Photo by Adhitya Andanu via Pexels.
At around 6 p.m. yesterday, thousands of people in Singapore had zero access to mobile data, interrupting their beloved online activities. This, all because Starhub, one of the island’s major telecommunications providers, experienced an internet outage.In a statement issued by Starhub last night, it said that there was “temporary data congestion” that may have resulted in “issues with internet access." The company is usually reliable, with internet monitoring service Fing ranking it in the top five percent, as one of the fastest in the world in 2019. This is precisely why yesterday’s interruption caused such a big stir.
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Singapore’s electronic payment network Nets was also affected. On their website, the company wrote, “Starhub is experiencing Internet connectivity issues and this has impacted some of Nets’ payment services.”Singaporeans were not amused by the service drop.“WAAHHH STARHUB DOWN WALAO,” exclaimed @SamuelFrancis95.
“tfw starhub wifi down for 3+ hours already ejdbskdbksbsjsbsks,” said @Sonatchan_.
“Starhub down like my hope and dreams,” @AttaccT said.
“And i thought starhub disrupted my services because i had overdue payments,” @indrasaidon said.
According to Down Detector, a company which — as its name suggests — detects when services are not working, Starhub had significant issues yesterday. Their “live outrage” map showed that large parts of Singapore were affected, including Katong, Bugis, Clementi, Marina Crescent, and Choa Chu Kang.Over 6,500 Starhub users reported disrupted services at around 6:40 p.m. By around 6:50, the company issued a statement saying that they are working on solving the problem.Altogether, Singaporeans only had to suffer through about three hours of no internet as Starhub announced at around 9:50 that they had “fully restored” all mobile data services to their customers.Still, it obviously felt like forever to those who were affected.Find Meera on Twitter and Instagram.