3G shutdown: check your phones

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#3447428 26-Dec-2025 22:50

Yep n5 NSA, using either b3 (1800), b1 (2100), b40 (2300) or b7 (2600).

Exactly like you said it's a token usage to just give the "5g" icon. At least they are rolling out a bit of n40 (and I have seen n5+n78 CA in some places which is actually useful)

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#3447429 26-Dec-2025 22:54

grantius:

(and I have seen n5+n78 CA in some places which is actually useful)

What app are you using to measure/see these signals? I'd be interested to see what my phone picks up.

grantius

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#3447430 26-Dec-2025 22:56

quickymart:

grantius:

(and I have seen n5+n78 CA in some places which is actually useful)

What app are you using to measure/see these signals? I'd be interested to see what my phone picks up.

*#1100# on Samsung s23 ultra.

I've got tons of captures of n7+n78 on One all over the show in Auckland, and Drury for n78+n5 for Spark (see https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=42&topicid=150270&page_no=3)

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#3447432 27-Dec-2025 01:11

grantius:

Yep n5 NSA, using either b3 (1800), b1 (2100), b40 (2300) or b7 (2600).

Exactly like you said it's a token usage to just give the "5g" icon. At least they are rolling out a bit of n40 (and I have seen n5+n78 CA in some places which is actually useful)

Last i checked most of sparks RAN will only do NSA on L2100, must be a different deployment there though.

Been awhile since i've had a drive around there, might have to come for a look at some stage

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boosacnoodle

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#3447543 27-Dec-2025 22:18

Now also seeing similar 1000/100 Mbps 5G speeds in Wellington too. Still NSA, tho.

Geektastic

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#3447652 29-Dec-2025 00:45

Linux:

@Geektastic of course cause you have mentioned many times you live in poor / weak 4G coverage area, if faster speed is what you after you might need to move closer to the local serving cell

I don't know why you would expect anything close to the above speedtest considering it was actually done on 5G.

It’s worth noting that I hardly live in the bundu. You can drive to Christchurch International Airport from my house in 30 minutes!

We have to pay Mr Musk for our broadband.

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#3447655 29-Dec-2025 03:45

Geektastic:

Linux:

@Geektastic of course cause you have mentioned many times you live in poor / weak 4G coverage area, if faster speed is what you after you might need to move closer to the local serving cell

I don't know why you would expect anything close to the above speedtest considering it was actually done on 5G.

It’s worth noting that I hardly live in the bundu. You can drive to Christchurch International Airport from my house in 30 minutes!

We have to pay Mr Musk for our broadband.

You still live in a very poor / weak mobile coverage location and clearly a non fibre location

I don't get people that think " oh but we live x number of minutes from x cbd we should have perfect mobile coverage and access to Fibre,

Like people in Auckland but we can see the Sky tower so we should have perfect mobile coverage and access to fibre, 30 minutes drive you can cover quite a distance

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#3447730 29-Dec-2025 10:54

Geektastic:

Linux:

@Geektastic of course cause you have mentioned many times you live in poor / weak 4G coverage area, if faster speed is what you after you might need to move closer to the local serving cell

I don't know why you would expect anything close to the above speedtest considering it was actually done on 5G.

It’s worth noting that I hardly live in the bundu. You can drive to Christchurch International Airport from my house in 30 minutes!

We have to pay Mr Musk for our broadband.

you can keep using time as a measurement of performance all you like, but 30 mins at 100km/h is 50km. That's an awfully large distance for cellphone coverage and knowing what's inland from CHCH airport is mostly sparsely populated farmland, so cell towers are few and far between.

You can't choose to live rurally and then complain you are not getting great speeds over a network that wasn't built to give you great speeds, unless you live close to the serving equipment. it was built for coverage over speed.

I'm 10 mins from Auckland airport, in urban Auckland and i don't have 5G.

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#3447739 29-Dec-2025 12:31

The Island Scenic Highway then? A much used route, so important that it gets a name?

3 km away.

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#3447741 29-Dec-2025 12:36

@Geektastic So the mobile network will be setup to cover Island Scenic Highway as much as possible, High chance the panels on the serving site are not even pointed at your house

You are 3km away in that 3km your house could be behind a hill or in a dip! They did not build the coverage for your own personal house!

quickymart

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#3447742 29-Dec-2025 12:40

Geektastic:

The Island Scenic Highway then? A much used route, so important that it gets a name?

3 km away.

Unfortunately your distance to a road/building/landmark doesn't mean much for what services you'll have available (including mobile).

Back in my customer service days, I used to get people calling me constantly who were unhappy they couldn't get broadband saying things like "but I'm 2 kms from SH1! Why can't I get broadband here?" "Here" being a locality with maybe 5-10 houses (sometimes 1), but they always said "oh, there's heaps of people here"...however the reality was something quite different.

I also had to point out that SH1 is a very long road, with many parts of it where no-one lives at all. Hardly a candidate to get fibre, really.

TL:DR; your location in relation to the nearest main road unfortunately doesn't count for much for what you can get (this has been said on here before too).

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insane

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#3447744 29-Dec-2025 12:59

I've re-read the posts and I'm not sure there was a complaint pre se, rather just some observations that their observed speeds were nothing close to the speedtests shown here.

But it does make me wonder what expectations people have, irrespective of how it's been created. Presumably people have experienced 4G speeds at some point in their lives, and been impressed. The logical assumption may be that if 5G is being rolled out that it will be a huge improvement, not taking into consideration of NSA vs SA, bands, distance, capacity, time of day, obstacles etc etc.

I.e what would your mum think vs what does an industry insider understand

quickymart

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#3448420 31-Dec-2025 13:51

Is today indeed the last day for 3G services for everyone bar Spark? That came up quickly 😮

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#3448422 31-Dec-2025 13:53

quickymart:

Is today the last day for 3G services for everyone bar Spark?

Maybe read up as this has been covered previously. Both 2deg and One NZ has ended up deviating from the 31st date and now doing staged rollouts (or rollins migh be a betetr word) so cut off dates are now depedent on where you are and other factors. Links above. But I believe all One NZ/2degrees 2G/3G services will be gone within the next two months or so.

quickymart

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#3448423 31-Dec-2025 13:56

It's a long thread, sorry - I was wondering if the announced timeline was still in place but I think you've answered my question.

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