XT network still down for about 10,000 customers

Telecom's XT Network marketing campaign focused on is speed and accessibility. File photo / Supplied

About 10,000 Telecom XT customers in the South Island are still unable to use their cellphones this morning after a major network crash yesterday.

Customers south of Taupo had problems making and receiving phone calls, sending text messages and using broadband services after the 11am outage - the second major crash in as many months.

Telecom had hoped to have services restored by 1pm, but most customers had to wait until 4.30pm to be able to use their phones, with some South Island users still waiting this morning.

Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds said today the crash was caused by a piece of hardware which began signalling erratically and degrading the network's service.

Engineers worked through the night and would continue this morning to restore service to 40 of the 1000 South Island cell sites still affected, which left about 10,000 customers south of Christchurch without service this morning, he told Radio New Zealand.

Dr Reynolds said he hoped service would be restored to those customers this morning.

Telecom was yet to decide whether customers would be compensated for the crash.

"Some customers have not been able to make calls or been out of service for a substantial period of time and of course we will look sympathetically at compensation for those customers," Dr Reynolds said.

Customers were offered a day's mobile usage, plus a weekend of free calling, after the December 14 network crash.

That fault was attributed to corrupt software, uncovered during maintenance, triggering a network-load equipment failure.

Dr Reynolds yesterday commissioned an independent review into the two network crashes since XT's May launch.

He said the company was already working on improving the capacity and design of the network.

- NZPA