Initial investigations indicated that the disruption was due to a "power-related issue", Singtel said.

SINGAPORE: Singtel's mobile network was down for many users in Singapore on Thursday night (Oct 18), with people in areas including one-north, Choa Chu Kang, Ang Mo Kio, Bedok, Serangoon and Kembangan saying they were unable to access mobile services from around 10pm.



The service outage lasted about three hours from around 10pm on Thursday to 1.22am on Friday morning when all affected services were restored, according to Singtel.



Initial investigations indicated that the disruption was due to a "power-related issue", Singtel said in an update on its Facebook page at 1.20am on Friday.

The telco said that it detected "issues with mobile voice and data services" on its 3G/4G network at 10.11pm, and that affected services were progressively restored from 11.50pm.



It added that it would continue to monitor the network to ensure full restoration and apologised to its customers.



A Channel NewsAsia reader who did not want to be named said he first noticed the network was down at about 10pm.



Engineer Yeow Teik Jin, who lives in Jurong East, told Channel NewsAsia he noticed that there was no service on his mobile phone at around 10.10pm.

His mobile Wi-Fi device was also unable to connect to the network.



(Photo: Yeow Teik Jin)



Frustrated subscribers took to social media to vent their complaints.

"I thought (it) was my phone at first and (kept) restarting my phone. Think many areas affected," commented Facebook user Pearlene Goh.



Another Facebook user wrote on Singtel's Facebook page that she was overseas and was trying to use data roaming but could not connect.



"I am currently overseas and my data roaming for two telephone numbers which I had activated data roaming have been deactivated," she said. "Tried calling you guys at your hotline some many and it's useless. Waste of my overseas roaming calls."





SingTel is having issues since 22:14. https://t.co/oy9fKNHyvi RT if it's down for you as well #SingTeldown — Downdetector SG (@downdetectorSG) October 18, 2018





Restarted my phone so many times thinking it was my phone issue when it was Singtel all along..thanks a lot 🙄 #singteldown — 人斬り抜刀斎 (@sephblue) October 18, 2018

"THIS IS TRULY UNACCEPTABLE"

Others also took issue with how Singtel was handling the disruption.

"I don’t comment on social media much but this is truly unacceptable. No apologies whatsoever," Facebook user Alvin Ho commented on Singtel's status update. "Quite disgusted with the service 'recovery' - no empathy and downtime is too long, extremely bad external comms.

"You made myself and a couple of my friends extremely worried. Tried to call the hotline but call failed even when I have reception although no data."

Another Channel NewsAsia reader said she noticed that her mobile phone had no 4G connection and so tried contacting Singtel's customer service hotline through WiFi calling, but failed to get through to anyone.

"After waiting for more than 30 minutes, the call became total silence instead of the waiting 'music'," she told Channel NewsAsia. "I waited for another five minutes, still in silence; so I hung up and called back after another five minutes. To my surprise, the call failed.

"It’s very disturbing, as we’re paying so much for the monthly subscription and we always get disrupted."

Nur Azzahar Buhari commented that, as a Grab driver, not having Internet access on his mobile phone meant that he could not work.



"You have deprived (me of) my whole night earnings," he wrote.

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