3G shutdown: check your phones

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pcman2000

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#3475965 31-Mar-2026 13:28

Yeah, my closest site in Upper Hutt had n78 + n40 but no n5, whereas the next site over has n78 + n5 but no n40. Either way both sites seemed to have no NR-CA between the two carriers so you're stuck on either n78 OR n40 OR n5 as your NSA SCG.

Realistically the n5 isn't useful without Standalone. If you can connect to a B1/3/7 anchor then you can probably pick up n78 or n40 (especially since those come off an AAU), and if you can only pick up b28 then your phone can't do 28_n5 anyway (with very few exceptions).

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Behodar

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#3475970 31-Mar-2026 13:35

KiwiSurfer:

Spark is currently progressing through the replacement of Samsung equipment at hundreds of sites around the country -- redoing several years worth of work and tying up lots of resources. n5 refarm probably not high on their priority list at the moment. My pick is they do n5 as part of the Nokia conversions and other wider works rather than doing n5 refarm on its own unless they need to for capacity relief.

I don't suppose there's a way to tell which breed your local tower is?

pcman2000

87 posts

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#3475976 31-Mar-2026 13:54

Behodar:

I don't suppose there's a way to tell which breed your local tower is?

For Spark sites with 5G, I do believe they almost always use the older Samsung MMUs which are distinctively tall like this: https://imgur.com/a/KZ9id0e (spark site in Christchurch CBD)

The Nokia ones (and Ericsson ones used by 2d) are a lot more square.

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old3eyes

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#3476411 1-Apr-2026 09:10

End of an era. I remember in about August 2009 going to a TUANZ After 5 at the Langholme Hotel in Auckland to a presentation of the XT network by TVNZ and Telecom NZ. I remember then it was quite expensive to buy the 3G phones in those days about $1000 my wife paid for a Samsung phone. I bought an X AT&T Samsung off TradeMe as that's seemed to be where old AT&T phones went to die as they had the XT 3G 850 meg frequencies. Today no signal. Now days second hand imported phones have no guarantee that they will work properly. So we move on.

Regards,

Old3eyes

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