SINGAPORE - The fibre broadband services of some affected households in the Sengkang area, disrupted on Friday (Jan 22) morning by a contractor at Ang Mo Kio, were still being restored at 9pm Friday.

A Singtel Facebook post at 9pm read: "About 88% of affected services have been restored. Our engineers are working to restore remaining services. We appreciate your patience and apologise for the inconvenience caused."

Some 2,000 households were affected by a cable cut, which took place early Friday morning at 12.10am when a contractor of the PUB was carrying out drainage and sewage works along the CTE and Ang Mo Kio Ave 5 junction areas.
Fibre optic network builder NetLink Trust said the broken fibre optic links underground were fixed at around 1pm, some 13 hours after the cable was cut.
Even so, NetLink Trust's wholesale supply of fibre services to Internet service providers (ISPs) Singtel, StarHub, M1, MyRepublic and ViewQwest was not entirely restored in Sengkang.

In a statement late Friday evening, the Infocomm Development Authority advised consumers to contact their ISPs if they continue to face broadband connection problems.

"IDA is concerned with the service disruption, and has started its investigation to determine the cause of the incident," it said.

The authority said that it will take action against the relevant parties, including the earthwork contractor if it is found to have breached any of IDA's regulatory requirements when carrying out the excavating works.

"Earthwork contractors are reminded to exercise utmost care when carrying out excavating works and observe all the requirements to detect and protect all underground telecom infrastructure as any damage to these infrastructure will cause significant inconvenience to consumers and businesses"