MEDIA ADVISORY

South Island Earthquake – 9:30am

Current status

Telecom advises that its services continue to stand up well in the South Island following the earthquake yesterday morning, Telecom continues to work in partnership with Civil Defence agencies to restore services.

Service status - updated

111 services are fully-available and fixed line infrastructure is performing well, as are both Telecom mobile networks.

The majority of outages are power-related.

All four Civil Defence social assistance sites have service.

A small number of mobile sites have lost power, and others are running on battery back-up.

Telecom has sourced enough back-up generators and diesel to restore services, and is currently attempting access sites as soon as possible, subject to damage and civil defence requirements.

Our Gen-i ICT business is prioritising on supporting clients that are involved in essential services and infrastructure.

Request for customers – unchanged

As elements of the mobile network are running on battery back up, Telecom is urging its customers to reserve power on the network and use mobiles for emergency calls only. Use of mobile phones for sending images and video from the area should be minimised.

In addition, due to lost power in customers’ homes, cordless landline phones will not be working as base stations require power.

If customers have analogue non-cordless landline handsets they will still work without power, so they are encouraged to use those for landline calls.

ENDS

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