iiNet struggles through five-day outage to get thousands back online

Engineers at ISP iiNet are still battling to restore connectivity to subscribers left for days without internet access in Western Australia.

The telco – gobbled up by TPG this year for AU$1.56bn – reckons the trouble started on December 27, but some folks say they dropped offline on Christmas Day. According to the ISP's website, broadband, NBN and Fibre Phone customers were, and some still are, cut off.

Perth-based iiNet said up to 5,000 customers were hit by the outage, and while many homes have been reconnected, hundreds are still awaiting a fix. Some people lost connectivity altogether, while others suffered repeated dropouts throughout the day. It's been incredibly frustrating for those hoping to grab Boxing Day bargains online, or simply relax with their freshly unwrapped internet-connected Christmas presents.

It sounds as though an equipment failure hamstrung the ISP's network capacity, leaving it unable to carry everyone's traffic. "We are working with our vendors to work out the issue," iiNet customer service boss Mat Conn told The West Australian. "And we are rerouting around the fault to try and reconnect as many customers as possible."

Conn refused to speculate on the cause of the failure. If you can shed any light on what exactly broke, drop us a postcard, please.

Connectivity is due to be fully restored by the afternoon of December 30, Australian Western Standard Time. Subscribers are told to try power cycling their broadband gear to get back online. ®