Current status While this morning's aftershock caused a brief interruption to Telecom's services in central parts of Christchurch, the majority of service has been restored and Telecom is continuing to work in partnership with Civil Defence agencies to complete restoration of services.

111 services are fully available and fixed line infrastructure is performing well, as are both Telecom mobile networks.

The mobile networks are currently dealing with a very high number of calls, so Telecom is urging its customers to minimise use of mobile phones for anything other than important calls, and especially to limit the sending of images and video and using mobile broadband.

As an alternative, people can use Telecom payphones in and around Christchurch for free to make local, national and mobile calls. Again, Telecom asks people to use the payphones responsibly, by keeping calls brief and prioritising important calls.

Chorus continues to investigate physical damage to network infrastructure, with an emphasis on maintaining core parts of the network and will attempt to access sites as soon as possible, subject to damage and civil defence requirements, to investigate. Chorus has brought in 100 additional people to the region to help with ongoing restoration work, and is prioritising faults related to the core network and key services.