Spark mobile outage 26 March 2026

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark mobile outage 26 March 2026

scottjpalmer

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#324308 26-Mar-2026 10:33

NZH

Spark users report widespread cellphone outage
Kiwis across the country are reporting problems with their cellphone coverage this morning.

Fault website Downdetector shows a clear spike in reported problems from Spark customers from around 9.30am.

I lost Skinny on my mobile SIM for a while, back now. Skinny FWA still down. Wairarapa.

Who did it?

hamish225

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#3473923 26-Mar-2026 10:43

spark have maintenance windows covering this so it's probably that. -

https://www.spark.co.nz/online/help/outages?srsltid=AfmBOoo0SsihrIlZL_Z1jDH2IiN9J3KtxQBK8Xc9FIHbHPrNl_qcHZ1d

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

scottjpalmer

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#3473924 26-Mar-2026 10:45

My Skinny FWA is back now

scottjpalmer

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#3473926 26-Mar-2026 10:47

hamish225:
spark have maintenance windows covering this so it's probably that. -

https://www.spark.co.nz/online/help/outages?srsltid=AfmBOoo0SsihrIlZL_Z1jDH2IiN9J3KtxQBK8Xc9FIHbHPrNl_qcHZ1d

Wairarapa not in that list

tardtasticx

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#3473930 26-Mar-2026 10:49

Yah we had the same. Me in Auckland CBD and partner in Manurewa (south Auckland) both lost data connectivity for a short while.
Both on Spark.

that outage list above doesn’t seem to cover this morning, weird time for maintenance like that over such a large area too I’d have thought.

hamish225

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#3473934 26-Mar-2026 10:58

Ah okay, one of the entries covered the entirety of canterbury and I lost service, but it seems to have come back now so I assumed it was that.

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

Behodar

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#3473955 26-Mar-2026 11:32

I haven't been on my phone much today, but I just (11:30) had to toggle flight mode to get data flowing here in Whakatane.

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esawers

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#3473976 26-Mar-2026 11:56

We were advised it was an unplanned outage

boosacnoodle

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#3473985 26-Mar-2026 12:29

This caused Christchurch's real-time trip information displays for buses to partially stop working. Really not good enough.

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#3474064 26-Mar-2026 14:28

boosacnoodle: This caused Christchurch's real-time trip information displays for buses to partially stop working. Really not good enough.

That feels a lot closer to the 'planes falling out of the air' sci-fi skynet failure than anything else I've heard.

You'd think a bus could update from WiFi en-route as a backup easily enough. Apparently not yet.

Satellite may arrive first but that's almost the same problem. Although, it will provide two legs instead of one, hopefully.

boosacnoodle

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#3474128 26-Mar-2026 16:50

Fortunately was only the information that shows on the displays at bus stops but that's a good point - I wonder if it disrupted bus ops too? Wouldn't surprise me.

boosacnoodle

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#3475225 29-Mar-2026 18:26

Anyone know what happened? Seemed to be a pretty big incident.

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#3475232 29-Mar-2026 18:59

Something broke they turned it off & on again