Oxio says internet slowdowns will be deterred for now following a commitment from Rogers

Oxio says it has a commitment from Rogers to fix its internet slowdown stemming from the telecom giant’s July 8th outage.

The independent internet service provider (ISP) sent its Ontario customers an email on July 30th stating they could face potential slowdowns during peak hours (8pm – 10pm). The email detailed how the company requested a capacity increase from Rogers in June to deal with its growing customer base. The increase was to take effect on July 7th, but it never happened, something Oxio said “is pretty normal.” The July 8th outage led Rogers to change the implementation date twice.

But in the company’s most recent email to customers, sent on August 5th, Oxio had good news to report. “We’ve gotten a commitment from Rogers to fix EVERYTHING,” the email reads.

The ISP said Rogers fixed its defective SFP, which provides internet to Oxio’s network, on the 4th. Rogers also increased Oxio’s bandwidth capacity, which should deter any slowdowns customers were experiencing until its June request is approved. Rogers has also committed to more bandwidth capacity as it waits on approval.

While Oxio said the news was good, it wasn’t easy to make it happen, citing the lack of competition in Canada’s internet service market.

“This isn’t the way the internet in Canada should work. We need better relationships between the infrastructure owners…and the few independent internet service providers left. We need laws and regulations from the CRTC that encourage competition. We need more independent internet service providers, not fewer,” Oxio wrote in the email.