Singtel warns of peak-hour disruptions after three days of connectivity failures

Singapore's largest mobile telecommunications provider, Singtel, has warned that some customers may continue to experience intermittent connectivity issues over the coming days as it carries out ongoing system and network adjustments to stabilise its services.

The caution, issued via a Facebook post on Friday, 20 March 2026, follows three consecutive days of mobile service disruptions that affected thousands of subscribers between Sunday and Tuesday of the same week.

Singtel apologised for not providing clarity sooner, acknowledging that communications were delayed while engineering teams were focused on resolving the incidents as they unfolded.

Three days of disruption

The first and most serious incident occurred on Sunday, 16 March 2026, when approximately 15 per cent of Singtel's subscriber base — drawn from an estimated customer pool of 4.5 million — began experiencing mobile connectivity failures from around 10.30am.

Singtel attributed the outage to a mechanical fault at one of its network facilities. The telco said that while multiple redundancy measures had been in place, the situation required a full reconfiguration, which took several hours to complete.

4G services for affected customers were restored by approximately 1.30pm, with 5G services progressively coming back online from around 2.45pm. Most affected customers were reconnected to 5G within two hours. Full 5G service was not restored until around 8pm, making the total disruption period approximately nine hours.

A subsequent Singtel update at 8.55pm acknowledged that some customers remained without service and advised them to toggle aeroplane mode or restart their devices multiple times to prompt reconnection.

Software bug triggers second incident

A separate incident on Monday, 17 March 2026, affected approximately 2,000 customers, stemming from what Singtel described as a software bug introduced during an earlier pre-planned IT system upgrade.

The telco noted that the bug was not immediately apparent, as it coincided with the tail end of the previous day's disruption. The system was fully restored by around 4pm the same day.

Independent monitoring data from Downdetector, a platform that tracks service outages based on user-submitted reports, indicated the scale of disruption was more widespread than official figures suggested.

Reports of connectivity problems on 17 March began at 6.50am with 31 recorded incidents. That figure climbed sharply to 213 reports by 7.18am before reaching a peak of 396 reports at 9.03am. By 11.20am, 309 reports remained active.

Users described widespread failures including complete loss of signal, an inability to make voice calls or send SMS messages, and broken access to cellular data. Disruption appeared particularly acute for customers on 5G networks and those using eSIM technology. Standard troubleshooting steps, including device restarts and manual band selection, reportedly failed to restore connectivity for many.

Traffic spike on the third consecutive day

A third incident occurred on Tuesday, 18 March 2026, when a brief spike in network traffic at approximately 5.30pm arose as Singtel carried out network reconfigurations. The telco said the spike was resolved within an hour.

In its Friday statement, Singtel said that while mobile network services remain available, a small number of customers may still experience brief and intermittent inconveniences, particularly during peak hours, over the coming days.

In its update, Singtel was explicit that the three incidents were unrelated to one another, pushing back against any suggestion of a systemic network failure."

"We want to assure you that our teams are working around the clock to resolve this as quickly as possible," the company said.

GOMO and gig economy workers among those affected

The 16 March outage also affected users of GOMO, Singtel's SIM-only subsidiary brand, in addition to standard Singtel subscribers.

The prolonged disruption had a material impact on workers in the gig economy. Ride-hailing drivers and food delivery couriers reported being unable to accept jobs or navigate to destinations during the eight-hour outage on 16 March, resulting in direct income losses.

Public frustration mounted over the course of the week, with many customers challenging the characterisation of disruptions as affecting only a small number of users, and criticising long waits for customer service assistance.

Singtel ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of any of the three incidents, stating it found no evidence to suggest malicious interference.

Regulator launches investigation

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) confirmed on 16 March that it had commenced a formal investigation into the technical failures. IMDA stated that it takes a serious view of any service disruptions affecting public communications infrastructure.

As of Friday, Singtel had not provided a definitive timeline for when full network stability would be restored following the consecutive incidents. Customers requiring immediate assistance were directed to contact the telco's support line.