Bell Aliant says that service has been restored after technical issues resulted in 911 calls throughout the Maritimes not being completed on Wednesday.
The outage was first reported at 9:15 a.m. by New Brunswick RCMP, who said that calls to 911 were not being completed.
Isabelle Boulet, a spokesperson for Bell Aliant, said a network switch failure in Moncton disrupted wireless and landline calls across the Atlantic provinces.
The company continues to investigate the outage, she added.
Police forces throughout the Maritimes were quick to follow the RCMP’s lead, alerting residents to the outage through social media and directing them to contact emergency services through alternative phone numbers.
Halifax Regional Police, Saint John police, Fredericton police, P.E.I. RCMP all reported outages.
The Mounties requested a public alert message be issued in New Brunswick. It was sent through text message.
By 11 a.m., service had been restored, according to Bell Aliant.
Halifax police also requested a public alert message be issued by the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office, but that alert was not sent before service was restored.
A spokesperson for New Brunswick’s Department of Public Safety told Global News that it appreciates “Bell’s quick action to restore service, and are looking forward to learning what happened.”
“The system is supposed to have redundancies that prevent outages, so it’s essential to public health and safety that Bell learns from the outage.” said Coreen Enos, in an emailed statement.