The Transport Agency’s Senior Manager Project Delivery, Chris Hunt says the incident happened mid- morning and early indications are that it could take four to six hours to repair the cable. The outage is affecting residential and business customers.

The Transport Agency is working closely with Northpower Fibre and the Whangārei District Council to identify and assist affected customers. It apologises for the inconvenience and thanks people for their patience while the fibre optic cable is restored.

Northpower Fibre Public Affairs Manager Steve Macmillan says about 1500 customers are without ultra-fast broadband connectivity in and around Whangārei.

“Our technicians and field crews are working urgently to restore connectivity, so people will gradually come back on-line. We expect full restoration to take between four and six hours. We will continue to work with the Transport Agency throughout the day and will be providing updates on our website and facebook.com/northpowerfibre,” says Mr Macmillan. 

The $17m upgrade of the Tarewa Road intersection with SH1 is part of the Whangārei Urban Improvements package to improve the state highway through Whangarei by easing bottlenecks and improving traffic flow, safety and cycling connections.