For some background, the affected area is semi-rural but it does cover a fair bit of territory. Pretty embarrassing for the major telco (Telstra) to have services go down because of a simple power failure.
Interesting that mobile services were (apparently) not affected but landlines were!
Tens of thousands of phone lines and internet services have gone down for almost four hours after a power outage in Victoria's east.
Telstra services were affected by the planned power outage when their generator failed, a spokesman said.
Home phones and internet services failed from Morwell to Bairnsdale following the outage about 10.20am.
Power was restored about 2.10pm.
The Telstra spokesman said internet services and most phone lines had been restored. No mobile phone services had been affected.
"We apologise to customers for any inconvenience," he said.
"It was an unforeseen problem."
It is not clear if other telecommunications companies were affected.