Rogers outage impacts business, services in Halifax and nationwide

Toronto-based telecommunications company Rogers reported a cross-country network outage Friday morning.

It’s impacting Interac and credit card payment systems, mobile phones, the internet and more.

The service disruption was an inconvenience this morning for coffee drinkers at the popular Cobourg Coffee Shop in Halifax, where a sign on the main entrance read “cash only” as both the debit and credit systems were down.

"Well it delayed the time in which I was able to get my coffee,” said Kate Watkins. “But I was still able to get it. I just had to run and get cash."

Others seemed more prepared with cash in hand.

"I had a $20 bill luckily,” said Myra Ahmad. “But I wouldn't have had any cash if I hadn't just randomly gone to the bank last night."

Melanie Brown, in line to get coffee, was prepared to pay with cash.

"My 98-year-old mother deals only in cash and I did some errands for her and she gave me a couple of 50s and so I’m good today," said Brown.

The staff at Cobourg Coffee said customers were dealing with the situation in stride and it wasn't impacting business too much.

"People are coming in and saying they don't have cash, and they are going to local ATMs and then coming back," said barista Katrina Bateman.

"We also had another customer leave some money for other customers that didn't have any cash on them. So it's been good, as you can tell from the shop, it's still very busy."

Rogers reported the Canada-wide network outage early Friday morning, around 5:40 a.m. AT.

The service disruption impacted business at Access Nova Scotia centres across the province.

They used social media to notify customers of their debit systems going down and intermittent credit card issues.

"They just said there was a power outage and that's all I knew," said Daisy Dauphinee. "But I do have enough cash on me to get my license."

Karem Sadd, along with his wife and daughter, arrived in Halifax from Ukraine four days ago.

The newcomers were waiting for a taxi after Sadd applied for a driver's license. He doesn't have a debit or credit card yet.

"[The taxi company] was asking me 'are you going to be paying by cash or card?' I said by cash and he said 'good because the system is down,'" said Sadd.

Casino Taxi lost a lot of business Friday morning, as the outage cut off dispatch communications with its taxi drivers.

"After a couple of hours, that was resolved and now intermittently, our debit and credit are not working," said Angie Herman with Casino Taxi.

The dispatch service is working again but the credit and debit systems are still not working. The company says people can pay cash or register with a credit card and use their mobile app.

"Thankfully, it's a Friday and it's one of our quieter mornings with people commuting into work," said Herman. "But we have been finding workarounds and the customers have been really great and understanding."