Can anyone provide facts/help with 2Degrees Coverage and 3g shutdown?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Can anyone provide facts/help with 2Degrees Coverage and 3g shutdown?

davidgo2

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#318411 15-Jan-2025 10:05

I have 5 people in my home using 2Degrees mobile.

We get solid 3g coverage but virtually no 4g coverage - ie we may get and send SMS's when phone flips briefly from 0 to 1 bar. (Our data is HSPA - so 3.5G). The issue is definitely not our devices as we have no problem with 4 & 5 g elsewhere, and our phones are high end phones that are less then a year old. When looking at the coverage maps there is a single white square (=no coverage) over our house. Its worth pointing out that the map shows much stronger 3g coverage then 4g coverage (but at least fair coverage for most of the wider area within 3km's to the South of us. My wild guess is this has to do with the hilly terrain and frequencies used. (If anyone wants to check, the address in question is 91 Bawden Road, Dairy Flat, and the maps I'm looking at are at https://www.2degrees.nz/coverage)

I've tried to reach out to 2 degrees multiple times in multiple ways about what is going to happen when 3G shuts down. Unfortunately I get conflicting answers which vary from "The site will be upgraded before the shutdown" to "use WIFI calling" (which is not an option for my use case) to "You probably should shift to another provider".

I REALLY want to stay with 2Degrees as they have been really good to me in the past, and without going into details, OneNZ have done wrong by me and I won't touch anything related to Spark. Also the other providers are significantly more expensive unless I want to waste my life playing "games" with NVMO's like Mighty Ape who offer attractive deals to get you hooked, then charge more then the main carriers, and I've had really bad service just trying to sign up to OneNZ with a One NZ operator straight out lying and advising that OneNZ provider the network for all the providers in NZ among other things.

So my questions -

I expect it wishful thinking, but does anyone know if turning off 3G will decrease the noise floor such that we will get better 4g connectivity?
Does anyone know how I can bring our specific coverage issue to the attention of someone at 2D that can actually look at it/advise whats going to happen? (The 2D customer facing staff's primary job seems to be to prevent matters being escallated/brought to the attention of the network people)
Does anyone know if there is a website/resource which shows planned 2D network upgrades/changes so I can see if changes to our area are "on the cards"?

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#3331733 15-Jan-2025 10:28

Before we turn off 3G we will make every possible endeavour to increase 4G coverage to fully replace the lost 3G coverage. Part of that will be new sites, part of that will probably be new RCG sites (we're not the only ones turning off 3G - everyone is) and part of that will be turning up the power on the existing L700 sites. L700 can cover more ground than 900MHz, where UMTS runs, but since historically there were a larger fraction of handsets that did not support VoLTE we could not fully utilise it as we might otherwise run into situations where people thought they had coverage right up until they tried to call 111.

If you want to bring a specific location to our attention feel free to post it here. Apart from myself there are multiple other senior technical staff that watch these forums.

But none of us can personally guarantee that every single subscriber will not suffer some loss of coverage. And neither can One or Spark, for that matter. We have to maximise the coverage for the entire base, rather than prioritising individuals. /Vulcan hand wave, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few etc.

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These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

Spyware

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#3331737 15-Jan-2025 10:48

GIS geek page show a 2D tower 500 metres to south 3G/4G LTE @ 900 MHz.

https://gis.geek.nz/map/celltowers/@-36.6812134,174.6546275,16z

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Linux

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#3331738 15-Jan-2025 10:49

@davidgo2 The Dairy Flat site I have raised on here before having no 4G / LTE on it and it is out of 2degrees control why it has not

2d Dairy flat site 3G 900Mhz only

A new site is planned that will provide 4G / LTE to the area

davidgo2

46 posts

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#3331768 15-Jan-2025 13:11

Thank you SO MUCH for this. This is way more then I could get out of anyone at 2D.

I know its a bit of a cheek to ask, so please feel free to tell me you can't disclose it - but do you know if the new 2D site is likely to go live before they switch off 3G?

SaltyNZ

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#3331769 15-Jan-2025 13:16

davidgo2:

Thank you SO MUCH for this. This is way more then I could get out of anyone at 2D.

I know its a bit of a cheek to ask, so please feel free to tell me you can't disclose it - but do you know if the new 2D site is likely to go live before they switch off 3G?

I work in the Core Network rather than the RAN, but in any case it is not really something we would routinely disclose, I'm afraid. Sorry. All I can say is that the general plan is to have coverage extensions completed as much as practicable prior to 3G shutdown.

iPad Pro 11" + iPhone 15 Pro Max + 2degrees 4tw!

These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

shk292

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#3332100 16-Jan-2025 09:38

davidgo2:
"use WIFI calling" (which is not an option for my use case) >

Just curious, because wifi calling using home internet connection seems like the obvious solution here - what is the use case which precludes wifi calling?

davidgo2

46 posts

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#3332184 16-Jan-2025 10:31

Just curious, because wifi calling using home internet connection seems like the obvious solution here - what is the use case which precludes wifi calling?

I live on a lifestyle block and I don't consider my Internet connection reliable - nor is it fast enough to give consistent low latencies. As we have in the past been without Internet for a week, I don't want to rely on WIFI calling in case the Internet gets saturated or when we have another extended outage. (for the sake of clarity I can manage on the 10 megabit of a solid 3.5g connection as a backup) My preferred solution is to stay with 2D - both because of their pricing and because they have done right by me in the past - something I can't say about the other 2 mobile Telcos - but if they can't provide me with layer 2 service where I most use it I'll shift to One NZ who I know are able to provide fast 4G.

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tripper1000

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#3332319 16-Jan-2025 13:36

I understand you want/need an alternate (cellular) connection for redundancy, however I trust you've given WiFi calling a test-out/chance. At the least it may be sufficient as an interim solution if there is a gap between switching off 3G and improving 4G coverage.

My brother lives rural and is on copper-ADSL. He was complaining of missing a lot of calls due to patchy cell coverage. After I showed him how to turn on wifi calling he described the improvement as "life changing". It is pretty frugal on the bandwidth, so he doesn't seem to have saturation issues.

nztim

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#3332320 16-Jan-2025 13:46

davidgo2: I live on a lifestyle block and I don't consider my Internet connection reliable - nor is it fast enough to give consistent low latencies.

If you have ADSL or your VDSL is below 50mbps I suggest moving to star link and then use Wifi Calling latency is now pretty rock solid 30ms with an NZ pop

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Linux

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#3332380 16-Jan-2025 16:15

Spyware:
GIS geek page show a 2D tower 500 metres to south 3G/4G LTE @ 900 MHz.

https://gis.geek.nz/map/celltowers/@-36.6812134,174.6546275,16z

@Spyware This site only has 3G 900Mhz on it

Trust me 2degrees want 4G on it and have tried for a number of years and I got quite a detailed explanation why they can't upgrade the site....

Bluntj

556 posts

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#3332461 16-Jan-2025 22:47

SaltyNZ:

Before we turn off 3G we will make every possible endeavour to increase 4G coverage to fully replace the lost 3G coverage. Part of that will be new sites, part of that will probably be new RCG sites (we're not the only ones turning off 3G - everyone is) and part of that will be turning up the power on the existing L700 sites. L700 can cover more ground than 900MHz, where UMTS runs, but since historically there were a larger fraction of handsets that did not support VoLTE we could not fully utilise it as we might otherwise run into situations where people thought they had coverage right up until they tried to call 111.

If you want to bring a specific location to our attention feel free to post it here. Apart from myself there are multiple other senior technical staff that watch these forums.

But none of us can personally guarantee that every single subscriber will not suffer some loss of coverage. And neither can One or Spark, for that matter. We have to maximise the coverage for the entire base, rather than prioritising individuals. /Vulcan hand wave, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few etc.

To me its a bit sad that the Companies are waiting until now in order to provide better 4G coverage. Coverage is some parts of Urban areas has been crap to put it mildly for many years with almost zero communication on the issue.

Linux

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#3332467 16-Jan-2025 23:01

It is not an issue as such it is just how it is when you have multiple technologys in play providing mobile coverage

The sooner 3G is turned off the better

richms

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#3332535 17-Jan-2025 07:50

Linux:

@Spyware This site only has 3G 900Mhz on it

Trust me 2degrees want 4G on it and have tried for a number of years and I got quite a detailed explanation why they can't upgrade the site....

So will the site go dark when 3g is turned off or will they refarm the same freqs to 5g at that time?

Richard rich.ms

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#3332541 17-Jan-2025 08:06

richms:
Linux:

@Spyware This site only has 3G 900Mhz on it

Trust me 2degrees want 4G on it and have tried for a number of years and I got quite a detailed explanation why they can't upgrade the site....

So will the site go dark when 3g is turned off or will they refarm the same freqs to 5g at that time?

New site should be built before 3G shutdown so really fingers crossed no impact

SaltyNZ

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#3332552 17-Jan-2025 08:31

Bluntj:

To me its a bit sad that the Companies are waiting until now in order to provide better 4G coverage. Coverage is some parts of Urban areas has been crap to put it mildly for many years with almost zero communication on the issue.

I can't speak for One or Spark - though I would be shocked if they were any different - but there is no "waiting until now". We never stopped improving 4G coverage ever since we launched it. We built more of our own sites, we created the RCG joint venture to build best part of another 500 sites, we even activated some MoRAN coverage on existing One NZ sites in places where that made the most sense. The work has never stopped.

As to whether coverage in some particular places is better or worse, in any given place each carrier is different. Unfortunately that may mean that you might not have a three-way choice sometimes because only one has decent coverage right where you are. We're all roughly the same on a national level these days, but there will always be variations in coverage at the small detail level.

I'm not sure if you realise that it takes well over $1B to build a cellular network to cover NZ. You want to go back to the days of your phone costing $250/mth? Then now you know why coverage expansion slows down (but doesn't stop) in between major refreshes.

iPad Pro 11" + iPhone 15 Pro Max + 2degrees 4tw!

These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

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