Vodafone NZ baked by Sky Tower smoke

Smoke in Auckland's Sky Tower caused service outages across the Vodafone New Zealand network today.

Sky high(Credit: The Auckland Sky Tower by Nick Bramhall, CC 2.0 by SA)

According to Sky City executive, Peter Treacy, contrary to other reports the smoke was not caused by a fire inside the Sky City building.

"It wasn't a fire, we had some smoke detected in one of our plant rooms. As a result of that we called the fire brigade," said Treacy. The company wasn't sure what had caused the problem, but said it may have been due to a power surge.

Treacy told ZDNet Australia that Sky City will investigate the matter over the next 24 hours. About 200 staff and customers were evacuated from the building. Treacy said that the smoke was on the ground floor of the building where the plant room was located.

He acknowledged that there were interruptions to telecommunications coverage, in particular on the Vodafone network. "As a result of the smoke, there's been a carry on effect that has affected Vodafone," said Treacy.