Fibre outage affecting 2,000 connections in Bishan, Thomson; restoration targeted by Wednesday morning
Water ingress and obstructions at the damage site are complicating repair works, says NetLink Trust.
A NetLink Trust vehicle. (Photo: NetLink Trust)
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SINGAPORE: NetLink Trust (NLT) is aiming to restore the remaining services affected by a fibre outage in parts of Bishan and Thomson by Wednesday (Sep 16) morning, with some connections already restored.
About 2,000 end-user connections are affected by the disruption.
In an update at 9.45pm on Tuesday, NLT said its investigations found that multiple fibre cables were damaged by a third-party contractor carrying out road widening works.
The contractor was not engaged by NLT.
Recovery teams remain on site and are working through the night to repair the damaged cables.
However, recovery efforts have been complicated by conditions at the damage site, including water ingress and obstructions that are limiting access to the underground cables, NLT said.
Despite these constraints, affected connections are being progressively restored.
"Based on our current assessment, we are targeting to restore the remaining affected services by tomorrow morning," NLT said.
It cautioned that the timeline could change as recovery works progress and the full extent of the damage is confirmed.
"We recognise the disruption this is causing to affected end users and sincerely apologise for the inconvenience," NLT said, adding that it was working with internet service providers and relevant parties to expedite restoration.
Earlier on Tuesday, Singtel, StarHub and M1 said in separate Facebook posts that some broadband users in Bishan and Thomson may be affected by the outage, and that they were working with NLT to restore services as soon as possible.
NLT owns and operates the fibre network infrastructure of Singapore's Nationwide Broadband Network.
Reports related to Singtel on Downdetector, which collates status reports from several sources, spiked to 124 at 1.43pm before falling to 56 by 5.43pm.
StarHub reports on Downdetector also spiked to 107 at 1.29pm before dropping to 24 by 5.44pm.
Reports related to M1 on Downdetector also climbed to 31 by 1.31pm before dipping to seven by 5.46pm.
In April, NetLink Trust experienced a cable damage incident that disrupted fibre broadband services for about 5,000 users in parts of Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Sengkang and Punggol.
