Little info on Telus outages

by KORIE MARSHALL

Telus says intermittent service to some Valemount phone numbers last week was because of a software issue that was fixed almost immediately. It says there are teams in the area to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Telus still hasn’t released information on the cause of a major internet and cell outage throughout the Valemount and McBride area which started Sunday, April 3rd and lasted up to 12 hours into Monday morning. It also hasn’t said if the issue was related to intermittent outages and connectivity problems throughout the following week.

The Goat heard a number of reports throughout the day on Thursday, April 7th about people calling Valemount cell phones and receiving a message that the number dialed is not in service. There were also reports of some calls to local landlines getting the same message. Calling from cell to cell seemed to be working. Some residents questioned if it had been happening since the outage on Monday morning, an outage that didn’t seem to affect land lines at the time. More issues with internet connectivity were also reported throughout the day on April 10th.

When asked what was known about the outages on Thursday, and whether the problems through the week were related to the outage the previous Sunday night, Telus spokesperson Liz Suave said “The intermittent service on Thursday night impacting phone calls to a ‘566’ prefixed number was caused by a software issue which was fixed almost immediately, and our teams have been in the area over the last few days to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Suave says there was some intermittent internet service in the area on Sunday night, April 10th, which was resolved by 6:00 am.

“We’re still investigating the root cause of the issue and have all hands on deck investigating and working to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” said Suave on April 11th. Regarding cell service, she says “it appears there have been no issues since Thursday evening when we had that brief interruption for cell phones calling a 566 number.”

Local residents have reported long waits of up to 2 hours when calling Telus to ask for compensation for the outages and interruptions, while others report successfully receiving a discount on their bill.

“I can appreciate how frustrating it is to feel that you’re missing phone calls, and TELUS appreciates our customers patience as we worked to fully restore service ASAP,” said Suave.