Telecom is apologising for a massive outage that continues to affect the XT Network south of Taupo today, blaming it on a “technical fault”.

Spokesperson Nick Brown says Telecom can’t confirm a time when service will be fully restored, but says “later today”. Neither could he say how many cellsites are affected, or which areas have been restored.

Telecom customers can stay updated via Twitter and there are messages on Telecom’s 0800 line and on the company's website.

Corporate customers received an email message from Gen-i CEO Chris Quin earlier this morning, explaining the outage.

Here’s the timetable:

After 7am – Telecom tweets the following message: “We are having some issues with XT sites South of Taupo, Technical teams are working on restoring service.”

After 8am – Telecom tweets full service to be resumed at 10am.

10.20am – Telecom tweets that some sites are up and running, others to be restored soon.

10.35am – Telecom issues press release apologising for outage – no ETA on full restoration.