Spark - 5G Coverage + data instability (Wellington & parts of Auckland)

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark - 5G Coverage + data instability (Wellington & parts of Auckland)

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#3494852 23-May-2026 08:28

My parents live on the North Shore near Cut hill / Greenhithe and Spark 4G performs so poor that YouTube buffers on my work phone Samsung S23fe but sweet solid 5G on my personal phone!

boosacnoodle

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#3494859 23-May-2026 09:40

Along those lines, it’s pretty confounding to see both 2degrees and One NZ having near full 5G coverage in Rolleston (fastest growing town/district in the country) and yet not even one tower with 5G on Spark there. Also they have around half the physical locations on Spark, so service will always be poorer. Regularly see posts online to this effect from people moving to the area. I guess the Connexa / tower sales thing makes sense in this context as it should be, in theory at least, easier to join up to some existing 2d/ONZ towers.

I’m still unclear on how the upgrades are prioritised and it’s likely I’ll never know as it’s commercial but the fact that the last upgrade was in 2021 (according to RSM) is pretty telling. And it’s not as if Spark is the cheapest in the market. The lack of 5G also means that there’s less capacity and value-add services (WBB 5G upsell) that they can sell, too. I wonder if the outcome is somewhat pre-determined - the network is bad in that area, so no one signs up, so the network is never prioritised for upgrade in that area, rinse and repeat.

Tbqh Wi-Fi Calling isn’t a fix either. Particularly in rural areas with a fringe signal, even with Wi-Fi Calling enabled your battery gets absolutely decimated. I actually have an iOS shortcut setup for this at my families home. When m phone connects to the wifi, it puts the phone in flight mode and vice versa. This saves on battery big time but is a bit of a hack - bring back the Sure Signal, I say.

boosacnoodle

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#3494888 23-May-2026 14:57

Has anyone seen b5/n5 in Christchurch or anywhere in the South Island for that matter post-3G shutdown?

boosacnoodle

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#3495655 26-May-2026 21:03

Euston Street performing well. What a difference the Nokia radios make!

boosacnoodle

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#3496040 28-May-2026 09:07

Avondale North (Aranui, Christchurch) is now live.

boosacnoodle

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#3499559 2-Jun-2026 17:17

Looks like Peterborough Street should be active shortly.

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Gwilson

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#3499582 2-Jun-2026 18:58

My experience is limited to Tesla cellular connectivity (Spark). I notice recently frequent dropouts and logged the issue with Tesla directly. They (Tesla) blame the retirement of 3G but as noted already 4G/LTE are the applicable cellular standards - not 3G.

It's quite consistent driving North out of Wellington it drops out just before Porirua and then reconnects in Mana. in the weekend it also dropped off heading South down Ngauaranga Gorge, reconnecting in Thorndon.

My 2degrees iphone and apple watch maintain connectivity fine. It does appear to be a hand-off type of issue on Spark in my case. Thinking of cancelling the Tesla data service and reverting to hotspotting from my phone.

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