Spark, Vodafone customers lose broadband after Chorus problems

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Spark and Vodafone customers lost broadband around Auckland from around 3pm this afternoon after problems with a Chorus exchange in Glenfield, a Chorus spokesman tells the Herald.

The spokesman said Chorus usual alerts had not displayed, but that the issue had now been resolved.

A 100Gbps link between Mt Eden and Glenfield started experiencing frame-check sequence errors at 2.57 pm, the spokesman said.

"This meant that the link degraded performance but didn't stop routing traffic. As a result the network didn't switch to an alternative route. When this was switched, manually, at 4.30 pm, all services restored."

He added, "The impact is known to be about 15,000 broadband customers and 7000 voice customers across all providers who would have experienced issues during this time window."

Although it was a Chorus issue behind the scenes, Vodafone copped it on social media,

On the telco's social media feed, a number of customers have complained about long wait times when they have attempted to get through to its helpdesk.

On its Twitter freed, Vodafone NZ replied to one customer, "Our apologies, some customers in the Auckland region are experiencing a loss of data. Our techs are investigating this and hope to resolve this ASAP. As soon as we have any further updates we will update here.

However, the page that link lead to still had minimal information around 5pm, when it read, in full:

"Auckland: Some broadband/fixed customers are reporting a loss of internet and data services. Our technical teams are working urgently to resolve this."

Earlier this week, Vodafone, Spark and 2degrees removed fixed-broadband caps as a lockdown relief measure.

However, this afternoon's technical problems were pegged on a Chorus UFB technical glitch rather than any issues with fixed-wireless overloading.

The new round of lockdowns has seen broadband use hit an all-time record.