Broadband internet outage affects thousands in New Zealand; causes and explained
Contact Energy broadband users faced a major internet disruption. The outage impacted users in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Devoli, the network provider, traced the problem to a route reflector in Sydney. Devices in Auckland and Wellington were restarted to fix the issue. Contact Energy confirmed that services are now restored. The company is investigating the cause of the outage.
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
Popular in International
1.
Gary Lineker leaves BBC after controversial "rat" post depicting antisemitic insult
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
Residents across New Zealand faced internet outage between 7 and 8:30 PM on Tuesday (May 20, resulting in a large portion of online work coming to a halt. Contact Energy broadband customers across New Zealand, including those in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, experienced the outage, which was attributed to a route reflector issue in Sydney, according to network service provider Devoli.The outage continued for a couple of hours before Contact Energy reports services were restored. The broadband service provider is investigating the cause of the outage."Due to slow response we have restarted devices in Auckland and Wellington," Devoli wrote. "Investigation ongoing."The company later stated that services were being progressively restored while engineers actively monitored the situation.Contact chief retail officer Michael Robertson confirmed that the company's broadband service was back up and running. 'We are working to find out why and how this happened.'Contact Energy has advised customers still experiencing problems to turn their modem off and back on. More than a 100,000 people in New Zealand use Contact broadband service.Social media users shared their experiences of the outage. A post on the Vic Deals Facebook page asking about internet loss received 139 comments from users across Wellington suburbs.One person commented: 'Sitting round the table for dinner for once cos there isn't any wifi'.Another said, 'All I want to do is watch some YouTube videos for background noise until I fall asleep'.Gorilla Technology chief executive Paul Spain explained that outages can stem from various issues. These include misconfiguration, equipment failure, or even cyber attacks.'The resolution will depend ultimately on the cause,' he said. 'Appropriately there is redundancy built in to Internet providers networks to reduce the risk of large-scale outages - and these same redundant mechanisms can also be helpful when there is a significant failure.'Spain clarified the role of a route reflector. He said it is critical equipment that helps networks determine the best path for data transmission.'For instance when you want to stream a movie, your Smart TV, phone or computer needs to connect and retrieve the video data across the internet from an appropriate streaming server.'Chorus reported fixing vandalism that took hundreds of Aucklanders offline a few days prior to this event.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Print
31 minutes ago
- The Print
Signature Spaces Redefines E-commerce Services in India with Innovation and Customer-Centric Approach
New Delhi [India], June 2: Since starting just this year, Signature Spaces is leading the way in India's e-commerce industry. Thanks to the direction of owner and CEO Pavneet Singh Chawla, the company now stands out in the industry by providing excellent, creative, and customer-centered online shopping. Now that buyers have many options, Signature Spaces is making a difference by emphasizing how it sells its products, merging technology, customization, and superior quality in everything it does. The vision that defines Signature Spaces is to be the top online shop in India, where these three qualities — convenience, being affordable, and enjoyment — unite. It's important to do more than put items on the Internet; we want our customers to know they are understood and cared for throughout their buying journey. In keeping with their goals, the platform aims to raise the standard in e-commerce by selling high-quality items at reasonable prices, with fast and friendly support. The website and mobile app (found on Play Store) were built to make users' experiences a top priority. It's straightforward for customers to choose from many types of goods, ranging from regular essentials to fun lifestyle products, since the website is cleanly organized. In the background, smart algorithms — powered by their technology partner, Yadki Infotech Pvt Ltd make sure every user's recommendations are based on what they like and what they've bought before. As a result, the process is quicker, more fun, and more fulfilling. Off camera, the company works to improve its logistics and deliveries, so they are able to meet customer expectations. With so much competition today, people rely on getting their orders quickly. To provide both fast delivery and dependable service to customers, Signature Spaces has made its business efficient. All orders receive special attention, helping to ensure the company's promise of reliability and top quality is met. Because of Pavneet Singh Chawla's leadership, the company now practices cooperation and forward-thinking. New alliances and new approaches are encouraged by Pavneet Singh Chawla. He believes that in the future, e-commerce will depend on remaining flexible, meeting customers' needs, and being up to date with today's trends and advances in technology. Thanks to this mindset, Signature Spaces is still competing and providing services that are worth remembering. Signature Spaces is distinguished in India's busy e-commerce industry because of its focus on creative ideas, meeting customer needs, and maintaining top quality. Even though many firms want to increase their sales, Signature Spaces prioritizes making customers trust them, receive excellent support, and feel secure with services. Its early and ambitious impact is altering how customers use online shopping services and is establishing new rules for what e-commerce should do. As they continue to develop, Signature Spaces encourages consumers, partners, and collaborators to help design the future of Indian digital retail. To discover their specialties or see how they are impacting online retail, get in touch with them by calling or going to their website at or visit their app at . (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business Standard
UK to build more submarines, boost warhead spend in message to Moscow
By Tom Rees and Ellen Milligan UK intends to send a 'message to Moscow' with plans to expand its fleet of attack submarines and invest in its nuclear deterrent as part of a new defence strategy to head off the threat posed by Russia. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government will on Monday reveal plans to spend £15 billion ($20 billion) on its warhead programme and build up to 12 new submarines as part of the AUKUS programme it operates alongside the US and Australia, to bolster Britain's 'warfighting readiness,' the Ministry of Defence said on Sunday. Defense Secretary John Healey told the BBC that Monday's strategic defence review — which will spell out the threats facing Britain and outline recommendations to tackle them — will send a 'message to Moscow' by strengthening the UK's military and defense industry's capabilities. 'We know that threats are increasing and we must act decisively to face down Russian aggression,' Healey said in a statement. 'With new state-of-the-art submarines patrolling international waters and our own nuclear warhead programme on British shores, we are making Britain secure at home and strong abroad.' The UK will also build six new munitions factories to create an 'always on' industrial production, buy up to 7,000 long-range missiles and invest in its cybersecurity and stockpiles of support equipment. Healey told Sky News that new factories will be built 'very soon.' 'This is Britain standing behind, making our armed forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight, if required,' he told the BBC separately on Sunday. However, he said a target to spend 3 per cent of gross domestic product on defence after the next election remains an 'ambition' and that he doesn't expect to make progress toward raising the number of soldiers in the British army until the next parliament. Opposition parties, including the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, said the government needs to reach the spending target sooner than 2034. Monday's review comes after a period of underinvestment in the country's defence industry that has seen the size of the UK army shrink to its smallest since the Napoleonic era. An end to the so-called 'peace dividend' will put more pressure on the country's stretched public finances, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves set to unveil departments' budget settlements at the multi-year spending review on June 11. Higher military spending comes at a time of multiple demands on the public purse, from healthcare to prisons. 'All of Labour's Strategic Defence Review promises will be taken with a pinch of salt unless they can show there will actually be enough money to pay for them,' the Conservative Party's Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge said in a statement. The Sunday Times reported that the Labour government wants to buy American-made fighter jets capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons. The review will also recommend new defensive shields to protect the country from enemy missiles as well as reestablishing a civilian home guard, according to the report. The shift in Britain's war footing comes as US President Donald Trump presses Nato members to increase their military spending. Just weeks after Trump took office in January, Starmer announced a commitment to boost defense spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 from 2.3 per cent currently. Moscow launched one of its longest drone and missile attacks against Kyiv this weekend, while Ukrainian drones hit several strategic airfields in Russia, escalating tensions ahead of crucial talks in Istanbul on Monday aimed at securing a ceasefire in the years-long conflict.
India Today
4 hours ago
- India Today
Meta plans to replace its human content security employees with AI
Meta is reportedly phasing out its human-led product risk assessments in favour of AI-powered automation, according to internal documents obtained by NPR. This marks a significant shift in how the tech giant – which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – evaluates the potential dangers of its product updates and features. For over a decade, Meta has relied on teams of human reviewers to conduct what's known internally as "privacy and integrity reviews". These reviews ensured that new features did not compromise user privacy, promote harmful content or endanger young users. But soon, up to 90 per cent of these reviews will be handled by AI instead of humans, NPR automation will apply to changes in algorithms, new sharing options, and even features related to youth safety and AI ethics. In effect, the same tools Meta uses to build products will now be used to judge their potential risks – with minimal human believes the change will speed up product development. Reportedly, developers will receive near-instant AI-generated feedback based on questionnaires they fill out about new products. These AI systems will then flag potential risks and set out requirements to mitigate them, which teams must confirm they've met before launching. The company insists that humans will still review 'complex or novel cases', and that low-risk decisions are the only ones being automated. It also pointed out that automation allows its human reviewers to focus on more serious or ambiguous content moderation shift comes at a time when Meta is expanding its use of AI across the board. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that within the next 12 to 18 months, most of the code behind Meta's AI efforts, particularly its Llama models, will be written by AI itself. He claimed the company's AI agents are now capable of running tests, spotting bugs and generating better code than the average developer. Zuckerberg also said Meta is building specialised AI agents for internal use, fully integrated into its software development tools. He said these will be tailored to support research and development in AI, rather than general-purpose software embrace of AI mirrors a broader trend across the tech industry. Google's Sundar Pichai says AI now writes 30 per cent of the company's code. OpenAI's Sam Altman claims that in some companies, half of all code is AI-generated. And Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicts that by the end of 2025, almost all code will be written by says it is auditing AI-made decisions and that its EU operations, which are bound by stricter rules under the Digital Services Act, will retain a more human-led review system. But insiders reportedly suggest that most risk decisions globally are already being handed over to per the report, a current Meta employee said the goal is to "empower product teams" and "simplify decision-making." But they warned the consequences of removing human oversight could be severe: 'We provide the human perspective of how things can go wrong. That's being lost.'
