A failed overnight fix means a Telecom network fault in Wellington is still causing broadband brown-outs for around 10,000 broadband customers nationwide.

The first fault first hit around 8am yesterday morning says Telecom spokeswoman Katherine Murphy.

The company had hoped that overnight repairs would fix the fault, but this morning customers are still reporting gaps in service, says Ms Murphy.

The Wellington-based RAN (remote access node) system at the centre of the failure hosts 10,000 customers spread around the country, both on Telecom Broaband (formerly Xtra) and ISPs taking a wholesale broadband feed from Telecom, but it is not clear if all of them were hit by the outage.

As with the recent Auckland-centered broadband blackout before Christmas, customer compensation falls into a grey area. Telecom Broadband's terms and condition call for mandatory compensation after loss of service that runs more than 24 hours.

However, the Wellington-centred fault is characterised as series of “brown-outs” with customers experiencing intermittent service rather than black-outs.

"Telecom will be assessing compensation for its own residential and business customers affected by the outage for more than 24 hours on a case by case basis. Customers with other ISPs will need to contact their individual service provider for more details," says Ms Murphy.