Telecom customers hit by broadband outages

File photo / Dean Purcell

Broadband outages have hit hundreds of Telecom customers in the North Island since last night.

A status update on the Telecom website said some customers in Auckland, Napier and Tauranga may have issues connecting to the internet.

Telecom retail spokeswoman Lucy Fullarton said about 2500 customers had been affected.

"We're still investigating the cause and we've got technicians working on it as we speak.

"Although it's a small number of customers, they are spread over Auckland, Napier and Tauranga, and we've also had some reports from Northland.''

Telecom apologised to affected customers for the inconvenience, she said.

The outages have prompted a backlash from some customers on Twitter.

Hayden Shaw noted the issue as he mocked Telecom's planned name change to Spark: "Hi @telecomnz can you `spark' my broadband connection back to life now please?''

Kirsty Hughes said her home broadband was down this morning. "I've had to come into work to use the internet!''

Another Twitter user said her parents in Whakatane had waited on the helpline for an hour last night, but the Telecom website at the time said there were no issues.