Telesat restores Anik F2 satellite; looks for cause of 17-hour outage

OTTAWA – Telesat says it has restored service at its Anik F2 communications satellite, about 17 hours after a “highly unusual” outage that began Sunday afternoon.

The satellite provides direct-to-home television, telephone service and Internet across Canada and the United States.

Telesat says all of the Anik F2’s services were affected by the outage, which began 5 p.m. ET on Sunday and ended early Monday afternoon.

The Ottawa-based company says the satellite is now performing normally and all of its subsystems appear healthy but the cause of the outage is unclear.

A Bell Canada spokeswoman said earlier that the outage affected its services in northern Ontario and northern Quebec, Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon.

Telesat is a former subsidiary of Bell Canada’s parent (TSX:BCE) that was sold nearly 10 years ago.

It’s now owned by a U.S. company and a Canadian pension plan.

“Satellite anomalies like the one that affected Telesat’s Anik F2 yesterday are highly unusual. Telesat is continuing to investigate the root cause of the anomaly and will advise affected customers as more details become known,” the company said in a brief statement Monday.