poor coverage at home - femtocell an option?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › poor coverage at home - femtocell an option?

kaczor47

95 posts

Master Geek

#190949 17-Jan-2016 23:10

Parts of Khandallah are known to have coverage issues (not just 2degrees, but I find 2d is particularly bad), especially in the Onslow Rd area. Unfortunately this is home for us and every time I need to make a call I have to go to a specific room in the house where I can get coverage.

While I realise this is a challenging part of town to cover and that cell towers aren't deployed just like that, but from a customer point of view having almost no coverage this frequently (not to mention delayed text messages etc) is not acceptable.

I wonder if 2degrees offers femtocells as a remedy in such cases? I know vodafone used to in the past...

quickymart

13970 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1473435 18-Jan-2016 05:09

I don't think 2degrees do.

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1473443 18-Jan-2016 07:18

2degrees don't offer a femto solution but do allow the use of a certified signal booster which from memory is around $1000

timmmay

20589 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1473448 18-Jan-2016 07:41

I switched from 2degrees to Spark to get better coverage in Wellington, 3 years ago when I got my first smart phone. I was working a couple of buildings from the beehive at the time, Spark had three strong transmitters, 2 degrees only had one. It might be worth considering as an option, see if you can check out signal strength from other carriers, it'd probably be cheaper to switch than buy a cell.

SepticSceptic

2195 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1473738 18-Jan-2016 13:03

Vodafone still does have a femtocell ( SureSignal).

Apparently they can be configured to use on other broadband ISP's, there has been the odd mention in GZ about how to do so.

Shock

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1473793 18-Jan-2016 13:47

timmmay: I switched from 2degrees to Spark to get better coverage in Wellington

Ditto although I went with Skinny. The Vodafone / 2Degrees coverage was awful at the train station and out Newtown way around the Adelaide road area. Switched and it was rock solid across the region. Haven't looked back since.

Connecting to UFB? Go with Bigpipe and use this link for free credit!

2degreesCare

1537 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

2degrees

#1474002 18-Jan-2016 17:17

Hi, sorry to hear of your issues with coverage there. Cel-Fi offer a signal booster if you have a 2degrees 3G signal at your location - http://www.cel-fi.co.nz/cel_fi_2Degrees.html

I guess your issues has been looked at by our Tech Support team? If not please can you PM us some details including -

Your 2degrees number & alternative contact # to call you on (if possible)
Phone make/model and where you bought it from?
Exact location where you are having issues (street name + number, town)
Times/dates it started happening and if it's always been like this
What signal do you see on your phone (4G, H, H+, R3H, E etc)
How many signal bars you see (if any)
What happens if you switch from Auto-connect to 2G (GSM) or 3G only (WCDMA) only?
Does it improve the signal?
A couple of examples from you of your experience, i.e. - 'Data (or call to 022123456) dropped at 3.30pm at 100 High St with signal showing as H+ and 3 signal bars'.

With this info we can get our Tech Support team to look into it and possibly escalate to our RF team if we would expect a better coverage at that location.

Thanks,
^POB

kaczor47

95 posts

Master Geek

#1480907 28-Jan-2016 21:03

Hi, sorry to abandon my topic - been overseas.

2degrees - yes, I will PM the details requested.

Hopefully there is a solution!