I realized it when sending a message on Whatsapp to my cousin.
There was no status displayed on his Whatsapp and I thought he was at somewhere without any reception.
The message did not get through after a while and his status was still a blank.
So I checked out my messages to other friends and realized that there's no indication that they were online or last seen at when.
Was it my phone's problem?
Anyway, I've been switching between using mobile data and my wireless connection outside and at home.
Turned my mobile data off and on. Restarted my phone and the problem persisted.
My Facebook account was also inaccessible and kept showing "No internet connection" when I tried to refresh it.
Wanted to check on Singtel's website but realized I was also unable to browse the internet as well.
Made a phone call and it was working fine.
Anyway, since I managed to reach my cousin (which is what's most important at that time), I guess I'll just wait out for the network to be restored. No point calling their hotline as it'll probably be jammed with calls.
I'll also get a chance to have a meal totally disconnected to the digital world. No whatsapp messages. No urge to check on my Facebook, Twitter or whatever. Come to think of it, if it's something urgent, then the other party would have called when he or she did not get my reply to their messages. So if my phone didn't ring, then it's really nothing urgent at all.
The bad part about a network outage is that life is a little more inconvenient. You can't check the location of the place you do not know. You can't upload the photo of the dish you're having now immediately to Intagram. You can't ask something from your colleague who is in a meeting now without calling them. Being mobile has become so much a part of us that we feel crippled when such thing happens. We refuse or unable to think of other ways of reaching our objectives.
BUT shouldn't Singtel at least send an SMS to inform it's customers that there's a problem with the network?
After an hour and a half to two hours, the network was restored although there seemed to be some lagging.
The outage was reported in the local newspapers Facebook pages.
And as usual, Singtel was slammed for how it handled the situation.
Apparently, they have taken to announce the outage on their Facebook page. One customer said, "Why announce it on Facebook when I cannot even access it?" Precisely. If you need to communicate something to someone, at least make sure that the other party is able to receive your message.
While there may be a small group of customers who can access their laptop or desktop to find out what happened, there is a higher percentage of them who are on the move.
According to the news, information on the outage was posted on Singtel's Facebook page at 2:48pm. This is almost 2 hours late when the problem started at 1pm for me. In this digital age, why do they need such a long time to let its customers know about the problem?
Was Singtel too confident that they can restore the network quickly without too many users realizing it?
Was Singtel too careful not to announce it too quickly in case it's a small glitch which could be fixed immediately?
Was Singtel too scared to make any announcement before they get any confirmation that the network is really down?
Was Singtel too cost effective that they chose to announce the network problem through Facebook as it's the fastest way to reach a large group of people at zero cost?
Is Singtel too advanced technologically that they do not have the ability to send mass SMS to its users?
Is Singtel too big that they need 2 hours for information on the outage to be communicated by the network guys to the social media group?
Is your company too confident, too careful, too scared, too cost effective, too advanced or too big?