Astro customers complain of major service disruption

For more than seven hours on Sunday evening, Astro customers have been complaining of being unable to watch some of their favourite channels.

Some customers also informed The Malaysian Insider that calls to the Astro customer service line was left unanswered since the service disruption started about 5pm.

In reply to customer complaints initially, Astro had posted on Facebook the following message: "Astro regrets to inform that a number of its TV channels, radio stations and customer call centre/self-servce portal are experiencing interruption. We are working to rectify this and hope to resume normal service as soon as possible. Astro apologises to all our subscribers for the inconvenienced caused.To contact us, kindly use or social media channels, fb.com/astro  or  twitter @astroonline."

Then, at about 8.30pm, with some of the channels affected earlier being restored, Astro had revised their message on Facebook to the following: "Astro regrets to inform that a number of its TV channels and self-service portal are experiencing interruption. We are working to rectify this and hope to resume normal service as soon as possible. Channels restored include Astro Arena Ch801/HD Ch802, Astro SuperSport Ch810, Astro Supersports 4 Ch817, Astro PPV HD Ch498, FOX Sports 2 Ch812, YOG 1 ch820/HD Ch840, YOG Ch821, Nat Geo HD Ch573, History Hd Ch 575,Discovery HD Ch571, Disney XD HD Ch637, A List HD Ch456, Star World HD Ch722, Maya HD Ch135 & Astro Hitz Ch705. Astro apologises to all our subscribers for the inconvenience caused."

The service disruption is also not limited to customers of Astro's DTH satellite service as suscribers of Astro's IPTV have also faced "network connection" problems for some of the channels, with an on-screen message requiring a restart of the modem and Astro decoder.

A customer reported, however that restarting the modem and decoder did not restore the affected channels, but instead caused a disruption to all channels, even those which had been functioning properly previously.

A spokesperson for Astro said that efforts were ongoing for the restoration of all services and updates will be posted on Astro's Facebook page.

As at 12.30am into Monday, services had yet to be fully restored, despite a message on Astro's Facebook page having posted about an hour earlier as follows: "Please be informed that all Astro TV channels have been restored. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

Astro customers continue to record their complaints on the Astro Facebook page well past midnight with one complaining of how his "footie night was ruined" by Astro, stressing that he still could not watch his favourite sports channels after midnight.

A customer had also complained to The Malaysian Insider that Astro was misleading its customers with its Facebook message.

At 7am today, all services, including IPTV, are back to normal.

- TMI