Telcos report big strides restoring services to Hawke's Bay

Thursday, 16 February 2023

Telcos say restoring “emergency connectivity” in Gisborne is their top priority.

Phone companies say they have made big strides restoring phone and internet services to Hawke’s Bay but work is still going on to provide “emergency connections” to Gisborne.

Paul Brislen, chief executive of the Telecommunications Forum industry body, said Spark had restored services to 72 of its 152 cellsites that were knocked out at the height of the floods.

Fibre-optic links to the cellsites had been restored, he said.

Vodafone had also been able to turn on more cellsites overnight and 2degrees was reporting it was “online” in Napier and Hastings, he said.

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2degrees had restored fibre connections into Napier as well as three small East Cape towns, he said.

Satellite and microwave links were still being set up in Gisborne to bypass broken fibre-optic communications links there, he said in an update at 4.30pm on Thursday.

Spark was working with Chorus and 2degrees to restore fibre links north and south of Gisborne and between Napier and Taupo, Brislen said.

“Gisborne emergency connectivity is ‘priority one’ with satellite equipment continuing to be deployed to emergency and essential services.

“Vodafone has established small cell connectivity at Gisborne Airport, Gisborne Police Station and Muriwai, and is aiming to stand up a further four large cell sites in the next 24 hours. A small cell site has also been established at Wairoa.”

Chorus was “hard at work” restoring fibre lines into Gisborne and supporting the industry in terms of backhaul capacity, he said.