3G shutdown: check your phones

Forums › New Zealand Mobile and Wireless › 3G shutdown: check your phones

1 | ... | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | ... | 31

12182 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 8476

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3448424 31-Dec-2025 13:57

quickymart:

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

@quickymart Really have you looked at the 2degrees & OneNZ websites or read any posts in this thread?

2degrees website

Scheduled Start Date Area Current Progress
Sunday, 14 December 2025 Various rural locations Completed
Tuesday, 13 January 2026 Sites across Rotorua and Palmerston North, and another single site close to Waiatarua Not started
Tuesday, 27 January 2026 Rest of the network Not started

quickymart

14940 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 13954

ID Verified

#3448431 31-Dec-2025 14:47

Yep. But I hadn't read all of it for ages and had literature from One/whatever I picked up in their shop the other day that clearly said "closing December 31".

I guess that information is now out-of-date.

In any case, I don't use 2G or 3G on my phone anymore, so I'm all good 👍

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
13036 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3896

ID Verified

Trusted

Lizard Networks

Subscriber

#3448549 1-Jan-2026 00:15

Linux:

2degrees website

Scheduled Start Date Area Current Progress
Tuesday, 13 January 2026 Sites across Rotorua and Palmerston North, and another single site close to Waiatarua Not started

Looking forward to seeing this. I'm still confused on the wording of close to Waiatrua, but that site has always been a bit weird.

it may be my phones reporting incorrect, but the vodafone side of that site still seems to have the roaming agreement.

2D U900 is definitely still transmitting from there, with both L700 from 2D and VF. As far as i'm aware, the site isn't an RCG site.

Due to the antenna positions the VF side just happens to punch through the valley (close to line of sight)

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

grantius

88 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 53

#3449806 5-Jan-2026 07:31

Compared to the new year period last year off-grid in same places I only saw a handful of unusable 3g connections on Spark and One, and much more usable LTE (enough to receive a text or a WhatsApp message).

Looking forward to a full refarm of the b5/b8 from 3g that's for sure!

Behodar

11099 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 6082

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3449812 5-Jan-2026 08:31

My typical exercise route (through hills) still drops to 3G on Spark so I'm also looking forward to this:

grantius:

Looking forward to a full refarm of the b5/b8 from 3g that's for sure!

Metamorphic

55 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 59

ID Verified

#3450595 7-Jan-2026 16:33

Linux:

Scheduled Start Date Area Current Progress
Sunday, 14 December 2025 Various rural locations Completed
Tuesday, 13 January 2026 Sites across Rotorua and Palmerston North, and another single site close to Waiatarua Not started
Tuesday, 27 January 2026 Rest of the network Not started

I had a bit of an eye-opener when I was talking to a dude in his 50s or maybe 60s last night. While we briefly discussed the 3G shutdown and 2 degrees, I mentioned I had thought it was going to be by the end of 2025 (we are in the "rest of the network" area, so it hasn't happened here yet).

His response, referring to nameless authorities behind the date, was to bitterly call the date "lies". I think most people in this forum understand that technology changeovers take time to roll out, not to mention actual work by actual workers. But he didn't look at it that way.

For a brief moment it gave me a wee bit of a opening into how someone who is suspicious — or maybe simply beaten down by life's disappointments — can interpret societal changes that most of us would consider to be ordinary.

I don't know the man so I can't say much more. But it sure was striking. Shows how important and difficult it is to get public communication right.

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

richms

29099 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 10210

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3450607 7-Jan-2026 17:20

Best just to go OK and back away slowly from people like that.

Richard rich.ms

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
13036 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3896

ID Verified

Trusted

Lizard Networks

Subscriber

#3451928 11-Jan-2026 19:28

Went for a bit of a drive around this evening having noticed that vodafone have refarmed some of their U900 to L900 on Waiatrua.

That site is still rather odd, i know 2D have stopped their roaming agreement. but the site itself acts like RCG sites minus the ability for spark to be able to connect, I highly suspect 2D and One have a MORAN agreement for Waiatrua so be interesting to see if there is a change on Wednesday.

i couldn't get any L900 on 2D there so looks like it's still fully U900, I suspect the one site is the 3G side of Waiatrua.

Something that I only really paid attention to today is that all the RCG sites around here do not seem to do LTE CA. most RCG sites are B28 + B28 + B28, so I have always put this down to the limited amount of devices that support B28 + B28 combos. However, on B28 + B28 + B3 + B3 sites it did not seem possible to get CA across B28 + B3 at all.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.