Access to fibre internet was cut for some parts of the lower South Island this afternoon after a farmer accidentally dug through a cable.
The areas affected are Dunedin, Queenstown, Invercargill, Timaru and Oamaru, says Spark spokeswoman Lucy Fullarton. Nearly 100 schools have lost their internet connections.
"We understand a farmer was digging in his field an accidentally cut through it," says Fullarton.
The outage only affects customers on the new fibre network - those on the old copper network still have service.
Fullarton says Spark technicians were on the farm evaluating the state of the cable, and the company is in the process of fixing it.
Spark says the exact number of customers affected was unknown but it is expected it to be several hundred. How long the service would be down was also unknown and depended if the cable was cut cleanly cut or not.
