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ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF/Stuff
Spark says outages followed ‘routine maintenance’.
Spark experienced major technology problems on Tuesday, taking out its Xtra email service, store-based systems, website, app and customers’ voicemail.
Customers began reporting late on Monday evening that Xtra was not working and that Spark’s website was offline.
Spokesperson Beth Stubbe said the outages were not security-related.
“We were undergoing some routine maintenance overnight on some of our back-end systems which resulted in an unforeseen outage.”
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Spark reported on Twitter at 11am that it had started restoring services, and its website was partially back online shortly before noon.
But links to its support pages were still not working at 1pm, when Xtra was also still not functioning for at least some customers.
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Stubbe said shortly before 1pm that Spark did not have a firm estimate of when all its services would be back up and running.
“Customers may be unable to access our website, app, voicemail services or their XtraMail,” she said earlier.
“Because our systems are currently down, we are unable to support customers with enquiries, changes or transactions if they contact us or come in store.”
Spark was advising customers who had a medical dependency on their service and who required urgent support to call it on 123 and press “9”, but asked other customers to try calling back later.
Stubbe said on Tuesday morning that it was “working with urgency” to get the problems fixed and would be updating customers via its social media channels.
Customers’ broadband, landline and mobile services were not affected, she said.
Spark transferred its Xtra service to New Zealand technology provider SMX in 2017 after a problem-plagued outsourcing arrangement with previous technology partner Yahoo.
Arch-rival One NZ took a different approach, instead deciding to stop providing an email service altogether and recommending customers switched to third-party services such as Gmail.
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