An outage lasting nearly 90 minutes in multiple Canadian provinces last month was attributed to an undiscovered bug in Bell’s software, as per the company’s report released on Friday. The incident, not a cyber attack, affected Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island at 3:13 a.m. ET on Sept. 17. Bell’s assistant general counsel, Philippe Gauvin, clarified that the outage was not linked to any planned or unplanned changes.
The software glitch impacted segments of Bell’s NG9-1-1 system, designed to enable the public to convey more detailed emergency information to aid first responders. Bell resolved the issue and reinstated service at 4:40 a.m., implementing a permanent fix the same morning.
During the outage, most calls were successfully handled by backup systems, but some “legacy” voice calls were missed if destined for call centers using older technology. Fortunately, no missed calls resulted in critical safety incidents, as per the report.
Bell declined to disclose the number of missed calls and emphasized its commitment to ensuring the reliability and continuous enhancement of emergency calling services. The company is investigating why early alarms failed to activate a crisis response and has introduced additional monitoring mechanisms as a precaution.
Bell has redacted specific information in the public report to prevent potential exploitation by hackers. The disclosure of such details could jeopardize Bell Canada and the public 9-1-1 network. Across Canada, 911 services are linked to regional legacy providers, with Bell serving provinces from Manitoba to the Atlantic, while other regions are managed by different providers.
Holly Barkwell of the National Emergency Number Association highlighted the resilience of Canada’s 911 system but acknowledged the inevitability of technology issues. The CRTC mandated the decommissioning of all legacy 911 systems in Canada by March 31, extending the deadline by two years in early 2025.