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Telecom - Staff Letter addressed to Peter Kovacs (Rogers Communications Canada Inc.)

Ottawa, 19 June 2024

Our Reference: 8000-C12-202306860

BY EMAIL

Peter Kovacs
Director Regulatory - Content Distribution
Rogers Communications Canada Inc.
One Mount Pleasant Road, 4th Floor,
Toronto, ON, M4Y 2Y5
peter.kovacs@rci.rogers.com

Subject: Visible Test Alert – May 08, 2024

Commission staff have been informed by staff from the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR) British Columbia that on Wednesday, 08 May 2024 at approximately 10:55 am PDT, a visible test alert was issued for the province of British Columbia through the National Public Alerting System (NPAS) as part of its participation in bi-annual public alerting tests.Footnote1 During testing, EMCR staff found that the test alert was not observed on a number of television sets at the Provincial Emergency Coordination Centre (PECC) in Saanichton, BC.

The EMCR PECC uses the Rogers Communications Canada Inc. broadcasting distribution undertaking (BDU) services (formerly Shaw Cablesystems Ltd), and the affected set top box unit was Motorola DCX3200-M-P3.

Commission staff also notes that during the November 15th, 2023 public test alert,Footnote2 a similar issue was observed with certain set top boxes operating on Rogers’ network, including Motorola DCX3200-M-P-3. After a follow up investigation and review, on 28 February 2024, Rogers confirmedFootnote3 that the issue had been identified and resolved, including the testing to confirm that DOCSIS Set-top Gateway (DSG) boxes on Vancouver Island correctly received and displayed a test alert.

Commission staff notes that the Commission’s regulatory framework, in regard to alerting requires that, among other things, licensed and certain exempt BDUs distribute alerts to subscribers or other premised located in an area targeted by the alerts.Footnote4

Given the information provided above, Commission staff requests that Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Rogers) respond to the following questions, and provides any other comments pertaining to the facts and situation identified in this letter:

  1. Are you aware of any other reports from EMCR or any other subscriber to Rogers’ BDU services (in Canada) of persons not receiving public alerts or receiving alerts with incomplete information, included but not limited to visible test alerts, since your letter to the CRTC dated 28-February-2024? If so, please provide details (for instance, location of BDU serving area, licensed or exempt BDU, date of test alert, and number of reports of premises affected).
  2. Explain the cause (technical or otherwise) for why alerts were not received correctly at the premises of the EMCR PECC or for any other subscriber identified in response to question 1?
  3. What actions, if any, has Rogers taken or plans to take to address the observation(s) and root cause(s) identified in response to questions 1 & 2 to ensure this problem does not reoccur?

Commission staff is concerned that these recent issues might have a common root with those identified in the previous investigation following the public test alert of November 15th, 2023.  Should such be the case, this would raise significant concerns regarding Rogers’ response to the previous issues and the reassurances that the company had provided the Commission to the effect that those issues had been resolved.  In light of this, Rogers is to provide a response to the following additional question:

  1. Is the observation described in this request for information the result of a recurring issue (e.g. recurrence of 15 November 2023 issue).  If not, is it the result of the actions taken to address the 15 November 2023 issue?
  2. In the event that the observation described above is the result of a recurring issue, elaborate on what is the root cause of recurrence, how Rogers is rectifying this to ensure successful distribution of alerts, and what actions, if any, Rogers has taken to address the problem(s) to ensure this problem does not reoccur? 

Commission staff considers that public alerting is one of the most consequential services provided by broadcasters and wireless service providers. Province- and territory -wide NPAS testing is important as it enables alerting stakeholders, including wireless service providers, broadcasting undertakings, EMOs, and the National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination System Operator to assess whether their systems are fully functional.

Commission staff looks forward to hearing about the concrete actions taken to remedy the alerting issues experienced by Rogers.  It is hoped that the responses will address our concerns and clarify that the issues brought to our attention are not due to a recurring root cause.

Thank you, in advance, for your cooperation in ensuring the effectiveness of the NPAS. 

A copy of this letter and all related correspondence will be added to the public file of the licensee. Please repeat the question before responding.

Please submit your response no later than Wednesday 24 July, 2024 by 5:00 p.m., Vancouver time. If you have any questions or require additional time, please contact Mr. Michael Crupi at (819) 664-3371 via email at Michael.crupi@crtc.gc.ca.

Sincerely,

Simon Levasseur
Director, Financial and Multiplatform Technology Analysis
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

c.c. regulatory@rci.rogers.com, Beverly.Duthie@gov.bc.ca, jesikah.post@gov.bc.ca

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