Bell services back online after 'major' outage affecting phone, internet and TV service

Bell Aliant service was restored to customers late Friday afternoon after a "major" outage affected cellphone and landline services, internet and TV across New Brunswick and the rest of Atlantic Canada for several hours.

Bell had to reroute and repair network infrastructure, spokesperson Nathan Gibson said in a statement around 4 p.m. AT.

The outage, which started shortly before 11 a.m., was caused by "accidental damage to multiple fibre network links," Gibson said. "Bell apologizes to our customers for the disruption."

Late Friday, Bell said on Twitter that two major fibre links had been cut during third-party construction work.

Telus, which shares cell towers with Bell, said earlier in the day the damage happened in Drummondville, Que.

The interruption affected 885 cell sites across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador and disrupted everything from 911 service to banking machines and flights.

Similar outage in 2011

Bell Aliant faced a similar outage in New Brunswick in September 2011, after a fibre optic cable was cut in the northern city of Campbellton.

Cellphones, landlines and internet phones were out of service for several hours, along with Interac and credit card transactions, affecting an estimated one-third of New Brunswickers.

The problem was compounded at that time because Bell Aliant's backup system wasn't working properly.

It's unclear whether the backup system was working on Friday.

Telus tweeted its thanks to customers for their patience during the outage.

"Good news: we're happy to share that service is now restored across Atlantic Canada," it said around 5 p.m. 

Users of Virgin and Koodo, which also use Bell's towers, were also affected. Rogers customers were not.

"It's wild, I can't believe it's affecting so many networks," said Brett Mason, who was travelling from Amherst, N.S. to Moncton for business meetings, but stopped in Dorchester for a few hours when he lost cell service.

Rescheduling his meetings until next week could cost his software development company Earthrise Creative Labs a lot of money, he said.

"It's interesting to see that Rogers is still up," he said. "Maybe the other boys should follow suit and have a look at what Rogers is doing right."

"I think it's about time we see change in the cellular networks … big change for Canada and hopefully something like this might be the roots for that change"

Some people started reporting their service being restored around 2:30 p.m. But thousands were cut off for hours.

"I've been trying to contact my mother for the past half-hour and I can't reach her because I have no way of texting or calling her and I can't tell her the system down," said Melanie Horsman, of Moncton.

"I did want to let her know that I was downtown and we were suppose to meet up, and I couldn't reach her and I'm hoping she's not worried," she said. "I'm fine, but I couldn't reach her."

Landline 911 'intermittent'

Wireless 911 service remained operational, according to Gibson, but landline 911 service was "intermittent," he said.

Affected customers were urged to use wireless 911 if they experienced difficulty contacting 911 by landline.

Ambulance New Brunswick turned to Twitter to advise its crews of the situation, urging them to immediately return to their stations and monitor their tablets for calls.

Robert Duguay, director of communications for the New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization, told reporters the province's 911 services were "operational all along."

"It didn't impact 911," he said during a 3 p.m. news conference in Fredericton.

Duguay later clarified the 911 system itself remained operational, but people may have had difficulty getting through.

The bigger problem, he suggested, was that many people tried to test their cellphones by calling 911, even though they didn't have an emergency situation to report.

"We certainly discourage people from doing that," he said.

Asked whether anyone will be penalized for making non-emergency 911 calls, Duguay said, "maybe they're not aware, not sensitive to the fact that by making these calls, they're taking resources away from real emergencies."

Emergency contingency plans

The New Brunswick Department of Public Safety was "assessing the impacts with Bell and [its] critical infrastructure partners," during the outages, spokeswoman Elaine Bell told CBC News.

"Emergency response agencies and critical infrastructure owners/operators have contingency plans for telecommunications outages and these plans are currently being put into place," Bell had said.

One issue the outages highlighted was the importance of citizens having some cash on hand, said Duguay.

"That's an important part of emergency kits," he said. "A situation like this can happen at any time of the day and then we won't be able to have access to electronic transactions, for instance or to ATM machines."

Several banks across New Brunswick were forced to close their doors, including the National Bank and Scotiabank in Moncton.

Many automated teller machines were also out of service, including the one at Saint John's Brunswick Square.

"The outage is affecting call centres and certain airport functions in the region, resulting in some flight delays and longer than normal call centre wait times," said Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick.

"Air Canada has put in place a flexible rebooking policy to assist our customers and is providing additional support at airports, as well we have brought in extra staffing and plan to use larger than normal aircraft on certain routes to help move any affected passengers," he said.

Municipalities issue statements

The City of Moncton issued a statement saying its municipal services were not affected by the Bell Mobility outage.

"Please do not call 911 to test connectivity, but only if there is an emergency," the city asked.

Anyone who experienced an emergency and was unable to get through using 911 was advised to go to Saint John police headquarters or the nearest Saint John Fire Department station, where 911 emergency call boxes are located.

"We ask that you check in on relatives and neighbours to ensure they are aware of the situation, and offer assistance if required."