Internet connection for about 2,000 in Bishan, Thomson restored: NetLink Trust

[SINGAPORE] Fibre services in parts of Bishan and Thomson that were disrupted on Sep 15 have been restored, said NetLink Trust in a statement on Sep 16. It added that the disruption, which affected about 2,000 connections, was caused by damage to NetLink’s fibre infrastructure during construction works carried out by a third-party contractor.  NetLink Trust designs, builds, owns and operates the passive fibre network infrastructure of Singapore’s Nationwide Broadband Network.

“We are conducting a thorough review of the incident and will take appropriate follow-up actions upon completion of our investigations,” it said in a statement on its website at 6am, noting that works were completed at 5.40am.

“Our teams worked continuously through the night to restore affected services as quickly and safely as possible. 

“We sincerely apologise for the disruption and inconvenience caused and thank affected end users for their patience and understanding.”

It advised end users who continue to experience service issues to contact their respective internet service providers for further assistance. Reports of the disruption first surfaced on DownDetector – a website that tracks service disruptions – just after lunch on Sep 15.

In a 9.45pm statement on Sep 15, NetLink Trust said recovery efforts were complicated by conditions at the damage site, including water ingress and obstructions that were limiting access to the underground cables.

It added then that its teams would be working through the night to repair the damaged cables.

In separate social media posts on Sep 15, telcos Singtel, StarHub and M1 said the outage may have affected some of their subscribers.

In separate Facebook posts, StarHub said that the disruption was due to a “fibre cut”, while Singtel said that it was informed by NetLink Trust of the outage in Bishan.

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In an update at around 7.20pm on the same day, Singtel added that its mobile services are not affected by the outage and are operating normally.

NetLink Trust previously experienced a fibre service outage in April, during which 5,000 broadband connections in central and north-east Singapore were affected for around 20 hours.

The cable damage also affected the Expected Time of Arrival system for buses, and led to the system displaying inaccurate bus timings and long wait times at bus stops and on mobile apps.

The Land Transport Authority said then that the fibre service cables were damaged during construction works for the North-South Corridor project. THE STRAITS TIMES