NZ Government spends $115 million on 450 new cell towers useless to thousands of mobile devices

Forums › New Zealand Mobile and Wireless › NZ Government spends $115 million on 450 new cell towers useless to thousands of mobile devices

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#2602614 12-Nov-2020 12:57

djtOtago:

Were the people in the area told, that their existing voice service, was going to stop working unless they bought a compatible phone, before the new tower was turned on?

And if so, how much notice were they given?

NO NOTICE WHATSOEVER!

RCG or the providers published nothing in advance. I didn't even know and I was involved with RCG as community liaison, allaying community fears about cell tower radiation etc. We only learned about the switch on after the event when voice calling stopped working for loads of people in the area. Some two weeks after switch on RCG sent out an A4 circular saying to turn on LTE. But only AFTER I gave them a rark up! They published nothing about device incompatibility or what to do about the issues. I even suggested they supply some signs to alert the community.

I made SIX calls to Vodafone myself trying to find out why a VF VoLTE approved device wouldn't connect? Change the SIM they said, update the software, take it into a shop... etc. I finally spoke to one of the NOC team at 2Degrees who filled in some of the technical details of VoLTE and more importantly its limitations.

halper86

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#2602883 12-Nov-2020 16:58

How could it stop working if it never worked in the first place?

sdavisnz

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#2602940 12-Nov-2020 17:30

halper86: How could it stop working if it never worked in the first place?

It would have worked before as the phone would have locked to another cell tower to make a call, maybe, now the tower is happy to keep a lock on the device as volte is available.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Voice gives context

halper86

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#2602953 12-Nov-2020 18:01

sdavisnz:
halper86: How could it stop working if it never worked in the first place?

It would have worked before as the phone would have locked to another cell tower to make a call, maybe, now the tower is happy to keep a lock on the device as volte is available.

Maybe I'm wrong.

This is not how I personally understand it to work. I have always understood that the phone has 3G locked on for texting and calling, and 4G for data. I’ve always thought about it that way as how would a phone that doesn’t have VoLTE active receive phone calls?
I have family that live out of town and previously had poor reception but was still able to make and receive phone calls over 3G. In come these RCG towers with 4G and VoLTE and they still functioned the same - voice and text over 3G and data over 4G.

Linux

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#2602986 12-Nov-2020 19:19

SMS have been sent over 4G for many years

halper86

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#2603006 12-Nov-2020 20:25

Linux: SMS have been sent over 4G for many years

But in an area with no 4G coverage for miles..
Once the new site was live, everyone noticed more signal bars straight away. Spark was always the best with 1 bar most of the time, whereas 2d and voda - well - no service at all.

sbiddle

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#2603038 12-Nov-2020 21:39

halper86:
This is not how I personally understand it to work. I have always understood that the phone has 3G locked on for texting and calling, and 4G for data. I’ve always thought about it that way as how would a phone that doesn’t have VoLTE active receive phone calls?
I have family that live out of town and previously had poor reception but was still able to make and receive phone calls over 3G. In come these RCG towers with 4G and VoLTE and they still functioned the same - voice and text over 3G and data over 4G.

It's not "locked" to 3G as such, a modern phone will only be attached to the LTE network when in a LTE coverage area. When the network wants to deliver a voice call to the phone or the person using the phone initiates a voice call CSFB (circuit switched fallback) forces the phone back to 3G (or GSM if there is no 3G) for the duration of the voice call.

This is unlike current 5G phones in NSA mode that are simultaneously attached to both 5G and 4G at the same time and 4G is required for the phone to function. This requirement will only go away once we have 5G SA networks.

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halper86

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#2603042 12-Nov-2020 21:57

Thanks for clearing that up @sbiddle

richms

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#2603046 12-Nov-2020 22:12

I think this thread would be better as "Tens of New Zealanders spend $hundreds on phones that are useless to a handful of cell towers for one service"

Richard rich.ms

daringpeter

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#2603852 14-Nov-2020 20:03

Reading all the above, I think that VoLTE is a clumsy dogsbreakfast of a system. See the opinions on

availability of VoLTE by daringpeter . It disturbs me, as I see the implications of all this as voice as being regarded as a twilight mode of communication.

richms

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#2603915 14-Nov-2020 20:43

It is a mess, but the fundamental way that phone networks have historically operated means that using circuits to stand up between 2 points for the duration of a call, and if the conditions change and that circuit drops then the call is disconnected totally is something that doesnt work well in a mobile, IP based environment. Imagine if youtube was like that. One dropped packet and playback stops and you have to renavigate to the page you were on to get it to start again.

Good things take time to implement, but getting rid of the legacy baggage that the phone network carries will allow for smarter better things to be baked in, rather than the hackky addon carryon we have with things as they are.

Hell, I cant even look in my contacts list and see if someone is available to take a call with "phone" - away and busy modes have been in other messaging and chat applications since the days of ICQ.

Richard rich.ms

sbiddle

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#2604043 15-Nov-2020 13:11

daringpeter:

Reading all the above, I think that VoLTE is a clumsy dogsbreakfast of a system. See the opinions on

availability of VoLTE by daringpeter . It disturbs me, as I see the implications of all this as voice as being regarded as a twilight mode of communication.

VoLTE/Vo5G is the future of voice, particularly once we see 5G SA networks within the next 12 months that don't support circuit switched fallback.

In it's early days VoLTE has a horrible solution and fraught with issues. Now it's become a proven solution and pretty much every issue you have with it is solely because of Android fragmentation.

Chis

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#2604378 15-Nov-2020 20:15

I'm disappointed there isn't a good international standard for how 4G voice & SMS (yes, while it's still widely used) works - as we seemed to have with GSM all those years ago. It's not as if the requirements for voice & SMS have evolved at all. I could imagine interoperability for advanced services like presence, but why for the basics? And failing that, I wonder if there should be a NZ standard that at least meant all NZ network operators align with the accepted standards based on the majority of world handsets, and that research of the standard and validation of phones could be shared and not borne by each operator.

It seems a huge shame that NZ network operators must laboriously and expensively validate every phone, that a phone that works on one network may behave differently on another, and to be confident of consistent service we must buy only the approved models from the chosen network. The range of phones available from NZ network operators is a poor subset of the range of great phones available worldwide, especially those that provide good specs for a lower price from second tier vendors loved for their value by the enthusiast community, and even those from Google. Ok, Google hardware has been a bit variable, but it's a shame that even stuff from a well-known core of Android may not work properly with VoLTE. But it's unreasonably hard for NZ operators when they have to validate every phone themselves. This whole limited range and just bought from the operator you want to use, seems almost anti-competitive, where there's little choice outside Apple & Samsung, and little ability to port phones between networks.

Und3f

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#2627280 27-Dec-2020 23:27

Just read stevezone blog and it took me here. Enabling VOLTE in old devices is not an easy project and normally added into new product launch which subsequently will become available on any new launches after that. Most smartphone brands catching up and it is not long before all devices will support it as some operators making it semi mandatory now to have the VOLTE support.

There are good options already for VOLTE ready devices at different price range if you open to try outside the two big brands. OPPO for example have 2-3 models around $249 to $349 price points that will work with both Spark and Vodafone VOLTE.

2degrees a different story, they just simply have not enabled it nationwide and when they do.

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#2627281 27-Dec-2020 23:50

Correct - OPPO phones from Spark works well for all the carriers in NZ.

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