Telcos, bank services affected by fire at SingTel facility

SINGAPORE — A fire at a SingTel facility today (Oct 9) disrupted services islandwide, as local telcos, banks and other companies were impacted by the fire. Among the banks affected, OCBC said that services at 11 out of its more than 1,200 ATMs were affected, in locations such as Changi Airport, Jurong Point, Woodlands, Bukit Panjang, while two UOB branches at Woodlands and Bukit Panjang were affected. A UOB spokesperson said there was “minimal customer impact” as the disruption occurred close to the end of banking hours. DBS Bank said that the fire, which took place at SingTel’s Bukit Panjang exchange at about 2pm, “affected a small proportion of DBS/POSB branches, ATMs and AXS services”. It advised customers to avoid five branches at Toa Payoh Central, Bukit Panjang, Jurong Point, Woodlands and Raffles Place. The bank later updated at 7.50pm that only two branches remain affected. “All customers are assured that their funds are safe and the bank is working closely with SingTel to restore services as soon as possible,” said DBS Bank.It expects all banking services, including ATMs, to be restored by 8am tomorrow. During the early stages of the disruption, the bank tweeted that it is taking “proactive measures to minimise service disruptions and will extend operating hours of all DBS and POSB branches today by an hour”. The AXS Station network said that of its 860 AXS Stations islandwide, a “small proportion” was affected. LOCAL TELCOS REPORT IMPACT, IDA INVESTIGATING The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said in a statement that several operators have also reported to the IDA on the fire, “The incident has affected fixed line telephone, broadband, cable TV and mobile services of several operators in the northern parts of Singapore. This may have also have affected services relying on such networks. IDA is currently investigating the issue,” said a spokesperson. StarHub said that the fire affected its cable and fibre services. “As we lease some SingTel optical fibre capacity that runs through this exchange, this has affected StarHub’s cable TV, cable and fibre broadband, and digital voice services for some of our customers,” said Mr Mock Pak Lum, StarHub’s Chief Technology Officer. “We are monitoring the situation closely and working to restore services as soon as we can,” he added. M1 said in a Facebook post that its fibre broadband services in the Bukit Panjang area have been impacted and that the waiting time at its Causeway Point M1 Shop is “significantly longer than usual as the systems there have been impacted by the fire at SingTel’s Bukit Panjang exchange”. Others affected by the outage include the Singapore Turf Club and Singapore Pools. Singapore Pools said the fire disrupted its network system, “affecting sales and payment operations” across its retail network, except for its main branch at Middle Road. SINGTEL USERS REPORT SERVICE DISRUPTION According to posts on SingTel’s Facebook page, users in the North-west region of Singapore such as Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang, Woodlands and Yew Tee started experiencing problems with their network services from around 2pm. Woodlands resident, Ms Fidya Nurane, 19, said that her mioTV went blank at around 3pm. She added that she was unable to send out text messages to other Singtel users. Her wifi connection was still down as of 5.20pm. An employee at a company located at Boon Keng said the Internet in her office was down starting from around 2pm. She added that workers were unable to connect to the company’s network drive and that the data plan for SingTel mobile users was also affected. Affected users are also saying that they are unable to get through the telco’s 1688 helpline. SingTel has said that it is “working to restore services as soon as possible”. The Singapore Civil Defence Force said that it received a call at 2.16pm to attend to the fire. The fire broke out at a cable room in level one of the building, located at 40 Woodlands Road. The fire was extinguished in 20 minutes by two water jets. No injuries were reported.