UPDATE: XT outage number five?

Telecom's troubled XT Network appearsto be experiencing its fifth outage since December - this time in the Aucklandarea.

Telecom released the following mediaadvisory around noon today: “Some XT customers in the north of the North Island, including Auckland,have been experiencing intermittent issues since around 9am this morning.

The issues have affected some cellsites linked to one of theAuckland-based RNCs (Radio Network Controller).

The two Christchurch-based RNCs, and the second Auckland-based RNC andsites are unaffected.

111 calls are being monitored, however Telecom advises any customerhaving issues calling 111 from an XT mobile should immediately use a landline.

Telecom and network partnerAlcatel-Lucent are taking immediate steps to restore service, and will giveupdates as the situation develops.”

A Telecom spokesperson says service was fully restored at 11.30am.

UPDATE: Telecom spokesperson Katherine Murphy says the outage affected 126cellsites connected to the original Auckland RNC. Most of the cellsites are locatedin Auckland, although service was affected north of the Bombay Hills from around 9amthis morning.

Murphy says they are awaiting a technical report fromAlcatel Lucent this afternoon which will explain what occurred but sheunderstands at this stage the issue is not due to the migration of cellsitesover to the new RNC.

When the XT Network was launched May last year the networkhad only two RNCs for the country – a move that was widely criticised followingthe network outages in December and February. Telecom brought forward its plansto install two additional RNCs to effectively share the load and Murphy saysthe migration of cellsites is about 75% complete. Telecom plans to have sixRNCs installed on the XT Network by the end of the year.