We live 2-3 km from the CBD of the Hutt - but reception is marginal (because of the hills). Cells have mainly been so people can get us when we go out - but these days more and more people are calling the cell instead of office phone. To see how the other networks fare we bought a SIM for Spark and 2Degrees.

To our surprise both had stronger signals than Vodafone. Spark was the strongest but while we were weighing up the options, 2Degrees came out with a six-month half price deal. This will give us time to explore - especially data. We only use WIFI at the moment, so wanted to take the opportunity to see just what we might be missing.

Between us comparing signal strengths and getting connected today, 2Degrees cut their 2G service. We called each other even though it was showing no signal and it worked. We checked the detailed status and found that 2Degrees is indeed showing a stronger signal than Vodafone - despite showing no or little signal in the bars at the top of the screen.

Does anyone have any explanation of why the general bar indicator is so far out for our 2Degrees connection (i.e. it shows more than Vodofone even though the bars show significantly lower)?

And another problem we have (and I assume my son also has since he runs a business phone on the second SIM) is dual SIM phones connect with one via 2G. (Only found this out today.) This means they'll be useless - especially if we want to conect with Spark, or once Vodafone turns off 2G.