LTA contractor's piling work causes network outage across telcos

SINGAPORE – Hundreds of subscribers of fibre broadband, television and phone services across the island were affected by a network outage today (June 11), after a Land Transport Authority (LTA) contractor damaged fibre optic cables while carrying out piling work at the Thomson-East Coast Line’s Great World Station worksite.

The affected subscribers were from various telcos — Singtel, StarHub, M1 and MyRepublic — and services were reportedly disrupted in areas including Orchard, Outram, Cantonment Road, Marina Bay. Bukit Merah, Bukit Panjang, Tiong Bahru, Tanjong Pagar and Woodlands.

As at press time, services were being progressively restored, more than 10 hours after the outage occurred. NetLink Trust, the Republic’s fibre broadband network provider, said it was trying to complete restoration work by midnight. The company said that it was alerted of the outage at about 10.40am. More than 500 subscribers were affected, it added.

An LTA spokesperson said the contractor damaged a section of NetLink Trust’s underground fibre optic cables. “We will work with all relevant parties to investigate the incident,” the spokesperson said. “LTA apologises to all fibre subscribers affected by this incident.”

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) said it is investigating the incident. “The IDA understands that NetLink Trust engineers are working to restore services as soon as possible,” the authority said on its Facebook page. It added that it was monitoring the situation, to ensure affected services were restored quickly.

Many subscribers took to the telcos’ Facebook pages to complain about the service disruptions. Facebook user Rachelyn Cheong said that she had experienced service disruption at Cantonment Road for more than five hours, while another user Vanessa Ho said service was down at the Marina Bay area since 10.30am.