Rio Olympics 2016: Kiwi fans left frustrated by SKY Go

The New Zealand women have earned a silver medal in rugby sevens' debut at the Olympic Games, but many Kiwis could not see it live.

Feedback through the Herald's live blog of the final, won by Australia, reported the Sky Go service was incapacitated for much of the game and the Prime Television coverage was at least one half behind the live proceedings.

The Sevens Sisters received $4.9 million of taxpayer money for their Rio Olympic campaign according to High Performance Sport New Zealand documentation.

Sky states in its advertising that "With over 20 years in the business, we love working hard to reward more than 800,000 customers with unique experiences, everyday".

The company's website claims: "As a New Zealand company, we're proud to service the whole country from Cape Reinga to the Bluff."

A tweet from the Sky account said: "Apologies, we're experiencing a technical problem with SKY Go, you can see Rio coverage on TV or using our Olympics On SKY app."

The Herald received a barrage of complaints related to the failure.

Examples included:

- "Stupid Sky Go again! this is unbelievable! Have they not learnt from previous errors?" - Steve Brock

- "I have been trying for 20 mins straight to get on to Sky Go. Not the first time this has happened. Pretty unacceptable." - Mitch Bridges

- "Sky go app is down cause all of them are too busy watching the game..." - Alanna Currie

- "SkyGo - what a surprise! Grrrrr..." - Bex Johnston

- "Congrats on the Silver NZ! SKYGO you're a disgrace." - RK

- "Everyone should message Fair Go for them to investigate and front up about Sky Go issues. Pretty unfair to under deliver a service they advertise all the time" - Where is Sky Go

- "Thanks Herald for coverage. SkyGo hopeless just when you need it all systems go!" - Robbie

- "SkyGO down just at the time of 7s match... they dictate broadcast rights then can't even broadcast the program themselves? When is the government going to break this monopoly... it's an insult to tax paying kiwis." - Really Sky

There was a similar issue with the company's online service yesterday, prompting Sky spokeswoman Kirsty Way to say the issues might have stemmed from users' internet connections.

"That service relies on an internet connection so it could be down to the individual's service in that area.

"We've got nothing on our radar, I've got no outage reports of Sky Go at all. It'll be down to an individual basis and probably an internet connection."

NZME is seeking further comment from Sky after today's complaints.