Singtel landline outage: Hotlines for emergency services, banks back up after hours-long disruption

SINGAPORE: An hours-long Singtel landline outage on Tuesday (Oct 8) disrupted calls to emergency services, healthcare institutions, banks and businesses.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said earlier that calls to 995 and 999 were affected, adding that they were working closely with the service provider to resolve the matter. 
“Members of the public who are experiencing difficulties reaching us at 995 or 999 can SMS SCDF at 70995 or SPF at 70999 instead,” they said on Facebook at about 4.30pm.
Both announced shortly before 7pm that the issue had been resolved. 
“Members of the public may resume using the hotlines for emergencies. We appreciate your understanding during the earlier disruption.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Singtel alerted customers to the issue in a Facebook post at about 3.40pm. 
Outage tracking website Downdetector showed users started to flag issues with the telco from about 2pm. At around 3.50pm, about 2,700 reports had been filed. 
In an update at about 5.05pm, Singtel said its engineers had isolated the problem.
“Recovery measures are being rapidly deployed and services are progressively being restored. We apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience,” it added.
All mobile and broadband services remain unaffected. 
Customer hotlines for a range of businesses and services were hit. 
SingHealth, which operates hospitals and polyclinics in the east, said at 4.20pm that its telephone appointment lines were temporarily unavailable due to the Singtel ISDN outage. 
This refers to Singtel’s Integrated Services Digital Network, which supports high-call-volume call centres and businesses.
It pointed patients to the SingHealth Health Buddy app for appointment and billing services. “Clinical services remain accessible and unaffected,” SingHealth added.
KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), the National Cancer Centre and Changi General Hospital (CGH) – all under SingHealth – similarly alerted the public to the issue. 
All three said at about 6.30pm that their telephone lines had been restored. 
Singapore’s three local banks, DBS, UOB and OCBC, also reported issues with their customer hotlines.
“We have been informed by our telco provider that they are facing technical issues that are impacting our customer care hotlines. We are working closely with them to resolve this industry-wide issue as soon as possible,” DBS said on Facebook.
In a separate update, DBS said that it was informed by NETS that the “industry-wide” issue may also impact transactions such as QR, credit and debit, as well as NETS card transactions via some NETS terminals.
“In the meantime, you can use DBS/POSB digibank and PayLah! Scan & Pay SGQR codes, where applicable, and PayNow to make payments,” it added. 
UOB said its customers may be experiencing intermittent connection issues to its customer contact hotline, while OCBC said it was unable to receive calls made to its hotlines. 
All three banks said in an update on Tuesday evening that their services were back online. 
Tanjong Pagar Town Council stated that its phone lines were “temporarily down due to a Singtel service outage in the East and Central regions of Singapore”. 
SimplyGo, which manages public transport ticketing services, encouraged commuters to submit any queries via its website feedback form. “Our hotline is currently unavailable due to Singtel’s service outage,” it said on its website. 
Payment provider NETS said some transactions may be affected.
“Please have this fixed asap,” said one commenter on Singtel’s Facebook post. 
“We are running business and all payment terminals not working,” wrote user Wilfred Chong. 
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