Thousands still without phone and broadband after storm batters South Island

Sunday, 8 December 2019

Shoppers in Geraldine queue for cash, after Chorus outage hits eftpos.

Network company Chorus says thousands of homes and businesses in the South Island remain without phone or broadband on Sunday afternoon.

That was after Spark largely restored landlines, broadband and mobile services following a major outage that left all of its customers south of Ashburton cut off early on Sunday morning.

Floods have hit Wanaka at a critical time for its residents.

Spark spokeswoman Arwen Vant said shortly after 10am that almost all of its services had been restored after the company's two fibre-optic lines to the south were damaged during flooding and slips.

Spark indicated its faults occurred on two bridges across the flood-hit Rangitata River.

But Vant said Spark had 'achieved a work-around' by using spare fibre strands and additional cables.

* Wild weather causes huge outage on South Island Spark network**

Spark services south of Ashburton were restricted to 111 emergency calls on mobiles.

Services were still 'vulnerable' as they remained reliant on a damaged cable 'which could be affected by moving weather conditions', she said.

Customers could still make 111 calls on their mobiles during the outage because Vodafone's fibre lines were not impacted.

Mobile companies have an agreement that allows 111 calls to be routed over any of their networks.

Chorus said in an update at 10am that there were faults on its network 'throughout the South Island' impacting broadband, landline and cellphone coverage.

'The main areas impacted are in Geraldine and Ashburton,' spokesman Nathan Beaumont said.

A section of fibre had also been damaged in Fox Glacier on the West Coast following a large slip, he said.

The company said in an update at 3.30pm that faults remained on parts of its network.

'On the West Coast a land slip has resulted in a number of power poles being displaced with Chorus fibre attached to these poles,' spokesman Steve Pettigrew said.

'We believe there is approximately 1 kilometre of damaged fibre. The electricity provider in the area is in the process of investigating and technicians are on standby ready to start repairs when able to do so.'

The Fox Glacier area remained 'isolated', he said.

About 3600 homes and businesses might be without services on the east coast of the South Island, he said.

'Access to the damage fibre locations has now been granted by civil defence and work is underway to ascertain the extent of the damage to the fibre cables.'

The Chorus outages are believed to have taken down eftpos services in Geraldine on Sunday morning, leading to large queues forming at ATMs as shoppers turned to cash.

2degrees said on its website early on Sunday that it was aware its customers were also 'having difficulties' using broadband and mobile services in the south of the South Island 'including Dunedin, Queenstown, Invercargill and the Cromwell area'.

But spokeswoman Katherine Cornish said services were 'largely restored by around 8am'.

Vodafone was on Sunday morning reporting on its website that it had 'degraded' mobile services at Fox Glacier, Bruce Bay on the west coast, Westerfield, and Omata South in New Plymouth.

But spokeswoman Nicky Preston said there were 'no network issues on our side'.

Vodafone's fibre is believed to be laid on a third bridge across the Rangitata River.