SINGAPORE: A significant landline outage experienced by Singtel last month was attributed to a "technical issue" with one of the key components in its network, as revealed by Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, Janil Puthucheary, in Parliament on November 11.

The incident, which left many users without service for hours, particularly disrupted calls to emergency services such as 995 and 999. Preliminary investigations indicate that the outage was caused by a malfunction in one of the two systems that support Singtel’s fixed-line voice service. Typically, these systems, housed in separate telephone exchanges, are designed to seamlessly take over for one another during a failure. Unfortunately, during this incident, the failover mechanism failed to operate as intended, leading to an intermittent disruption in services.

Public concern grew as this outage not only interrupted everyday communications but also affected vital services for emergency response, healthcare providers, and customer service lines of various government agencies, banks, and businesses. In response to mounting questions from Members of Parliament about the incident's origins and future prevention measures, Dr. Janil emphasized that there was no evidence of sabotage or cybersecurity breaches. Ongoing investigations by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) are aimed at determining how such failures could be avoided in the future.

Dr. Janil underscored the critical role that Singapore’s telecommunication network plays in national connectivity and highlighted the IMDA’s stringent regulatory expectations for service providers like Singtel. He confirmed that service providers are required to conduct regular audits of their networks, including assessments of their redundancy protocols and overall resilience to ensure swift restoration during service interruptions.

During the outage, estimates suggested that about half of the calls were still managed to connect, with services being progressively restored over a four-hour period. Singtel has characterized the outage as an isolated incident, though the implications have sparked a serious discussion about the robustness of emergency communication channels in times of crisis.

To address the situation, Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling disclosed that the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and the Singapore Police Force (SPF) informed the public that those facing technical difficulties could alternatively reach out via SMS or through the SGSecure app. Thankfully, there were no reports of failure to respond to urgent emergencies during the outage.

In light of the challenges highlighted by this event, IMDA is collaborating with the Ministry of Home Affairs, SCDF, and SPF to conduct a thorough after-action review. This review aims to enhance resilience in Singapore’s emergency hotline systems to ensure that such outages do not compromise public safety in the future.

The incident has not only raised eyebrows about Singtel's preparedness but also prompted discussions about the reliability of communication infrastructure in a tech-driven society. As Singapore continues to prioritize connectivity, the stakes are high for telecom providers to maintain stringent operational standards and contingency plans. Could this be a wake-up call for other service providers? Only time will tell.