Text link fault fixed, but cause a mystery

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Telecom appears to have resolved problems with its short message service (SMS) text link to the Vodafone network.

But it still seems unable to explain what went wrong.

Last week Vodafone, which runs the 021 cellphone network, suspended the service that let its customers exchange text messages with users of Telecom's 025 cellphone system.

Vodafone spokeswoman Avon Adams said yesterday that the system was working again at 7 pm last Friday and there had been no problems since then.

Yesterday, Telecom spokesman Linda Sanders could not explain what went wrong.

"The technical guys are still looking at it, but we think it was a problem with the wireless internet gateway."

Ms Sanders said the system was being studied, but she was unable to give further details except to confirm that the fault was caused by a software problem.

Both companies had been heavily advertising the introduction of a message exchange function between their systems.