Woosh expanding more in Wellington?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Woosh expanding more in Wellington?

DjShadow

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#4697 18-Aug-2005 12:13

Any news on them putting more cellsites up in wellington and surrounding areas?

I noticed last week what looks like a new cell tower going up with UMTS (not sure if its woosh or vodafone 3G) antennas on it about 1km south of the Porirua offramp, its on a little hill but gives a lot of places line of sight to it, and I thought I saw some new antennas going up on a tall building in Upper Hutt.
Bit disappointed DSE in Lower Hutt doesn't have a setup to try out.

sbiddle

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#18624 18-Aug-2005 12:18

The new site in Porirua is Vodafone 3GSM.

Woosh have a new site going up at the moment by the Epuni shops and a new site that went live in Island Bay a few weeks ago.

DjShadow

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#18626 18-Aug-2005 12:25

ah yup, no word on areas like j/ville, newlands, upper hutt or wainuiomata?

alasta

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#18639 18-Aug-2005 13:38

I'm looking at moving in the near future, and Woosh's coverage is something that I want to factor into the decision.

I rang them last weekend on receiving a flyer from them in the mail. I noted that their web site did not have any coverage map, and wondered if the customer service rep would give me a rough idea of where they have coverage. The service that I received was a bit off-hand, and she admitted that she was unfamiliar with Wellington and refused to do anything other than check the availability at a specific address.

I later checked a few random addresses on their web site to try and determine roughly where coverage is available in the eastern suburbs. It seems that Miramar, Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay, and the Evans Bay side of Hataitai are all reasonably well covered. I'd suggest that you keep an eye on the news section of Woosh's web site because, when they expand their coverage, they're likely to have articles about it there.

johnr

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#18640 18-Aug-2005 13:46

The online address checker is not good, I typed in my old street address and it advised no coverage. I could see the woosh aerial out our kitchen window!

nathan

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#18663 18-Aug-2005 16:27

sbiddle: The new site in Porirua is Vodafone 3GSM.

Woosh have a new site going up at the moment by the Epuni shops and a new site that went live in Island Bay a few weeks ago.

Epuni? Is that Epuni Street in Aro Valley, or Epuni out in the Lower Hutt?

goldfinger007

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#18666 18-Aug-2005 17:12

Lower Hutt mate. The SUBURB Epuni.

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lowededwookie

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#19843 8-Sep-2005 12:51

johnr: The online address checker is not good, I typed in my old street address and it advised no coverage. I could see the woosh aerial out our kitchen window!

The coverage map is a little outdated. As contractors to Woosh (I work for Datacom) it can be a little annoying getting an up to date map from them but in all fairness to Woosh, the amount of upgrades to their backbones can mean that there would be a delay in getting the data available to customers and contractors.

The closer you are to the transmitter the less of a signal you get. A little ironic I know but that's the case. The signal is like the trajectory of a ball being thrown off a roof as opposed to say waves traveling straight out from the source (think of sound waves). By thinking of throwing a ball from a roof, where that ball hits the ground would mean the signal is strongest.

If you can see the aerial from your kitchen window then you may not get a signal because the aerial itself would shield the signal a bit. It's kind of difficult to explain using words but my point is that the best signal is not besides the transmitter but further away. But if you put another transmitter say the same distance away as the signal length of the original transmitter, you would get a decent signal as the signal would fall to your area.

This is why the signal seems patchy in areas and why people get disheartend at being beside the aerial but getting no signal.

Woosh is still new and still in the processes of getting resource consents to put up aerials and thus the signals are flakey at the best of times. It would be good if Woosh did a deal with say Vodafone to piggy back of their transmitters. Then they would have the coverage and maybe then Vodafone could also bring the costs of their dataplans down by going through Woosh's network. I don't see either happening unfortunately.

But the Upper Hutt comment is interesting. I'll charge my test modem and see if I get any signal. I don't think I will because I'm sheltered by a big hill but here's hoping. If I can get a signal then I'm looking at Woosh as my ISP for sure. :-)

johnr

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#19851 8-Sep-2005 20:10

Ok I will rephrase what I said the woosh transmitter was in line of site of our house (2.5k max) but could see it when standing in Kitchen. Our street was in a big hole but our house was up a steep driveway and was on stilts so made it high up.

swiftideas

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#20230 17-Sep-2005 12:33

I imagine that they would only be able to drive test their network coverage from the road.
Bit unfair if your property is not relative to the road... set back or up high etc. But at least they have some form of quality assurance I suppose.

lowededwookie

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#20600 27-Sep-2005 13:37

Just a quick update, Woosh is not available in the Gemstone Drive area of Upper Hutt :-(