Texting all sweet says Vodafone

Some rugby fans trying to send texts from Lions games have been struggling to get their messages through but Vodafone says there have been few complaints and expects no further delays.

A technical fault had caused a long delay in text delivery at the Bay of Plenty match a fortnight ago, and at the Maori and Wellington games in the past week, with messages sent from the game not delivered until the next day.

Customers in Wellington had trouble receiving text messages two weeks ago after Vodafone's free weekend text message offer overloaded the system.

Vodafone said it had not received any complaints and said a technician manning a "cow" - a mobile cellsite which boosts capacity - at Westpac Stadium in Wellington reported no problems.

A spokeswoman said an unmanned "cow" had failed during the Bay of Plenty match and the company had had the device monitored during the Wellington game to prevent a similar incident.

"We'll be doing the same thing for other rugby matches or other events where we expect a lot of traffic," she said.

The spokeswoman advised customers to take specific complaints to the company.