Lit fiber optic cable Originally uploaded by gserafini

A cut cable (yes, one cable) in downtown Winnipeg brought down all MTS AllStream Customers accross Canada. MTS was able to repair the cable at 8:30pm on Wednesday.

Customers seem to be confused on how one cut cable in Winnipeg can cause an outage all across Canada. But the most frustrating part was, the outage lasted for 6 hours with the backup system never kicking into place.

In an event of a system failure, a backup system would usually kick into place. The hiccup is usually milliseconds and the customer would never know it happened.

MTS AllStream have clients all across Canada. Local Winnipeg lines were not affected. There are reports of many of MTS AllStream’s major business clients making a move to Bell Canada as 6 hours of downtime is inexcusable and irrepairable for a business to endure.

SOURCE