SINGAPORE - Internet users found themselves unable to access fibre services in Jurong West on Tuesday (April 11) afternoon, after a cut cable affected users of all three telcos.
Phone lines, broadband Internet and some TV services were affected.
The outage started at about 4.30pm. Fibre network operator NetLink Trust said it has identified the cables that are not working and is currently locating where the cut occurred so the operator can rectify it.
Singtel in a statement on its Facebook page at 5.22pm said that NetLink Trust confirmed that services were affected by a cut cable in the Jurong West area.
"Some customers in the vicinity of Jurong West, Boon Lay and Corporation Road may experience difficulties accessing their broadband, fixed voice and Singtel TV services," said Singtel.
It added in an update at 7.17pm that the fibre breakage was caused by a third-party contractor carrying out sheet piling works.
M1 said in an update at 9pm that NetLink Trust had said it expected to restore service availability by approximately 4am.
NetLink Trust said in a media statement on Tuesday night that more than 3,500 end users may have been affected by the service interruption.
"NetLink Trust received reports of a fibre service interruption at approximately 4.30pm," it said.
"Service interruption was reported around the vicinity of Jurong West, Boon Lay and Corporation Road. A fibre cut was subsequently confirmed to be at a worksite along Boon Lay Avenue."
It confirmed that the incident was caused by a third-party contractor doing piling works.
NetLink Trust said it has deployed recovery teams to the site and emergency service restoration is under way.
"Services will be progressively restored by tomorrow morning," it added.
StarHub and M1 issued similar notices on their Facebook pages.
NetLink Trust had posted a media notice on its website shortly after 6pm, saying it was experiencing "a service interruption affecting the area around Jurong West".
"We have deployed our team to investigate cause of the interruption. If your service is affected by the incident, we apologise for the inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience while we work with your Internet Service Provider to restore your service as soon as possible," it said.
In response to queries from The Straits Times, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said it was aware of the incident and was monitoring the situation closely.
"We have asked NetLink Trust and the various service providers to restore services as soon as possible, to minimise the inconvenience to affected customers," said the IMDA spokesman.
NetLink Trust, formerly known as OpenNet, is Singapore's high-speed fibre broadband network builder. It supplies fibre links wholesale to Internet service providers such as M1, Singtel and StarHub.
Last February, a similar incident happened at the Commonwealth and Ghim Moh area. A cut cable brought down Internet connection for households in the vicinity for almost 13 hours, and is believed to be caused by a contractor doing sewage works.
