SingTel

(25-09-2013, 08:23 PM)AlphaQuant Wrote: SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Seven Singapore telecom firms, including M1 Ltd and StarHub Ltd, on Wednesday asked the government to reject Singapore Telecommunication Ltd's proposed acquisition of the firm developing the city-state's next generation broadband network.
NetLink Trust, a trust controlled by SingTel, has proposed acquiring OpenNet, the consortium developing the broadband network, for S$126 million ($100.47 million) in a deal that requires regulatory approval from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore.
"If approved, the proposed consolidation would see SingTel becoming the 100 percent beneficial owner of the only other nationwide fixed telecommunications network in Singapore, apart from SingTel's own network," the seven companies said in a joint statement.
"The unprecedented show of solidarity demonstrates the grave concerns the industry has over the competition issues raised by the proposed consolidation, including the potential of discriminatory treatment and a lack of independence," they added.

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Fire at SingTel building disrupts telco, ATM services

A fire at a SingTel network exchange disrupted telco services and bank ATMs. According to a SingTel spokesperson, the fire broke out at 2pm, causing damages to network infrastructure.

This affected some fixed voice lines, broadband, and TV services in Woodlands, Bukit Panjang, Chua Chu Kang, Upper Bukit Timah and Mandai, as well as mobile services in parts of Woodlands, Marsiling and Kranji, it added. Data lines for some corporate customers were also affected.

"Some services have already been restored since the fire was extinguished at around 3pm. Our engineers will continue to work through the night to restore the remaining services as soon as possible," said SingTel, which added it would provide regular updates via Facebook.

Rival telcos M1 and StarHub have also been hit as some of their services run on lines owned by incumbent SingTel, affecting fiber broadband and cable TV customers.

Mock Pak Lum, StarHub's Chief Technology Officer, said: "As we lease some SingTel optical fiber capacity that runs through this exchange, this has affected StarHub's cable TV, cable and fiber broadband, and digital voice services for some of our customers. We are monitoring the situation closely and working to restore services as soon as we can."

The outage has also hit stores with M1 reporting that its Causeway Point store's systems were being affected, leading to "significantly longer than usual" waiting times.

Bank ATMs and branches hit
In a statement, DBS said the fire had affected 18 of its branches including those at Changi Airport, Hougang, and Raffles Place. It added branches would remain open for an extra hour for customers.

According to OCBC, 11 of its ATMs were affected.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force had received a call at 2.16pm to attend to the fire, which broke out at a cable room in level one of the building, located at 40 Woodlands Road, according to Today. The fire was extinguished in 20 minutes by two water jets and no injuries were reported, it added.

The fire comes just a week after M1 was fined a record S$1.5 million (US$1.2 million) for Singapore's worst network outage, when various services were disrupted for around three days in January.

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SingTel Updates on Service Recovery Efforts at Bukit Panjang Exchange

SingTel held a media briefing earlier at 1PM today to provide further information on its service recovery efforts at the Bukit Panjang Exchange.

The telco expects all business services to be fully restored by 7PM today while all remaining services including residential will be fully restored by 7AM tomorrow. The telco also provided some statistics on affected services and customers as of 11AM:

According to SingTel, the fire damaged a total of 149 cables at one of its chambers in the building. 100 engineers were deployed on-site to carry out recovery operations. The size of the chamber, measuring 40 x 5m, limits the number of people who are able to access the chamber at any point in time.

The cause of the fire remains unknown, and SingTel is still conducting investigations. When queried on providing compensation for customers affected by the service outages, Mr. Yuen Kuan Moon, CEO Consumer Singapore at SingTel, states that the telco has plans to do so, but its main priority right now is to resume all services as soon as possible. More details on the compensation will be revealed at a later date.


In its latest Facebook post, StarHub states that 19% of its fibre broadband services to affected customers had been restored. It will continue to work with SingTel to speed up restoration works. M1 also posted on its Facebook page that broadband service to a number of fibre customers was restored this morning and work to restore service to our remaining affected fibre broadband connections is ongoing.

(10-10-2013, 10:01 PM)NTL Wrote: All the damages and compensation will be covered insurance? If this is the case, what kind of financial damages will Singtel be hit?