What to know
- 911 service was disrupted across Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island early Thursday morning.
- Bell said the outage began at about 3:13 a.m. and service was restored at 4:40 a.m.
- Toronto residents were directed to non-emergency numbers or their local police divisions while 911 service was unavailable. Toronto Police said it used its RapidSOS service to maintain visibility of emergency calls during the outage and later returned calls to provide assistance.
- Bell is investigating the cause of the outage and is required to submit a report to the CRTC outlining what happened, how it was resolved and steps to prevent future outages.
Bell Canada is currently investigating the root cause of a 911 service outage that impacted six Canadian provinces earlier on Thursday, leaving residents with delayed early-morning support, including in Toronto.
Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island experienced a 911 service outage early on Thursday morning, with emergency lines going down across the provinces for over an hour.
Toronto residents were warned to seek emergency assistance through non-emergency numbers or their specific police divisions for the duration of the outage.
A Toronto Police Service (TPS) spokesperson said it was able to utilize its RapidSOS service to deliver emergency information in order to maintain visibility of the received calls, and later returned emergency calls to offer necessary support.
TPS and the Paramedic Services have confirmed that 911 service has since been fully restored in the city.
Root cause still under investigation
Bell Canada, which is the 911 service provider across Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, said it experienced an issue with its next generation 9-1-1 network at around 3:13 a.m. on Thursday, with service being restored at 4:40 a.m.
“We continue to investigate the root cause of the issue,” a Bell Canada spokesperson told Now Toronto.
As explained by a Rogers spokesperson, emergency services in Canada are connected through the legacy phone providers for each region. In Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec through to Atlantic, the provider is Bell, while BC and Alberta are serviced by Telus, and Saskatchewan is serviced by Sasktel.
The spokesperson also said it automatically re-directs 911 calls to third–party answering points whenever the 911 connection goes down.
This is not the first time Bell Canada has experienced 911 service issues. Back in July, 84 people in Manitoba were not able to reach emergency services after the provider reportedly faced an hours-long outage,
At the time, Bell attributed the issue to outdated legacy 911 networks, and said other regions that adopted the next-generation 911 network had not faced issues.
Company to submit report
The Canadian communications sector, including the 911 network, is regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which requires providers and government agencies to notify it of outages.
A spokesperson for the independent quasi-judicial tribunal confirmed to Now Toronto it has received an initial outage notification from Bell earlier today. Within the next 14 days, the company is also required to provide a post-outage report, which must include the causes for the outage, steps taken to solve it, and plans to prevent future issues.
“9-1-1 is a bridge that connects Canadians to emergency services in times of need. Federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments, as well as telecommunications service providers, all play a role in ensuring that Canadians can access 9-1-1 services,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement shared with Now Toronto.
“These reports play an important role in informing Canadians of what happened and helping other providers avoid similar outages.”
According to the CRTC, a summarized version of the report will later be published on its website.
