PREPARING FOR FUTURE OUTAGES
When outages occur, service providers should go beyond investigating the root cause and review their recovery processes, failover mechanisms and system dependencies. The three consecutive days of Singtel mobile service disruptions, followed by broadband internet issues a week later, could indicate hidden dependencies between seemingly independent components.
Resilience strategies need to be revisited. Telco providers need to practise for failures through drills and simulations, and test how quickly they can recover.
Because fixing the backbone of the telecommunications network remains the responsibility of service providers, there is little Singaporeans can do. But there are small ways to be prepared, such as keeping some cash on hand so that you are not totally dependent on mobile payment.
We can watch out for each other. If mobile or broadband services are down, inform your neighbours and check in on each other in case someone needs urgent help.
Do not panic – trust that the service provider and authorities are doing everything they can to restore the service.
If the service provider reaches out, provide constructive feedback on issues that affected you so that they can build a more resilient system.
Matthias Yeo is Co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm CyberXCenter.
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