Telecom outage hits Auckland suburb

A Telecom phone and internet outage in the Auckland suburb of Mt Roskill has been causing headaches for residents and organisations there.

Chorus, an arm of Telecom charged with maintaining its copper and fibre optic networks, said around 1000 customers in the Stoddard Road and Roma Road area were affected by the problem yesterday.

Nearly 300 phone and internet lines in the Stoddard Road area had been repaired by this afternoon. Other customers could expect services to be restored in the next 48 hours.

A third party damaged the cable, cutting internet and fixed line phone services.

A Chorus spokesman said the nature of the damage meant repairs were progressing slower than expected, but it was working as quickly as possible to bring customers back online.

Residents were advised to use a mobile phone in an emergency, and contact their service provider about alternative phone and internet services until repairs were completed.

Local aid agency Tear Fund had been told it would have to wait until Thursday for services to be restored as it was not a "priority customer", according to executive director Stephen Tollestrup.

The situation was extremely frustrating as communications were vital to the organisation's operations, he said.

"The only thing we can do is wait for Telecom to fix the problem."

- NZPA