Rogers Communications outage affecting local businesses, airport

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – Telecommunications giant Rogers is experiencing an outage in Canada and has been since the early hours of Friday morning. Local businesses hope that the issue, which affects their ability to process debit payments, is resolved quickly.

The outage at Rogers affects both wired and wireless networks. This includes service for cell phones and internet carried by the company. 911 calls from cell phones on Rogers networks are effected as well, and B.C.’s Emergency Communication centre is asking British Columbians to find an alternate way to call 911. The service itself remains fully functional.

Many banks use Rogers internet for their debit transactions, resulting in the failing systems at businesses both locally and across the country.

Manmeet Kaur, at the Whole Wheat and Honey cafe in downtown Fort St. John, said that though the debit machines at the front counter are not completely down they were not accepting debit card payments during the cafe’s busy morning hours. The issues were frustrating for staff and customers alike.

“It’s just not very convenient to send people back if they don’t have any other method of payment. I know no one just carries cash with them,” Kaur said. 

Blair Johnston, co-owner of Aniela’s Kitchen (another local business) saw similar issues with the debit machines at their small business Friday morning. Word has spread over social media, he said, and most people seem to be aware of it. 

Aniela’s Kitchen is offering customers the option of e-transfering payment for their order if they need to.

“As a small business, you do whatever you can to get over these small bumps that come up,” Blair said. “This is one of them.”

Local businesses are not the only places in the Peace region seeing the effects of the outage. The Fort St. John Regional Airport is not currently processing debit transactions. Credit transactions were still processing, according to administration and facilities manager Dixie Modde.

The transactions handled specifically by the airport are primarily parking and cafeteria services. Ticket purchases and baggage fees are handled by the airlines directly.

Other areas of airport operations are not affected by the outage. 

“Everything else is running smoothly,” Modde said. 

Rogers Communications is aware of the outage and has teams assigned to resolve the nation-wide issues as soon as possible, according to a tweet posted Friday morning. As of noon on Friday there is no published estimation of how long the outage will last.