A 911 service outage that impacted six provinces across Canada Thursday morning has been resolved, according to emergency response services and a spokesperson with Bell Canada.
Service has been fully restored after issues with Bell’s next-generation 911 network caused disruptions across Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Bell Canada spokesperson Matt Silver told CBC News.
During the outage, residents were urged by emergency response services across the country to use a landline, Wi-Fi calling, phones connected to different carriers or to contact non-emergency numbers.
Across Canada, 911 service is connected to the legacy telephone provider in a region, said Rogers spokesperson Katherine King in an email.
Bell provides that service in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec through to the Atlantic provinces, she said. Meanwhile B.C. and Alberta are serviced by Telus and Sasktel in Saskatchewan.
911 service across Ontario and parts of Canada is gradually being restored after many emergency services experienced an outage early Thursday morning. (Farrah Merali/CBC)
In a news release, Nova Scotia’s Department of Emergency Management said the issue was not with that province’s 911 system, but instead tied to the telecommunications carrier networks. The department said the outage may also affect some voice-over-internet phone users.
“The cause of the outage is not yet known and telecommunications providers are working to identify and address the issue,” said the release.
Bell experienced issue with next-generation 911 network
Bell detected an issue with it’s next-generation 911 network around 3:13 a.m. ET, Silver said.
“Backup systems were brought online to route calls to emergency services while technicians investigated the outage,” the statement said.
“We are investigating the root cause of the issue and will have further details once available.”
Elise von Scheel, another Bell spokesperson, said service was restored around 4:40 a.m. ET. She said any issues experienced after that may be tied to Telus needing to manually restore some connections until around 6:04 a.m. ET.
In July, Bell Canada faced an hours-long 911 service outage that affected all of Manitoba outside Winnipeg. It said 84 people were unable to reach 911 during that time.
The company submitted its post-outage report to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and blamed its legacy 911 network of a “considerable vintage” for the outages.
It noted that other Canadian jurisdictions moved to the next-generation 911 network in 2022 and had not faced any outages at that time.
Bell Canada says 84 people were unable to reach 911 during an hours-long outage of the emergency service that affected all of Manitoba outside Winnipeg on July 22.
911 service regulator will ‘carefully review’ Bell report
As required by CRTC rules, Bell notified them and other government agencies, including call centres, of the service outage this morning, said CRTC spokesperson Mirabella Salem in an email.
The CRTC is an independent tribunal that regulates Canada’s communications sector, including telecommunications providers that connect 911 calls to emergency call centres.
Bell will now be required to provide a post-outage report within the next two weeks, including details on the cause of the outage, how it was resolved, how accessibility services were impacted and what plans are in place to prevent similar outages, Salem said.
“These reports play an important role in informing Canadians of what happened and helping other providers avoid similar outages,” she said. “The CRTC will carefully review the reports it receives from Bell.”
King said phone providers connected to 911 services are called incumbent local exchange carriers (ILEC).
In the case of a service disruption between an ILEC and 911, Rogers automatically re-routes customers’ emergency calls to a third-party answering point, she said.
Telus spokesperson Chelsey Higdon said Thursday’s outage was tied to their network partner and reassured customers that access to emergency services are “now functioning properly.”
Freedom Mobile said in an email that customers were “quickly” redirected to a backup provider during the outage.
Service restoration times varied from minutes to hours
Winnipeg police posted on the social media platform X that 911 service was disrupted for over 30 minutes on Thursday, but has since been resolved.
P.E.I. officials were notified by Bell around 6:30 a.m. of a possible outage, said Katie Cudmore, a spokesperson for the province.
However, she said staff did not receive any reports from the public about being unable to reach 911 during the disruption. The team conducted 911 test calls with different service providers and also did not experience any issues connecting to emergency services, Cudmore said.
Nova Scotia’s Department of Emergency Management said it’s service has been restored and is again fully operational.
The province’s emergency health services team is engaged with provincial and federal partners to monitor their 911 system, said Emily Mackinnon, spokesperson for Emergency Medical Care Incorporated.
Valérie Beauchamp, a spokesperson with Quebec’s police force Sûreté du Québec, told Radio-Canada the outage affected the routing of 911 calls to call centres in the province.
Ontario is in contact with Bell “to ensure services remain available” after “numerous” areas were affected Thursday morning, said Saddam Khussain, spokesperson for the province’s ministry of the solicitor general.
Toronto police urged residents on X to call 911 for all police, fire and medical emergencies. They said the alternate phone number shared online earlier during the disruption should only be used for non-emergencies.
While service has largely stabilized, residents are being warned to watch out for intermittent disruptions that may still exist, said Dale Albers, spokesperson for the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).
He urged people to not test call 911 to see if the system is working and to call the OPP non-emergency line if there is any service disruptions.