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SingTel cops S$500k fine for Dec service disruption

SINGAPORE — Local telecommunication giant Singtel has been fined S$500,000 by the regulator for a disruption last December that left 90 per cent of its fibre broadband subscribers without access for nearly 24 hours.

Since the Dec 2016 outage, Singtel has extended S$5 million in compensation via credits and fee waivers to affected customers. TODAY File Photo

Since the Dec 2016 outage, Singtel has extended S$5 million in compensation via credits and fee waivers to affected customers. TODAY File Photo

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SINGAPORE — Local telecommunication giant Singtel has been fined S$500,000 by the regulator for a disruption last December that left 90 per cent of its fibre broadband subscribers without access for nearly 24 hours.

In a statement on Monday (16 Oct), the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said its investigations showed that the service disruption was triggered by a planned maintenance targeted at installing security patches.

However, this overloaded servers and resulted in subscribers being unable to connect to the Internet.

“While it was the planned maintenance which ultimately caused the overload, IMDA’s investigations showed that there were already warning signs in the lead-up to the incident,” said IMDA.

It said that the servers had been operating under increasingly high loads leading up to the disruption. Specifically, the utilisation rate of SingNet’s Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) servers had been steadily increasing and were running at between 80 and 90 per cent capacity even before the incident, noted the regulator.

“SingNet had failed to take prompt action to address the high utilisation loads before the incident. In view of the high utilisation levels, SingNet should have exercised greater due diligence and caution when planning the installation of security patches for its DHCP servers to prevent the overload,” added IMDA.

In determining how much to fine Singtel, IMDA considered mitigating factors. This included the compensation that telco offered affected customers, as well as preventive measures to avoid another similar incident.

It also noted that Singtel had since upgraded its existing DHCP servers, and has reviewed its broadband network architecture and processes to improve the resiliency of its network.

In a statement responding to the fine, Mr Yuen Kuan Moon, Chief Executive Officer of Consumer at Singtel, said: “We deeply regret the fibre broadband service disruption last December. We know how important network reliability is to our customers and we have learnt from this incident.”

He added that Singtel has extended S$5 million in compensation via credits and fee waivers to affected customers.

“We will continue to channel more resources to ensure our broadband infrastructure meets the growing needs of our customers,” Mr Yuen said.

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