Rats and post diggers left Telecom network in dark

Rats and negligence by post diggers were responsible for bringing the country's telecommunications network to its knees this week, a Telecom investigation revealed yesterday.

The company said it would seek compensation from Powerco, the post diggers, for Monday's outage, which affected mobile phones, internet services and eftpos transactions.

Steve Fuller, Telecom's general manager of network delivery, said: "We are going through our legal process in that regard."

A spokesman for Powerco declined to comment, saying that "any matters ... will be between Powerco and Telecom".

Mr Fuller confirmed that rats had gnawed through a cable on a bridge in the Rimutakas, knocking out the company's eastern pipeline.

That would not normally have been a problem, as services automatically switched over to the western pipeline. But when the Powerco digger hit the western pipeline about 10.48am, it wiped out the backup and interrupted services for more than 100,000 customers nationwide.

Services were restored by 3.18pm.

Mr Fuller said the rat damage was unavoidable.

Telecom buries its cables 1.2m to 1.5m below ground, but they become exposed at certain points, such as bridge crossings. At those exposures, the cables are covered with steel pipe.

"We employ the world's best practices in the technique of installing the cable," said Mr Fuller. "Rodents being rodents, they gnaw at those entry points, they burrow underground, they find a way in."

He said Powerco did not follow proper procedure and call Telecom's cable-location service.