The cause of the damage to a major internet cable in Tauranga remains under investigation.

More than 10 service providers, along with 3000 businesses and households were impacted by the recent damage to a cable under the Tauranga Harbour Bridge, a spokesperson for the company that owns the cable has confirmed.

It's believed a fire under the Tauranga Harbour Bridge may have damaged the cable.

However, Fire and Emergency New Zealand have still yet to confirm a fire was the source of the 14-hour outage.

Multiple service providers announced outages across the Bay of Plenty last Friday.

In a statement, Chorus, who own the afflicted 96-fibre cable, stated that a fire underneath the Tauranga Harbour Bridge caused the damage and that thousands of businesses and households were impacted.

However, Chorus head of external communications Steve Pettigrew admits the full scale may be even greater than first thought.

'About 3000 connections on the Chorus network were impacted,” he says.

'The number is likely higher, as some providers were using the fibre to support their handover connections.”

A handover is the point in the network where Chorus and a retailer exchange data traffic.

The outage occurred at 10.40am on Friday morning with at least 10 providers affected.

That number was, however, also potentially higher as some companies may have been sub-wholesaling broadband services.

Connectivity services across the region were compromised for just over 14 hours, with technicians getting services fully restored at about 1am Saturday.

'There were challenges in getting access to the location due to health and safety concerns,” says Steve.

'Our technicians adapted and solved the fault by splicing a ‘patch' fibre cable that bypassed the damage.”

Fire previously confirmed responding to a cardboard and rubbish fire related to a homeless living area under Tauranga Harbour Bridge at about 10.15am on Friday.

However, they have not yet confirmed the incident was related to the service outage or damaged fibre-cable.

Providers such as Spark, Vodafone and Two Degrees were all impacted with homes across the Bay of Plenty in locations such as Maketu, Te Puke, Paengaroa, Pukehina and Te Ranga among those mentioned as implicated.