About 5000 western Sydney homes and businesses remain without phone, internet and cable television services after vandals cut a Telstra communications cable.
A team of 30 technicians worked throughout the night to restore services for Telstra customers in the Blacktown area after vandals severed two fibre optic cables about 8am (AEST) on Saturday, Telstra spokesman Warwick Ponder said.
"We've managed to splice some optic fibres this morning, getting about half of the customers back online but there are still thousands of customers without services like phones, Foxtel, internet, businesses without Eftpos and several base stations are still not working for mobiles," Mr Ponder said.
"There's still a lot of work to be done and we'd certainly be hoping to get that finished by the end of today, but it might be a tall order."
Customers in Rooty Hill, Erskine Park, Arndell Park and Shalvey have also been affected by the damage.
Mr Ponder said 1300 home phones were still out of service.
"We're really angry about this, this is wanton destruction of property which is obviously of major importance to the community and it's put a lot of people out over the weekend, including a lot of businesses."
AAP
