Shaw customers in Maple Ridge were without service on Monday evening and throughout the following workday on Tuesday, Aug. 22, after vandals damaged the company’s infrastructure.

There was outrage expressed on social media by customers without internet service or cable television over the two days. Shaw said the affected services included business internet, phone, business phone, VOD, WiFi access points and more.

“Customers in Maple Ridge are currently without service as a result of infrastructure damage sustained to our fibre network,” said a Tweet from Rogers on Tuesday. “Technicians are working to restore services as quickly as possible.”

Due to a Shaw outage in Maple Ridge, our office's WiFi and phone network is down. At this time, we are unsure if we are receiving voicemails. Please send us an email at Lisa.Beare.MLA@leg.bc.ca, and we will get back to you. Staff will be working from home today. pic.twitter.com/wJwkovBuOP

— Lisa Beare (@lisabeare) August 22, 2023

A spokesperson for Rogers, the parent company of Shaw, said it was a complicated repair, and there was damaged caused at various points of the fibre line due to vandalism in a remote location.

“Some customers in Maple Ridge experienced an interruption to their home services due to fibre damage caused by vandalism,” said Rogers spokesperson Nilani Logeswaran. “Our technical teams worked around the clock to make this complex repair. We sincerely apologize to our customers impacted by this service interruption…”

Many of the company’s customers blasted Shaw on Reddit and Facebook. Some asked for discounts, and said they would seek other service providers, while others said the company could not be blamed.

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“It’s been confirmed that the outage was caused by damage to a fibre optic line so it’s not Shaw’s fault that this happened,” said one poster on Reddit. “Although they’ve handled letting everyone know in a timely manner pretty poorly just staying that ‘techs are working on it’ without providing an update for 13 hours.”

“There is no incentive for monopolies and duopolies to give good service,” posted another. “There is no competition.”

“Unacceptable,” and “I’m stillllllll out,” were other comments, along with “Everyone that’s experiencing this should ask for bill credits.”

There were reports of outages in Pitt Meadows, but it is unclear if they were related.

Customers with Telus reported no interruption to service, while those using other service providers that piggyback on Shaw’s infrastructure were also without their screens.

The issue was resolved for most customers as of Wednesday morning.

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