StarHub broadband service disruption across S’pore lasts for hours on 20 Aug, telco reroutes traffic

Thousands of StarHub users complain of disruption in home Wifi & TV access on 20 Aug

Thousands of StarHub users experienced a disruption in their broadband service on Tuesday (20 Aug) night, with complaints coming from many areas across Singapore.

Most of them reported that their Wifi wasn’t working, with browsers unable to load, while many also found connection issues with their TV.

Peak of 7,539 reports made by 8.30pm

According to Downdetector, more StarHub users than usual began reporting outages on Tuesday evening, with 351 reports received at 6pm.

This built up to more than 1,000 by 6.30pm and more than 3,000 by 7.45.

A peak of 7,539 reports were made by 8.30pm.

Almost three-quarters of the reports said they had issues with the landline Internet.

The reports weren’t concentrated in specific locations in Singapore, with complaints coming from across the island.

StarHub users complain of no Internet & TV connectivity

About 100 users also left comments on StarHub’s Facebook page on the outage.

Some griped that their Internet browsers were not loading.

Others lamented that their StarHub TV was down.

A user in Tampines said his TV was giving him an error message.

A netizen helpfully summarised some of the locations were problems were reported, revealing that it was widespread from East to West, North to South.

Those who tried calling the hotline also found themselves being put on hold for up to 30 minutes.

StarHub acknowledges disruption on 20 Aug

StarHub acknowledged the disruption in a Facebook post at 7.57pm, saying they were “working to resolve the issue promptly”.

It also apologised to customers for the inconvenience.

However, that didn’t stop users leaving withering comments. While some grumbled that they couldn’t watch TV, livestreams or play games, one student said she couldn’t make the deadline for submitting her assignment.

Another user who was working from home was also affected.

StarHub says service should resume ‘progressively’ from 9.15pm

Finally, StarHub updated at 9.15pm that it had successfully “rerouted traffic”.

Customers should see their broadband and TV services coming back online “progressively” it said.

Those facing issues were advised to reboot their routers.

Over at Downdetector, the number of reports dropped sharply after 8.55pm, going down to 1,581 by 9.10pm and below 1,000 by 9.35pm. At 11.55pm, there were 74 reports.

However, a user in Orchard said at 9.35pm that he could not use his mobile data.

Another user in West Coast said she was still experiencing “intermittent disruption” as of 9.56pm.

At 10pm, a Woodlands resident said his service was resumed only around 10pm.

But at 10.18pm, a Bukit Merah resident said his Wifi was still down.

And as late as 11pm, a River Valley resident said she was still having connection issues with her TV.

Even after midnight, a user in Sengkang said both his TV and broadband connections were still down.

For him, the issues started as early as noon, he claimed.

Disruption caused by DNS server problems: StarHub

In a statement to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), StarHub said the disruption was caused by problems with its DNS servers.

According to Cloudflare, DNS servers translate domain names that users type into their browsers to numeric IP addresses so they can get to the correct website.

The disruption may have caused slowness or interruptions to broadband and TV services and the issue has been resolved, StarHub said, adding,

If internet services are restored but TV services remain down, please restart your set-top box or TV box.

MS News has reached out to StarHub for more information on the disruption.

Also read: StarHub customers face broadband issues on 30 May afternoon, service restored within 3 hours

StarHub customers face broadband issues on 30 May afternoon, service restored within 3 hours

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Featured image adapted from Guowei Jeff on Facebook.