About 5,000 users hit by broadband outage due to cut cable, service likely to be restored on April 19
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At the peak between 10.35am and 10.55am, there were some 278 outage reports by Singtel users, 183 by StarHub users and 79 by M1 users.
ST PHOTOS: KUA CHEE SIONG, JASEL POH, FILE
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SINGAPORE – About 5,000 users in central and north-east Singapore hit by a fibre service outage, likely caused by a cable that was cut during construction works, can expect service to be restored by April 19.
The affected broadband service users are from parts of Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Sengkang and Punggol, said telecommunications infrastructure provider NetLink Trust in a statement on its website.
In an update late on April 18, NetLink Trust said its technical teams are working to restore services as quickly and safely as possible.
It said: “Due to site constraints and wet weather conditions, additional safety precautions are required, which may affect restoration timings.
“At this time, services are expected to be progressively restored by tomorrow morning, barring unforeseen circumstances.”
It added that it is also working closely with Internet service providers to complete the restoration and minimise the disruption.
In an earlier statement, NetLink Trust said: “The fibre service disruption was caused by a third-party contractor carrying out construction activity. The errant third-party contractor was not engaged by NetLink Trust.
“We take a serious view of such disruption in services caused by errant contractors and will not hesitate to take necessary actions against the errant party.”
In reply to queries from The Straits Times, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said it asked NetLink Trust to identify and repair the damaged cables.
“This will include diagnosing the extent of the damage and determining the best means to repair the affected fibre cables,” it added.
The regulator added that it will continue its probe into the incident and will take strong action against errant parties if they are found to have flouted the rules.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA), in a statement late on Saturday night, said the fibre service cables were damaged at about 10.40am during “contiguous bored pile works” for the North–South Corridor project.
The cable damage also affected the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) system for buses, and led to the system displaying inaccurate bus timings and long wait times at bus stops and on mobile apps.
LTA added that bus operations were not affected and all services continued to operate at their usual frequencies.
Singapore’s three major telcos – Singtel, StarHub and M1 – were also among those affected by the outage.
Spikes in reports of the service disruption from users of multiple service providers started at about 10.30am, according to tracker DownDetector.
At its peak between 10.35am and 10.55am, there were some 278 outage reports by Singtel users, 183 by StarHub users and 79 by M1 users.
At about 3.30pm, DownDetector showed 81 outage reports by Singtel users, 60 by StarHub users and 21 by M1 users.
The DownDetector website showed hundreds of users reporting issues with broadband services on the morning of April 18.
PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM DOWNDETECTOR
Earlier, in response to queries, Singapore telco ViewQwest said there were about 19 reported cases of outage on the morning of April 18, and they “do not indicate a widespread issue”. It also said it has not identified any major network incident.
It added that it is monitoring the situation closely and will take the necessary actions should there be any escalation.
In a Facebook post at 11.45am, Singtel said the issue could be related to on-site construction activities affecting all operators.
“Our engineers are investigating. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. We will provide more updates soon,” it said.
“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 providers to restore your service as soon as possible.”
M1, in a Facebook reply to a customer who appeared frustrated with the dearth of information from the telco, said affected customers can restart their fibre modem and router and check that all cables are securely connected.
It added that it will update customers as soon as more details are available.
ST has contacted Singtel, M1, StarHub and Simba for more information.
