Thousands lose internet: Central Hawke's Bay's 'vital digital lifeline' cut by road workers

Thousands of Chorus customers across Central Hawke's Bay were without power for much of Friday afternoon and evening after a cable was cut near Ōtāne. Photo / NZME

A fibre cable damaged by road workers near Ōtāne was the reason thousands in Central Hawke's Bay lost internet connectivity for about six hours on Friday.

Internet services for much of the district went down just before 2pm on Friday, head of external communications Steve Pettigrew confirmed.

Chorus' network operations centre started seeing errors reported on core network links between Hastings and Waipukurau and Hastings and Takapau from about 1.50pm.

About 2400 residential and small business connections were affected including about 30 business connections, largely in the townships of Dannevirke, Ōtāne, Ongaonga, Takapau, Waipawa, and Waipukurau.

Pettigrew said technicians were dispatched and the cause was later confirmed to be a damaged fibre cable near Ōtāne which was caused by a road contractor working in the area.

Central Hawke's Bay mayor Alex Walker wants Chorus to find a better process for protecting the district's "vital digital lifeline". Photo / NZME

Work repairing the damaged cable started at 6.30pm and internet services would have started to restore soon after as each fibre was re-joined.

The repair work was completed at 8.30pm at which point all services would have been restored, he said.

Mayor Alex Walker said while pleased the outage was fixed "relatively quickly", it was still a lost day of business and even health services which were isolated through lack of phone lines.

"I would encourage Chorus to find a better process for protecting our vital digital lifeline."

Pettigrew said at a time when digital connectivity is so important to New Zealanders, it was important for roading contractors to check the location of fibre cables, and other essential utility services.

"Chorus would like to apologise to those who found themselves without broadband on Friday afternoon and evening."

• Fibre and other utility service cable locations can be found at beforeUdig.co.nz