News

SINGAPORE – Hundreds of users of Giga’s no-frills plan could not access the Giga app between April 24 and 25 amid a spate of disruptions while the telco was upgrading its systems. Roughly 5 per cent of the telco’s users were also unable to make voice calls during that time, Giga, a sub-brand of StarHub, told The Straits Times on April 30. It did not specify the number of users affected. Dozens of users also faced difficulties porting their phone numbers to other telcos for days, exceeding the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) mandated timeframe of one working day, while others reported being unable to receive assistance through Giga’s chatbot and customer service options. The company posted on Facebook on April 24 that it was undergoing maintenance and alerted customers to issues with calling over its network, advising them to use their data to make calls, such as over WhatsApp, instead. Giga updated on Facebook on April 25 that services were restored. However, more than 300 comments on the company’s Facebook feed took issue with the telco’s speed of response and delays in porting over their number to other telco providers, even after the system was said to be rectified. The disruption occurred when the company was upgrading its tech infrastructure by transitioning to cloud technology – computing services that are carried out over the internet. “During this migration process on 24 April, we encountered a temporary technical glitch, specifically an ID mismatch on the backend, which unfortunately resulted in a brief outage,” a Giga spokesman told ST on April 30, adding that the issue was fully resolved within 24 hours “with no backlog or new incidents reported since”. “We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused our affected customers and assure them that we have taken steps to compensate them with gigaBucks (service credits) appropriately,” he added. Customers still facing issues can seek help from its AI chatbot Gino and service staff via e-mail, social media or its Live Agent Chat feature. Giga customer Daniel Chia, 64, told ST he had tried to transfer three phone numbers from Giga to alternative telcos but the process was rejected due to an ID mismatch. “I did my due diligence to reach out to Giga to check,” said Mr Chia, who is self-employed. “(They were) unresponsive via all chats and ghosted me after a DM (direct message) on social media.” Only one number has been successfully ported by April 30, he added. A Facebook user who goes by Chng Yioboon said on April 26 on Giga’s page that the company had not responded to any of his messages since April 22 regarding his request to port out his number. The company replied to his comment on April 30 that it had just messaged him directly. Another user with the handle Amanda Lek said she had tried to contact Giga for days without a response. She said: “I’ve been trying to port out for days but Giga is not releasing the number... What am I supposed to do now? E-mail? Live Chat? No avail. It’s unfortunate that I have to leave a comment (online).” ST has contacted IMDA for comment. In a , some Giga customers were wrongly billed, while others could not receive service during a scheduled maintenance. Customers similarly criticised Giga’s speed of response then. StarHub users cooped up at home during the coronavirus , prompting the telco to issue a 20 per cent rebate on affected customers’ home broadband monthly fees.