Telecom Restoration Underway in Otago

Telecom staff have located a fibre optic cable cut North of Dunedin and expect to have affected customers returned to service by this evening.

A telecommunications fibre was cut between Palmerston and Waikouaiti at 10.36am this morning. Phone service to about 12,000 landline customers in an area between Kurow and Invercargill was affected.

Telecom General Manager Technology Operations Kelly Moore said some customers could still make calls at times, but some times they got a call overloading signal and had to redial.

“This event also affected Internet and data services, including ATM and EFT-POS machines and some mobile coverage.

“At Telecom we appreciate the frustration and inconvenience that has been caused by the outage and are working to repair the cable as soon as possible.

“Telecom has spent approximately $16m in building a new core transport in the lower South Island,” Ms Moore said

“This includes laying fibre optic cable between Invercargill and Queenstown and between Fairlie and Twizel as well as technology upgrades. This work is due for completion in October.

“This project will mean that cuts like this won’t put many customers out of service in future.

“This work is one of a number of major upgrade projects Telecom has been carrying out on the core transport network across the country this year,” Ms Moore said.

ENDS