M1 mobile network disruption traced to software issue

Customers get free calls as compensation.

M1 customers stumbled into network issues yesterday, and the telco said preliminary investigations traced it to a call processing software issue.

M1 plans to offer customers one day of free local mobiles calls, local SMS and MMS for free as a "goodwill gesture" this Sunday, February 9.

"At about 7:00am yesterday, 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," said M1 in a release.

"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 explained that it 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.

The telco's 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.”