SINGAPORE: On Thursday (Dec 11), the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced that a S$1 million fine had been slapped on Singtel due to an outage that occurred on Oct 8, 2024, which affected half a million residential and corporate users for over four hours. Moreover, access to customer service lines for emergency call services, certain health organisations, government agencies, banks, and companies was affected.
IMDA said in its statement that it takes “a serious view of the incident and conducted a thorough investigation.”
The authority explained its findings based on the investigation, saying that the reason for dropped calls was that voice traffic alternated between affected and unaffected voice systems. When Singtel shifted all voice traffic to the unaffected voice system, the incident was resolved.
When deciding on how much to fine Singtel, IMDA noted the significant effect of the incident, adding that “the potential impact on the safety and security of the public could have been very serious.”
The authority acknowledged, however, that the incident was not within SingTel’s control to prevent and that no cyber attack had occurred. It added in its statement that SingTel has taken the needed measures to prevent such an incident from recurring.
In Parliament in November 2024, former Jurong MP Tan Wu Meng raised questions about the incident and noted on social media that on the morning of the day that the outage occurred, there had been a fire at a home in Clementi. “If the fire had been a few hours later during the Singtel outage, and if neighbours had been unable to contact emergency services in a timely way, things might have turned out differently,” Dr Tan wrote.
CNA reported on Dec 11 that Singtel accepted the ruling from the IMDA, as well as the million-dollar fine.
Some Singaporeans commenting on the report, while expressing approval that SingTel would be penalised for the outage, expressed concerns that the fine would be passed on to consumers.
When a Facebook user wrote that the amount of the fine was “spare change for SingTel,” another answered by speculating, “You will pay for the spare change with service charge increase.“
“And then raise the price to consumers to cover back, is it?” another asked.
Another chimed in with a suggestion that “affected customers should be given a free subscription for a month or two” in lieu of the fine.
“Is this fair to the consumers!!!???” asked a netizen.
“And what do the Singtel customers get from Singtel other than a half-baked apology?” another wondered. /TISG
Read also: Yet another emergency call outage hits Singtel’s Optus as vandals cut fibre
