Degraded Cell Phone Reception after Thunderstorm

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Degraded Cell Phone Reception after Thunderstorm

aaristotle

145 posts

Master Geek

#289357 1-Sep-2021 11:19

After a thunderstorm on the 29 Aug I noticed that cell phone reception on my phone dropped from 1-2 bars to no bars, but not no service (so the occasional SMS does get through eventually).

Previously when the nearest cell tower was out of service for 15 days I had no service at all, but currently it seems to be partially working.

I'm assuming a tower has multiple aerials covering different directions, so is it possible for one to be degraded or not working, and if so would there be any monitoring in place that would report this sort of problem automatically?

The tower in question is Spark WAIOTAMA (gis.geek.nz) or Spark Maungakaramea when listed on the Spark Outages page. I am located about 11km north of the tower.

Linux

11391 posts

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#2769794 1-Sep-2021 11:53

Now you have the choice of 2 carriers that support WiFi calling - This is a fantastic backup for outages on cell towers if you have home WiFi / internet connection not via the cell tower that is off-line

@cbrpilot might know more of what is going on

aaristotle

145 posts

Master Geek

#2769802 1-Sep-2021 12:02

The wife is with 2Degrees and redundancy is one of the reasons we have different providers. Back when 2Degrees used Vodafone roaming in some locations Spark was by default the only choice for redundancy then.

I would look at switching to Vodafone however I also use the Spark mobile as redundancy for any Spark ADSL outages, using the free mobile data while the ADSL is out.

gajan

286 posts

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#2769815 1-Sep-2021 12:18

Spoken to our NOC team and they are aware of a new issue on the sector facing your coverage area. This is being jobbed out for a tech to visit. Spark service/status page will be updated shortly to reflect issue.

My comments and remarks are not necessarily of my employer.

aaristotle

145 posts

Master Geek

#2769883 1-Sep-2021 12:52

gajan:

Spoken to our NOC team and they are aware of a new issue on the sector facing your coverage area. This is being jobbed out for a tech to visit. Spark service/status page will be updated shortly to reflect issue.

Thats great, thanks for confirming there is a problem and its being sorted.

K8Toledo

1014 posts

Uber Geek

#2770295 2-Sep-2021 01:17

gajan:

Spoken to our NOC team and they are aware of a new issue on the sector facing your coverage area. This is being jobbed out for a tech to visit. Spark service/status page will be updated shortly to reflect issue.

Thanks for that. We are also experiencing outages in Mangawhai/Te Arai.

gajan

286 posts

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Spark NZ

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#2770672 2-Sep-2021 15:26

A temp fix has just been deployed on the site for 3G, so you should hopefully see that operating normally. 4G requires a tower climb which we working through the process.

My comments and remarks are not necessarily of my employer.

nztim

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TEAMnetwork

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#2770704 2-Sep-2021 16:21

gajan:

A temp fix has just been deployed on the site for 3G, so you should hopefully see that operating normally. 4G requires a tower climb which we working through the process.

Just what you need right now when everyone is WFH!

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

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Oblivian

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#2770708 2-Sep-2021 16:35

Angry Thors bolts yeild for nooone

(at least from a tower climb perspective and the lightshow that was on I assume that's what happened)