An outage of the 911 emergency system that lasted around 90 minutes in multiple Canadian provinces last month was attributed to an undisclosed software glitch in Bell’s technology, as per a report released by the company on Friday.
The incident, which affected Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island starting at 3:13 a.m. ET on Sept. 17, was clarified not to be a cyber attack by Philippe Gauvin, Bell’s assistant general counsel, in the report submitted to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
The flaw impacted segments of Bell’s advanced 911 system, known as NG9-1-1, designed to enable the public to transmit more detailed emergency information to responders for enhanced understanding before their arrival at the scene.
Bell managed to pinpoint the root cause, restoring services at 4:40 a.m. following an 87-minute disruption. The company swiftly implemented a long-term solution to address the issue on the same day.
The report highlighted that most calls during the outage were effectively handled by backup systems, except for traditional voice calls that were missed if directed to call centers already employing the next-gen technology. Fortunately, none of the missed calls resulted in significant public safety incidents.
Although Bell refrained from disclosing the exact number of missed calls, they emphasized their commitment to ensuring the reliability and continuous enhancement of emergency calling services to meet Canadians’ urgent needs.
Additionally, the report revealed that early alarms during the outage failed to trigger the necessary response promptly. It took nearly 24 minutes for experts to be alerted of the issue, leading to a delayed resolution.
Bell is actively investigating the alarm malfunction and has introduced additional monitoring mechanisms to prevent future failures. The company is conducting a comprehensive review of its system and sharing insights with other service providers to avoid similar incidents.
The report, while made public, redacted specific details concerning the outage’s cause and system vulnerabilities to prevent potential exploitation by malicious actors, highlighting the importance of safeguarding the integrity of the 911 network.
In Canada, 911 services are linked to regional legacy telephone providers, with Bell servicing Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic provinces. The report also mentioned ongoing efforts to phase out legacy 911 systems across the country by the deadline set by the CRTC.