Xtra plays down outage

Internet service provider Xtra says a nationwide failure yesterday had a minimal impact on customers.

A "degradation of service" between 4.17am and 7.25am yesterday affected up to 2000 "actively using" customers nationally.

Two out of four domain name servers at Xtra were affected by a communications problem.

Dial up and Xtra broadband users could continue to use email but some encountered problems accessing the internet.

A spokeswoman said a detailed investigation was under way into the cause of the problem, which had not previously occurred. Virus infection and invasion by hackers have been ruled out.