Offline in Taumarunui: Internet outage takes toll

Taumarunui, to the west of Lake Taupō. Photo / RNZ

By Niva Chittock of RNZ

Paying with cash, reading books and playing board games to pass the time - you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a bach holiday or a childhood from times gone by.

Instead, it's the central North Island town of Taumarunui.

Life for most of Taumarunui's 4707 residents has been a lot slower since 1.30am on Monday, after a fault with the area's fibre cable left them without internet for two days and no certainty on when it would be fixed.

Mr B, who RNZ agreed not to name, said having no internet had turned basic tasks like going to the shops into a mission.

"I've been unable to use ATMs, I know my local doctor has been unable to process prescriptions because they're not able to send them to the chemist, I am aware that the local hospital has been using a handnote-only system as well ... so it has been quite frustrating."

With school holidays on, many children had to choose between books, board games or playing outside - and entertainment options for the grown-ups were limited too.

"I've just invested in one of these televisions that seems to only work on fibre internet. And of course, I have no streaming on my phone either! So I have no TV and no music - it's a tough life," Mr B said.

Chorus owns the broken cable and spokesman Steve Pettigrew said a slump in the road near Te Kūiti was to blame.

"We got a notification saying there was a break in a fibre cable. We had technicians sent out first thing in the morning. They did find the damage and it's a section of road which has subsided and caused a slump into the road surface and testing showed that's where the fault was."

Pettigrew apologised for the inconvenience and said work to repair the cable had started - but he could not say how long it would take.

"A cable which has multiple strands of fibre optic cable within it has to now be dug up and then we'll weld on a new fibre segment onto that cable ... and as we do that, broadband services will start to restore back in and around people's homes and businesses."

Some locals would have access to broadband using back-ups like satellite internet, or the data on their phone, he said.

Mr B thought communication from Chorus and Ruapehu District Council had been poor - ironically the council had posted on social media about the internet outage but had not put up flyers around the town.

His internet provider, Trustpower, gave him a month of free internet as compensation after he rang a few times but he did not know when he would be able to use it and hoped it would not take a month to fix.

Mr B said prolonged isolation from the online world would take a toll on Taumarunui.

"We're isolated geographically as it is, so to be isolated without internet is really quite tough to bear, especially with the current situation around the country with Covid, the cost of living ...It's something else we could do without."

In the meantime, he said there is one silver lining - a working eftpos machine in the McDonald's drive-thru.

Chorus advised affected residents to contact their broadband provider for updates.