Telecom media advisory: Canterbury earthquake - update 8.30pm, 23 February

While restoration of mains power in some parts of Christchurch has meant some network sites that were running on back-up power are now running as normal, the network is still significantly affected by ongoing power issues in other areas of the city and physical disruption caused by yesterday’s earthquake.

Key network sites requiring back-up power have been connected to generators to keep them running overnight and we have brought in additional COWs (Cell Sites on Wheels) to help boost mobile coverage and capacity to support ongoing relief work in key emergency response areas, including the Civil Defence headquarters at the City Art Gallery.

Civil defence and safety considerations severely restrict the ability of our network technicians to carry out physical work overnight, however we continue to intensively monitor network capacity and performance, with a particular on 111 services and key emergency response sites.

Unless the situation changes significantly, we will provide a further update around 9am tomorrow, 24 February.

For previous updates, please go to: http://www.telecom-media.co.nz/

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