Outage hits Vodafone mobile, landline services – confusion over where it struck

UPDATE: Vodafone has backtracked from its early statements to NBR ONLINE and on its support forum. The carrier now says this morning's outage was not nationwide, but confined to parts of Auckland.

"In the early hours of this morning a fault on one of Vodafone’s south Auckland exchanges caused a regional issue on Vodafone’s 3G and fixed networks," a spokeswoman told NBR.

However, on Twitter there were grumbles from as far afield as Wellington, Hamilton and Christchurch.

Paul Matthews, chief executive of the Institute of IT Professionals, was one of those who begged to differ.

"It wasn’t restricted to Auckland. Our Wellington fixed line went down, too."

Telecommunications engineer and high-profile Geekzone blogger Steve Biddle complained about patchy Vodafone 3G service in the capital.

UPDATE / 8am: A Vodafone spokeswoman told NBR ONLINE mobile, fixed line and broadband service has now been restored.

Mobile service was down for around one hour, and fixed line and broadband around two hours.

However, on social networks some users have complained 3G mobile service is still slow and patchy. 

7am: A major technical glitch appears to have struck Vodafone, affecting both its landline and mobile networks.

The carrier posted the following service update at 6.42am:

"Customers may be experiencing a loss of 3G [mobile/cellphone] and fixed line phone and broadband service nationwide.

"We are aware of this issue and our engineers are working cohesively to restore services at the highest priority.

"Vodafone would like to apologise for any inconvenience that this issue is causing."

NBR, which lost its own Vodafone broadband connection, has sought comment from the teleco.

The company did not immediately return calls for comment.

Telecom has no reported issues with its network, but has posted a warning about severe weather issues affecting help desk wait times:

"Due to heavy rain over the last couple of weeks in Manila, we are working with a reduced number of people in these offices.

"We are continuing to try and answer your calls as quickly as we can but please be aware it may take us longer than usual at this time.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause."