M1 and StarHub fined $610k in total for broadband service disruptions

Two telcos here were hit with fines totalling $610,000 for causing Internet service disruptions during the circuit breaker period, which affected many Singaporeans working from home or attending home-based learning.

M1 was issued a financial penalty of $400,000 for broadband service disruptions in May, while StarHub received one for $210,000 for similar disruptions in April.

Announcing this in a release yesterday, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said the telcos had contravened the 2016 Code of Practice for Telecommunication Service Resilience.

"In determining the final penalty quantum for each incident, IMDA took into consideration relevant factors such as the duration, impact, and customer service measures adopted by the operators to mitigate impact," IMDA said.

In StarHub's case, the authority said that the disruptions on April 15 occurred when one of the telco's workers made a configuration error during a planned network migration exercise.

IMDA found that the incident, which affected up to 250,000 people, could have been prevented if StarHub had better supervised its staff.

In deciding the penalty, IMDA had considered StarHub's efforts to quickly restore services and its prompt communication and compensation to affected subscribers.

In M1's case, the authority said that an issue with a corrupted profile database in the telco's broadband network gateway disrupted services for 23 hours from 7am on May 12 to 6am on May 13.

There was also a second M1 disruption on May 13 after a software fault occurred in the telco's network equipment. It affected the routing of Internet traffic for some 20,000 subscribers for six hours.

In its investigations, IMDA said the first incident occurred because M1's staff and vendor had not followed prescribed procedure, but added that the telco could not have reasonably foreseen or prevented the second incident as it was the "first of its kind" for such equipment.

M1 had thus breached regulations for the first incident and not the second one, said IMDA.

SIGNIFICANT

It added that in determining the $400,000 penalty, the authority considered that the disruption lasted almost a full day, which caused significant inconvenience to affected subscribers.

IMDA also factored in M1's compensation efforts to affected subscribers following the incident.

Yesterday, M1 apologised for the inconvenience caused by the disruptions and thanked customers for their patience and understanding.

It said it will be investing in a cloud-based call centre platform that can manage increased call loads and lower its response time.

StarHub said it regretted the disruptions to its service and noted that it has implemented additional measures to prevent such an incident from happening again.