bell Canada and TBay Tel cross the district providing cell and internet service.

We suddenly learned how dependent we are on cell service and the internet in our daily lives.

On Friday, Rogers network knocked out TBay Tel and district residents discovered that when they went to Tim’s for coffee, the Interac machines did not function. When they showed up at gas stations, only cash and credit card options were available to pay for gas. When they shopped for groceries only cash and credit cards could be accepted and when they went to Interac machines to withdraw cash, the machines did not function.

Electronic transfers disappeared from Canadian Banks. Even the simple act of texting failed.

Persons arriving at the Fort Frances Border on Friday discovered that the Arrive Can app for entering Canada was no longer available and needed proof of vaccinations to enter Canada. It caused delays and Service Canada offices closed as computer systems were knocked out across our nation.

One of the interesting side issues was that Rogers workers had to go to Starbucks where free Wi-fi services were available to receive instructions on fixing the problem. Many Rogers workers bought phones from other phone companies to again communicate with co-workers.

Much of the 911 services in Ontario were knocked out and many hospitals discovered their internal internet services were down and internal communication systems using pagers and cellphones would not work. EMS in larger cities found that ambulances could not be dispatched using cell service and relied on ambulances to return to central locations to receive instructions.

The lesson learned was that 911 services, police services, banks, hospital services across Canada need to have dual systems from more than one telecommunication companies in place so that when one system fails, the other system kicks in to maintain essential services.

Former publisher

Fort Frances Times