12 Dec 2012

Telecom broadband problems ease

11:49 pm on 12 December 2012

Faults with Telecom's broadband service continued for a second day, although the company says most clients had service by mid-morning on Wednesday.

An upgrade to Telecom's Auckland-based broadband service caused a fault that stopped the system operating at 1am on Tuesday. More than 300,000 broadband clients and eftpos customers were affected.

The system went down again on Wednesday morning, affecting tens of thousands of customers, due to overloading on the single Auckland server during a systems upgrade.

The company says it restored service to most people by 10am, though some would continue to experience sporadic problems.

Telecom chief executive of retail Chris Quin apologised for the inconvenience and said a review is under way.

Telecom spokesperson Jo Jalfon says as part of the company's review it will consider options around compensation.

A business hit by the outage says Telecom's broadband service is Third World.

Vento Consulting chief executive Steve Hamilton says his business relies on the internet to talk to clients overseas and he had to reschedule work meetings, which cost the company money.