Canada’s telecommunications regulator is mandating service providers to notify it and other government authorities within two hours when they experience major network outages.
After restoring service, it says the carriers will have 30 days to file a report detailing the causes, effects and steps taken to resolve the outage in order to provide transparency to consumers and help the industry and government limit future disruptions.
The requirements take effect permanently on Nov. 4 after the CRTC implemented similar rules on an interim basis more than two years ago.
The regulations are in response to a consultation launched by the commission in 2023.
At the time, the CRTC had cited the Rogers outage of July 2022, when millions of customers were in the dark for up to 15 hours, as one of the events prompting its study.
The regulator says as part of its decision, it is also launching two new consultations which will gather views on how providers can improve the resiliency and reliability of their networks, as well as help it improve consumer protections when Canadians experience an internet, phone or television outage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2025.
