Internet service providers iiNet and Internode today notified their customers of the outage, which iiNet said had occurred on a cable operated by carrier Southern Cross.
"Fault cause is believed to be a cable cut in the United States between San Jose and Morro Bay," an early advisory from Internode stated. "No estimated time of resolution has been provided and we continue to monitor the situation and liaise with our upstream carriers.
A later advisory from Internode stated the problem was in fact due to a fibre failure close to San Jose.
"We're working with our providers now to resolve this," wrote a representative from iiNet on the forums of broadband site Whirlpool.
"This will be affecting our international capacity," the representative continued.
Another iiNet employee noted the problem was likely to affect a large number of Internet service providers. "It's an issue on the Southern Cross cable," wrote a third member of iiNet's team.
However Internode claimed no impact to customers would result. "There is no service impact to customers," the company noted in its fault notice. iiNet's fault notice is here.
If its a redundant ring desgin like they say, there shouldn't be any impact at all.