Telus contacting customers in advance about GPS rollover that may affect some customers

There is a GPS Y2K-like crisis set to affect some phones starting tomorrow and Telus is joining Bell in preemptively contacting customers.

The GPS Week Number rollover impacts the ability of GPS-enabled devices, including some smartphones, to provide accurate location information. The last time a rollover took place was about 20 years ago.

Services that might get affected include calling 911 and other platforms that utilize location data. While most phone manufacturers have configured their device in order to manage this rollover, some phones might be impacted.

Telus said in an email it is contacting its customers, as well as Koodo and Public Mobile customers via a text message to inform them of steps to take to ensure they are not affected by the rollover.

Affected customers can go to telus.com/gpsinfo to learn how they can fix the issue.

Bell took the same steps earlier this week.

For Bell’s customers, phones that may be affected could be those that were sold in 2013 or before, including models from Alcatel (1 and A50, OneTouch Pixi 3, Idol X and Idol Mini), LG (Optimus L5 II), Sonim (Bolt SL, 2 and 2 IS) and Sony (Xperia XA).

Telus said that it is “working with impacted manufacturer partners to roll-out software patches to affected devices as soon as possible.”

Customers that are able to update their phone with the new software patch should do it as soon as possible, Telus said. It added that customers with affected devices that do not have a software patch to “consider purchasing a new device by visiting their nearest Telus location.”