Police in New Zealand have opened an investigation into two arson attacks against cell tower infrastructure.

As reported by RNZ, two fires knocked two cell towers offline near Wānaka, impacting cell coverage for both One NZ and Spark customers.

RNZ reported that emergency services responded to a call at around 11:30pm on Saturday night (September 20) in Albert Town. Police found that one cell tower and two data boxes had been set on fire.

FortySouth, which owns all One NZ towers, confirmed its tower was no longer working.

FortySouth chief technology officer Jo Stansfield stated that the tower was so badly damaged that it needs to be replaced.

"All the antennas have melted onto the top of the tower, so we will need to replace it, and we're working on that at the moment," she said.

Spark separately told RNZ that a cabinet housing important electronics had been vandalized, causing a nearby Spark cell site to go offline.

"To help provide more capacity in the area, we are working as quickly as possible to deploy a temporary cell site," a spokesperson for Spark NZ said.

"It is important to note that New Zealand's mobile network operators have an agreement where 111 calls will be carried by any available mobile network, regardless of who the customer's provider is."

It's been reported in local media that other telecoms infrastructure has been targeted.

DCD has covered the impact of attacks against telecoms infrastructure in Issue 58 of DCD Magazine. Read more here.