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M1 fined $300,000 for service disruption in May

Telecommunications operator Mobile1 (M1) has been fined $300,000 by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) for its 18 May service disruption.

Faulty hardware cards in M1’s backend systems resulted in subscribers in the western region of Singapore having difficulty making and receiving calls. They also had trouble accessing SMS, MMS and mobile data services on their mobile phones.

Due to the unique nature of the service incident, no alarms were triggered in M1's monitoring system. This affected M1's initial efforts in identifying and isolating the cause of the service disruption

The disruption affected more than 5 per cent of M1's base stations, said IDA in a statement released on Monday.

"Given the serious impact of the service disruption, IDA has decided to impose a financial penalty of $300,000 on M1 for its contravention of the Service Resiliency Code," said the authority.

The code sets out service standards and allows IDA to impose penalties according to the duration and extent of the disruption.

IDA also added that in its decision to fine M1, IDA has found that M1's efforts in restoring the services expeditiously were not satisfactory. It also considered mitigating factors such as M1’s efforts to compensate end-users.

Responding to IDA’s penalty, M1 disagreed with the decision.

"We do not agree with IDA's determination that M1 had crossed the impact threshold of 5 percent of base stations," M1 said in a statement as reported by Reuters.

"It was an isolated case and M1 had taken all the necessary course of actions to restore services to end users. As the problem was intermittent, the trouble shooting process was prolonged," the telco added.