As many as 60,000 SingTel broadband customers were cut off from the Internet after a fire at one of SingTel's major Internet exchanges at Bukit Panjang damaged both SingTel and OpenNet's cables.

These customers are a mixed of ADSL and fibre broadband users, some of whom are also voice and mio TV subscribers, SingTel said at a press conference on Thursday afternoon.

SingTel's chief executive of consumer in Singapore, Mr Yuen Kuan Moon, said that the majority of the failed connections to customers have already been restored. The telco expects full restoration of services to business customers by 7pm on Thursday, and residential customers by 7am on Friday. Mr Yuen said that a total of 149 cables were damaged, of which two-thirds belong to OpenNet, Singapore's ultra-fast fibre broadband network builder.

The fire that started at 2pm on Wednesday at SingTel's Bukit Panjang building brought down banking, telecommunications and even betting services in many parts of Singapore for hours. Internet links of SingTel's corporate customers including several major banks and telcos StarHub and M1 were also disrupted.