Sallies hit as software fault bumps customers off net

A nationwide broadband fault forced the Salvation Army in Whangarei to resort to manual recordkeeping for most of Tuesday.

Fortunately, services at the Sallies' Aubrey St office returned to normal yesterday but some Telecom customers were still experiencing issues with their internet.

The faults appeared to have been triggered by a software patch to one its computer servers in Auckland - but it affected customers throughout the country.

About two-thirds of customers were unable to use broadband between 1am and 8.45am on Tuesday and then between 9.45pm and 11.35pm.

Salvation Army director of community ministries Pete Mullenger said his staff were unable to access data on Tuesday but, unusually, the glitch affected only some computers. Telecom spokeswoman Lucy Jackson could not say how many Northland customers were affected as the issues experienced were intermittent, with connections dropping out for a time.

"We believe that we have now restored service to the vast majority of customers nationwide, and while it is difficult to say categorically, we don't believe that this issue is currently preventing any customers from reconnecting.

"Any customers who are still having problems reconnecting should try restarting their modem (by turning it off, waiting ten seconds, and then turning it on again), and if problems still persist they should call our broadband helpdesk line 0800 225598," she said.

It was the second major failure in Telecom's broadband network in two weeks. About 25,000 nationwide customers lost their connection on November 30.