Telecom to make XT compo announcement today

Some XT network customers in the lower South Island still can't access the network.

By James Heffield / Friday, January 29 2010

Telecom says it hopes to make a decision today on compensation for people affected by a massive XT network outage that is still preventing some customers from making phone calls, texting or accessing mobile broadband.

The outage began on Wednesday when an XT hardware component in Christchurch failed, cutting network access to all customers south of Taupo. It is the second major outage in two months for the telecommunications giant, which claims the network is "world class".

Most of the network has now been restored, but Telecom spokesperson Mark Watts said today that 34 cell sites in the lower South Island, including Dunedin, Invercargill, Timaru and Queenstown, were still not functioning.

Yesterday morning the number of out of action cell sites stood at 40, but technicians had been progressively narrowing down and fixing affected site boxes and had made some progress.

“There’s been some progress overnight but 3% of the network is still not working... Dunedin has been particularly badly affected”

Telecom was working as quickly as it could to restore full service and accepted that the situation was “not good enough,” he said.

He was unable to comment immediately on compensation but said Telecom would “announce something today”.