Yaacob dismayed over M1 service outage

Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim has expressed his dismay over Tuesday's M1 service outage.

"It has been a frustrating experience for M1 customers, especially having just experienced other disruptions in very recent months," wrote Dr Yaacob on his Facebook page yesterday.

"They had given the feedback that M1 could have done better in providing updates and communicating to its subscribers when the services resumed," he added.

Many M1 users were unable to make voice calls or send text messages in a service disruption that occurred at about 7am on Tuesday and lasted past noon. Some could not get through to M1's hotlines either.

M1 users received a message yesterday afternoon, with personal apologies from the telco's chief executive officer.

APOLOGY

"I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience you experienced. I take this incident seriously and will spare no further effort to enhance our network," Ms Karen Kooi said in the SMS.

M1 will be offering free local mobile calls, SMS and MMS on Sunday.

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) is investigating M1's service disruption.

Dr Yaacob has also asked the regulator to ensure that M1's network functions optimally.

Last October, M1 was fined a record $1.5 million for its network outage in January that year, which lasted around three days.

The service disruption was caused by poor electrical installation practices and inadequate risk assessment when M1 was upgrading one of its network operation centres, according to IDA.

SingTel users also experienced intermittent 3G and 4G services yesterday, Dr Yaacob wrote in his post.

"While no network service is foolproof, telcos can improve in the way they update and assist their customers when disruptions occur..." he added.