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A glitch in the new national public alert system for mobile devices affected the entire province of Quebec on Monday, said a CRTC spokeswoman.

The problem did not originate with cellphone service providers but appears to have occurred between emergency management in Quebec and Pelmorex Corp., which operates the system, said Patricia Valladao.

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“The alerts are actually coming from the emergency management in the region and then it goes to Pelmorex,” Valladao said.

In an email to The Canadian Press, Pelmorex issued a statement explaining what happened.

“A space incorrectly included in the coding prevented the Alert Ready System from sending the Quebec test message to compatible wireless devices earlier this morning,” it read, adding the misconfiguration was quickly corrected.

The statement also pointed out the Quebec test “did broadcast successfully on TV and radio.”

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Pelmorex says the Ontario test alert was to proceed as planned on all TV, radio, and wireless platforms at 1:55 pm EDT.