Celcom to plan for triple redundancy after network disruption in Northern states

Celcom had faced a severe network outage yesterday which affected its mobile services in Perak, Perlis, Kedah and Penang. Subscribers on Celcom, Xpax as well as MVNOs that ride on Celcom’s network had “No Service” status on their phones.

Celcom CEO, Idham Nawawi, had apologised on Twitter for the service disruption which occurred between 4:48pm to 6:28pm yesterday evening. As highlighted previously, the CEO says that the issue was caused by a double fibre failure.

Although they have managed to restore their network within two hours, the blue telco wants to prevent the same disruption from happening again. According to Idham, their tech team are planning for a triple-redundancy network. The CEO also mentions that something has to be done about fibre cuts caused by third parties which affect thousands of customers.

It isn’t 100% clear if the recent outage was indeed caused by cable cuts but incidents of fibre cables being damaged due to third party construction work are not uncommon. Late last year, there was a nationwide outage for fibre broadband services which was allegedly caused by multiple cable cuts due to MRT and Sabak Bernam West Coast Expressway (WSE) construction works. Following the incident, TM had brought up the issue to the respective local councils and will be taking action against the contractors.

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