[ad_1]
SINGAPORE: Local telcos StarHub and M1 have been fined by Infocomm’s Media Development Authority (IMDA) for disruptions to their broadband Internet service in April and May respectively, the authority said on Sunday (September 6). ).
StarHub was fined S $ 210,000, while M1 was fined S $ 400,000, IMDA said in a press release.
When deciding on these amounts, IMDA took into consideration “relevant factors such as duration, impact and customer service measures taken by operators to mitigate the impact,” he added.
The outages occurred during Singapore’s COVID-19 “circuit breaker” and prompted many complaints from internet users frustrated by the inconvenience they experienced while working from home.
IMDA said it concluded its investigations and found that telcos violated the 2016 Code of Practice for the Resilience of Telecommunications Services.
“We take a serious view of any interruption of service in public telecommunications services, particularly during the period of interruption when most people were working and studying from home, and we will take firm and decisive measures to safeguard the interests of our consumers.” said the deputy director of IMDA. executive Aileen Chia.
THE STARHUB INCIDENT “COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED”
StarHub’s service outage affected up to 250,000 broadband subscribers for about five hours on April 15.
The incident occurred when a StarHub staff made a configuration error during a planned network migration exercise.
“IMDA investigations found that the incident could have been avoided if StarHub had better supervised its staff during the migration exercise,” the authority said.
It decided to impose a fine of 210,000 Singapore dollars on the telecommunications company, having also considered its “efforts to restore services as soon as possible, and its prompt communication and compensation to affected subscribers,” IMDA added.
READ: IMDA Investigating StarHub Internet Service Disruption During COVID-19 Breaker Period
THE M1 INTERRUPTION “LASTED ALMOST A FULL DAY”
M1’s broadband service was interrupted for two days, on May 12 and 13.
The first incident lasted 23 hours from 7 a.m. on May 12 to 6 a.m. on May 13, affecting some 18,000 customers.
The cause of the outage was “a corrupted profile database on M1’s broadband network gateway,” IMDA said.
The next incident, on May 13, lasted about six hours and affected up to 20,000 subscribers.
It was “caused by a software glitch in the M1 network equipment, which affected the routing of Internet traffic for affected M1 subscribers,” the authority said.
“IMDA investigations found that the first incident occurred because the M1 vendor and staff had not followed prescribed procedures. For the second incident, IMDA assessed that since the software failure was the first of its kind for such equipment , M1 could not have reasonably foreseen or prevented the incident. “
On the amount of the fine imposed on M1 – S $ 400,000 – the authority said it also considered that the interruption “lasted almost a full day, causing significant inconvenience to affected subscribers and the proactive compensation of M1 to affected subscribers after the incident. “.
READ: IMDA Launches Investigations Into M1 Fiber Broadband Disruption
READ: M1 Outage: Telco Will Offer Affected Users One Week Rebate On Monthly Home Broadband Fee
Chia of IMDA said operators should inform customers of any “service difficulties”, rectify these problems quickly and “provide good service recovery measures.”
“We will continue working with the operators to strengthen the resilience of the network and improve communications with customers,” he added.
