Telecom fault strikes sick woman and searchers

A woman in serious pain in her car tried to phone for help for an hour but could not reach her relatives because of Telecom's XT network failure.

Wellington sisters Leigh and Nikki Maetzig said when their mother became ill with a stomach condition near the Basin Reserve on Wednesday night, her calls to them did not get through. She was eventually able to ring an ambulance and was taken to Wellington Hospital.

And desperate relatives looking for missing Nelson teenager Leo Lipp-Neighbours, last seen on Sunday, said the outage made it impossible to call some searchers, hampering efforts to find him.

Customers in the far south have had more than three days without cellphone coverage. A compensation package should be announced next week.

There have been two big outages since the company introduced its $574 million network last year.

Telecom was restoring services to 30 South Island cell sites overnight, after a fault at its Christchurch exchange knocked out 54 sites. The problem has affected 10,000 customers both in the South Island and as far north as Taupo.

Frustration was "turning to anger" among business and private customers and many had lost faith in the Telecom network, Otago Chamber of Commerce chief executive John Christie said. "There's an expectation that this network would be of significant reliability when businesses sign up to them."

In a 3G network, such as XT, each cell site connects back to a main exchange known as a Radio Network Controller. Telecom built two RNCs compared to Vodafone's six – a decision that is being questioned by industry commentators.

A senior telecommunications figure said more RNCs may not have prevented the fault but may have let the company fix it with fewer customers affected.

Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds dismissed suggestions it had intended to build five RNCs but settled for two to introduce the network on time.

The company had always intended to add others as its customer base increased, he said.

He hoped the network would be fully restored this morning.

Telecom has started an investigation into the outage and an independent review of the XT network.

Vodafone spokesman Paul Breslin said it had experienced many inquiries, especially in Dunedin, about switching to Vodafone.

Nikki Maetzig she had tried to break her two-year contracts after the "scary" episode with her mother but was told it would cost $200.

Consumer New Zealand deputy chief executive David Naulls said the onus was on customers to prove the XT network was so unsatisfactory they could break their contracts without charge. The outage had not reached that point.

- © Fairfax NZ News