Mysterious interference from electrical equipment in Whitehorse played havoc with the Bell Mobility cellular phone network this week.
There was an issue with a wireless channel in downtown Whitehorse, causing intermittent outages on Bell Mobility phones, according to a telco spokesperson.
He’s being a little vague about what caused the trouble.
“Bell Mobility was working on service enhancements late Tuesday and encountered some interference from some private equipment in the area,” said Albert Lee, from Bell Media Relations in an email this morning.
“The problem was identified quickly and resolved by noon Wednesday.”
Northwestel issued a news release about the outages on Tuesday at 4 p.m.
However, its corporate communications manager Emily Younker couldn’t answer questions about the problem.
“I’m not sure exactly what they were doing, because it’s Bell - they’re separate from us,” she said.
Northwestel technicians were helping Bell try to find the source of the problem.
It wasn’t unusual for one wireless provider to issue a release to another provider’s customers, said Albert Lee.
“Northwestel has been a part of (Bell Canada Enterprises) since 1988, and they issued an advisory since it was late in the day and they wanted to keep our customers aware that we were looking into the issue.”
Contact Chris Oke at
chriso@yukon-news.com