SINGAPORE - Following a network disruption on Tuesday that lasted almost 6 hours, M1 said it will offer customers 1 day of free mobile calls, local SMS and MMS this Sunday, Feb 9, 2014, as a "goodwill gesture".
Here is a timeline of what happened today:
- At about 7am, some customers began experiencing difficulties making voice calls.
- At about 8.20am:
M1 customers encountering difficulties sending text messages, making calls
Telco M1 has posted a notice on Facebook acknowledging that some of its customers may be experiencing difficulties sending text messages or making voice calls.
- At about 10.30am:
M1 apologises for intermittent voice and text messaging mobile services
A spokesman for the telco said that mobile data services are not affected. "We are striving to resolve the issue and sincerely apologise for the inconvenience to our customers," he said in an e-mail to The Straits Times at around 10.30am.
- At about 12.50pm:
M1 mobile services fully restored after outage in the morning
M1's mobile services have been fully restored following a disruption earlier in the day, the telco said in a Facebook post at about 12.50pm on Tuesday. Still, some customers said they continue to have trouble connecting to M1's network.
- At about 7pm:
M1 releases statement to media about findings from its preliminary investigations into Feb 4's outage:
At about 7.00am today, our customers began experiencing difficulties making voice calls on our mobile network. Some customers were also unable to send and receive SMS or access mobile data, intermittently.
We immediately focused our efforts to restore services expeditiously. However, the complexity of the network required us to troubleshoot the numerous interlinked network entities. This systematic process was necessary to ensure effective restoration of services. Full service was restored at 12.15pm.
M1 has recently made significant investments to upgrade our mobile network by incorporating several new network entities and advanced software features. This has increased the complexity of the mobile network.
Our preliminary investigations suggest that a call processing software issue had unexpectedly prevented our customers' devices from registering on the mobile network. A full investigation will be performed to determine the root cause of the incident.
"We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to our customers. We take this incident very seriously, and in addition to our own investigation, we will be appointing an independent expert to conduct a network architecture and connectivity review," said Ms Karen Kooi, Chief Executive Officer, M1 Limited.
Ms Kooi added: "We appreciate our customers' understanding, patience and support, and we would like to offer our customers one day of free local mobile calls, local SMS and MMS this Sunday as a goodwill gesture.""
I was one of the frustrated M1 users today!
Lessons for me are:
1. M1 will have to pay for it as IDA will ask it to answer to this 'breakdown'. Almost 6 or more than 6 hours of downtime is really too long!;
2. PR recovery - it responded probably too slow as no REASONs were given as I listened to the radio in my car or watch the TV news reporting on 'M1 customers experiencing difficulties in using its mobile services - voice and text'. I am not sure what is the 'Recovery Standard Operation Procedure' on the technical and the customers service side of M1 process. Surely after an hour, an eternity, for most active mobile users, some preliminary reasons for the breakdown MUST be provided at worst!;
3. No sure about the 'goodwill gesture' on this coming Sunday 9 February 2014 will help the users to get over this unfortunate breakdown, especially the business users! Seriously, just offer the 'offer' without saying it is for 'goodwill' as there is NOTHING 'goodwill' about the breakdown. It created, most likely, a lot of 'illwill' really! Another PR hole showing?
I will stay on M1 for a while more though I did want to change to SingTel when my recent contract expired. I guessed plain laziness led me to this unpleasant 6-hour out-of-service experience. Maybe I should be more diligent come the next cycle of renewal? Or should I actually act soon? :-)
Here is a timeline of what happened today:
- At about 7am, some customers began experiencing difficulties making voice calls.
- At about 8.20am:
M1 customers encountering difficulties sending text messages, making calls
Telco M1 has posted a notice on Facebook acknowledging that some of its customers may be experiencing difficulties sending text messages or making voice calls.
- At about 10.30am:
M1 apologises for intermittent voice and text messaging mobile services
A spokesman for the telco said that mobile data services are not affected. "We are striving to resolve the issue and sincerely apologise for the inconvenience to our customers," he said in an e-mail to The Straits Times at around 10.30am.
- At about 12.50pm:
M1 mobile services fully restored after outage in the morning
M1's mobile services have been fully restored following a disruption earlier in the day, the telco said in a Facebook post at about 12.50pm on Tuesday. Still, some customers said they continue to have trouble connecting to M1's network.
- At about 7pm:
M1 releases statement to media about findings from its preliminary investigations into Feb 4's outage:
At about 7.00am today, our customers began experiencing difficulties making voice calls on our mobile network. Some customers were also unable to send and receive SMS or access mobile data, intermittently.
We immediately focused our efforts to restore services expeditiously. However, the complexity of the network required us to troubleshoot the numerous interlinked network entities. This systematic process was necessary to ensure effective restoration of services. Full service was restored at 12.15pm.
M1 has recently made significant investments to upgrade our mobile network by incorporating several new network entities and advanced software features. This has increased the complexity of the mobile network.
Our preliminary investigations suggest that a call processing software issue had unexpectedly prevented our customers' devices from registering on the mobile network. A full investigation will be performed to determine the root cause of the incident.
"We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to our customers. We take this incident very seriously, and in addition to our own investigation, we will be appointing an independent expert to conduct a network architecture and connectivity review," said Ms Karen Kooi, Chief Executive Officer, M1 Limited.
Ms Kooi added: "We appreciate our customers' understanding, patience and support, and we would like to offer our customers one day of free local mobile calls, local SMS and MMS this Sunday as a goodwill gesture.""
I was one of the frustrated M1 users today!
Lessons for me are:
1. M1 will have to pay for it as IDA will ask it to answer to this 'breakdown'. Almost 6 or more than 6 hours of downtime is really too long!;
2. PR recovery - it responded probably too slow as no REASONs were given as I listened to the radio in my car or watch the TV news reporting on 'M1 customers experiencing difficulties in using its mobile services - voice and text'. I am not sure what is the 'Recovery Standard Operation Procedure' on the technical and the customers service side of M1 process. Surely after an hour, an eternity, for most active mobile users, some preliminary reasons for the breakdown MUST be provided at worst!;
3. No sure about the 'goodwill gesture' on this coming Sunday 9 February 2014 will help the users to get over this unfortunate breakdown, especially the business users! Seriously, just offer the 'offer' without saying it is for 'goodwill' as there is NOTHING 'goodwill' about the breakdown. It created, most likely, a lot of 'illwill' really! Another PR hole showing?
I will stay on M1 for a while more though I did want to change to SingTel when my recent contract expired. I guessed plain laziness led me to this unpleasant 6-hour out-of-service experience. Maybe I should be more diligent come the next cycle of renewal? Or should I actually act soon? :-)
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