Repairs for Wednesday’s unprecedented telecommunications service disruption continued into the second day yesterday.
Still, most businesses — including banks and Singapore Pools — had their operations fully restored as early as yesterday morning, as SingTel prioritised the restoration of corporate services.
Some schools and government agencies were among its affected corporate clients, the telco said.
At about 8pm yesterday, SingTel confirmed that it managed to complete all fibre cable repairs for its corporate customers by 7pm as planned.
SingTel contingency plan questioned as fire repairs continue
As SingTel struggled to fully restore all services that were affected by Wednesday’s unprecedented disruption, questions were being raised yesterday by various quarters — including businesses and industry observers — about the contingency plans in place for business continuity as the island gets wired up.
The disruption caused by a fire to SingTel’s Bukit Panjang facility — which hosts systems and equipment such as telephone switches and cables for telecommunication services — disrupted a range of services across the country and affected tens of thousands of people.
ATMs and other banking services were down, as well as some services offered by other telcos. Schools and Government agencies were also affected by the disruption which entered a second day yesterday, despite SingTel earlier pledging that all services would resume by 6am.
In the end, SingTel managed to restore all corporate services by 7pm and it said it expected the remaining services to be repaired fully by 7am today.
SingTel fire: Why no backup plans in place?
Businesses and consumers have asked why no backup plans were in place after a fire at one of nine major SingTel Internet exchanges crippled essential services across the island for more than 24 hours.
Mr Benjamin Tan, managing director of Internet service provider SuperInternet, said that it is common for providers of critical services like banks and hospitals to buy backup services from Internet service providers (ISPs).
Such backup services divert Internet traffic to an alternative route should the main cables be cut off - as in the case of SingTel.
"When there is a prolonged disruption like this, you can safely say that either the banks and hospitals did not buy the backup service, or the ISP's contingency plans did not kick in," said Mr Tan.
Services disrupted by Tuesday's fire
Back online by Wednesday:
HEALTH SERVICES
Three out of nine SingHealth polyclinics could not access patient records
Back online yesterday:
BANK SERVICES
All of UOB's ATM and cash deposit machines at its Bukit Panjang and Woodland branches not usable
Same with 11 OCBC ATMs at various locations, including Bukit Panjang, Woodlands, Changi Airport Terminal 2 and Geylang
Services unavailable at 12 POSB branches, such as Asia Treasures 2 at Changi Airport, Jurong Point and Ngee Ann City
Six DBS branches affected, including those at Peninsula Plaza and Raffles Place
BETTING SERVICES
All Singapore Pools outlets affected, except its main branch at Middle Road
PAID TV AND INTERNET
StarHub's pay TV, cable broadband and digital voice services affected
About 150 SingTel mobile users in the north affected
Still being fixed as of 9pm last night:
AXS MACHINES
Some 200 machines out of operation. Five were still down yesterday
INTERNET
SingTel's fibre broadband services in the northern and western parts affected
OpenNet services down in several districts, such as Bukit Batok and Marsiling
PAID TV
Some 46,000 Mio TV subscribers affected
PHONE SERVICES
Some 30,000 SingTel's Mio Voice users in the northwest affected
No comments:
Post a Comment