Deja vu for some StarHub users, EPL’s opening weekend hit by issues
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Starhub subscribers were left frustrated after several disruptions prevented them from catching the Arsenal-Nottingham Forest game.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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SINGAPORE – It was a case of new season, but same old woes for some Singapore football fans on Saturday, as a number of StarHub customers were hit by disruption issues when they tried to tune in to the opening weekend of the English Premier League.
Angry and frustrated users took to social media to complain about the local telco’s broadcast service, citing a “Gateway 504” error message when they tried to log in to their accounts.
Some were unable to watch part of the Arsenal-Nottingham Forest match
Darren Lim, a Liverpool supporter in his 40s, had stayed home to catch the opening weekend.
He said: “I’ve been a long-time subscriber of StarHub… supposed to watch the Arsenal game at 7.30pm, been trying to log in but to no avail. I gave up at 8.15pm and I am not going to watch any more.
“The StarHub app is very unstable. Last year there were a few similar situations as well... very frustrating for football fans.”
Responding to queries from The Sunday Times, StarHub said in a statement on Saturday: “We are aware that some of our new and existing customers are experiencing log-in issues with the TV+ service.
“We have provided a workaround for these customers. All our other customers continue to be able to access the service smoothly.”
However, the log-in issues persisted for some fans. Tottenham Hotspur fan Eugene Thiang, 43, said on Facebook that he was disappointed with the service.
He added: “This is not the first time and the outage has been frequent over the last season. We were discouraged to procure illegal set-top boxes and to be a good citizen, but the quality our only legal service provider is offering is rather, for a lack of a better word, garbage.”
StarHub subscribers were also hit by disruption issues last season. The opening weekend of the 2022-23 season had customers complaining about broadcast lags, low quality pictures and audio, and log-in issues final day was plagued by a “satellite transmission issue”
It was a case of deja vu for an Arsenal fan who wanted to be identified only as Mr Lim, as he was unable to tune in to the Gunners’ game against Forest.
The 34-year-old said: “It still has not been resolved with more than half the match having been played. I’ve tried all devices, unfortunately, this is not the first time that this has happened.
“Consumers are paying a premium for the monthly subscription but are left without any recourse when StarHub fails to deliver.
“Fans like myself are filled with a sense of helplessness and are no doubt bracing ourselves for more of the same, given that StarHub has secured the broadcasting rights for the next few years.”
StarHub announced in February 2022 that it would be the official EPL broadcaster here for the next six years.
