StarHub offering customers affected by Internet outages a one-time 20 per cent rebate

SINGAPORE - StarHub is offering customers who were affected by Internet service disruptions on Wednesday (April 15) a rebate of 20 per cent on their home broadband monthly fee.

More details will be announced later on a dedicated website where affected customers will be able to register for the one-time rebate.

In a statement released on Thursday, the telco's chief executive, Mr Peter Kaliaropoulos, apologised for the inconvenience that the Internet outages had caused subscribers.

He said: "Our customers place great trust and importance on our network quality and resiliency, and we regrettably fell short of giving them the service experience they deserve."

The outages were not caused by out-of-date equipment, capacity shortage or a cyber attack, he said, noting that "the root cause has been identified as an internal network change management process".

The Straits Times understands that a network configuration problem was to blame for the disruption.

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Mr Kaliaropoulos added that the company has taken "immediate steps" to implement measures to prevent a recurrence, and that it is reviewing relevant processes.

The telco is also cooperating with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in investigations.

On Wednesday, StarHub's Internet service faced intermittent outage issues, causing disruption to subscribers working and studying at home during a period when access to the Internet is crucial amid the coronavirus outbreak.

At around 11am, customers residing in the north and north-east regions faced a 20-minute disruption to their fibre broadband services due to a fault in a piece of network equipment.

In a separate incident at around 3.50pm, a network issue with a domain name server that handles Internet traffic routing resulted in slow or no Internet access for customers islandwide. Services were restored by 8.20pm.

Thousands of users had taken to social media to complain about the issue throughout the day.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.