Professor Anthony Tung on Singtel’s two consecutive days of mobile connectivity disruptions.
CNA's Singapore Tonight featured Professor Anthony Tung from the Department of Computer Science as a live studio guest on Singtel's two consecutive days of mobile connectivity disruptions.
On the cause of the outage, Prof Tung pointed to (possibly) cascading errors across hardware, software, and core routing systems — rare combinations that engineers have never encountered before, making them exceptionally difficult to diagnose and resolve.
Asked whether current safeguards are sufficient, he offered a vaccine analogy: just as no vaccine is failproof, no network can anticipate every unforeseen failure. Beyond a certain reliability threshold, he noted, the cost of incremental improvement becomes prohibitive — making rapid detection, isolation, and recovery the more practical priority.
On whether consumers should expect better, Prof Tung gave a characteristically balanced response — affirming that higher standards are warranted, while also calling on individuals to reduce over-reliance on mobile connectivity and maintain fallback options.
"We should always expect better, but I would also take proactive action to ensure there is no over-reliance on the phone, and always have something to back up on."
CNA Singapore Tonight (17 Mar 2025): "Singtel faces second straight day of connectivity issues"