MDA charges SingNet $50,000 for TV outage in March

Media Development Authority said SingNet failed to comply with licence conditions on Quality of Service and Consumer Service when it had a software glitch on 1 March 2010.

The Media Development Authority (MDA) has fined SingNet S$50,000 for its Mio TV outage that occurred at around 6am to about 6pm on 1 March 2010 due to a software glitch that affected 10,000 subscribers, according to an MDA release on Wednesday.

MDA said as a Nationwide Subscription Television Service Licensee, SingNet is required to comply with licence conditions on Quality of Service (QoS) and Consumer Service, which meant that it has to provide pay TV services at a reasonable quality that meets public expectations and is satisfactory to MDA. SingNet is also required to operate an efficient consumer service and provide avenues for speedy resolution of consumers' complaints on its service.

MDA had found evidence of SingNet breaching its license conditions on QoS and Consumer Service when its Mio TV service broke down on 1 March. MDA's investigations showed that SingNet took efforts to correct the software malfunction and resume service. However, outage impacted more than 10,000 subscribers which is not insignificant and caused a lot of inconveniences.

MDA said SingNet could have provided better consumer support and resolved consumer complaints in a timely manner. According to the release, SingNet's call handling was evidently lacking when consumers complained that they could not get through to their call centre for hours, and even on the day after the breakdown.

Aside from the fine, SingNet was also noted to declare its commitment to implement measures to improve both its QOS and Consumer Service.