Singtel has been slapped with fines amounting to $145,000 for two separate pay-TV disruptions.
Both incidents saw customers being tuned out of programmes across more than 10 channels.
In the first incident on Oct 1 last year, 100 Singtel TV subscribers islandwide could not watch any programmes on 11 channels for more than one hour, said Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in a statement today (Nov 25).
Investigations by the regulator revealed that damaged fibre optic cables had caused the initial disruption.
It added: “That would have normally triggered an automatic switchover to the secondary fibre to prevent a service disruption. However, the switchover was unsuccessful due to a faulty fibre optic receiver card on the secondary fibre. SingNet did not have a robust process to test that the receiver card was functional.”
IMDA had to fine Singtel $55,000 for this incident. SingNet is a unit of Singtel.
It was again fined $90,000 for a disruption on Jan 5 this year.
Some 1,400 Singtel TV viewers saw sporadic blurry images on their TV screen across 15 channels for about three hours.
Explaining the fault, the regulator said: “This service difficulty was caused by a failure to properly configure two line cards on a router at SingNet’s Bukit Timah headend in August 2015. At the point of installation, the vendor was supposed to implement a router configuration that would increase the shared limit of the two line cards. However, as that was not carried out, when data traffic on 5 January 2016 was exceeded, intermittent pixelation occurred on the channels.”
IMDA’s assessment is that SingNet should have ensured that its vendor carried out its work properly, it concluded.
In determining the amount of penalties, IMDA said it took into consideration factors such as SingNet’s response to the incidents, the extent of the disruptions and its track record.
“IMDA notes that SingNet has committed to implementing the necessary measures to prevent future recurrences,” it added.
chenj@sph.com.sg
Read also: SingNet fined $90,000 for pay-TV disruption
