Connected to a 2degrees cell tower with "R" roaming

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Connected to a 2degrees cell tower with "R" roaming

TechnoGuy001

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#243683 25-Dec-2018 16:51

I'm connected to "2degrees 3G" cell tower gear as the Network Cell info app shows, yet it says I'm "roaming", I'm confused, I thought we only roamed when connected to Vodafone's network.

Looking at the map of where the cell tower is meant to be, I'm very close, and get most of the time 100% bars, but the max speeds I can get is around 35KB/s. Seems slow for H+ (or HSPA+) I'm am kinda rural at the moment, close to Lake Waikaremoana, but figured I'd get faster speeds being on a 2degrees cell tower and a 2d Pre Pay customer or do you need to pay extra to get fast rural speeds...

Any idea's why it's stuck me on "roaming" when I'm in NZ, and what looks like, connected to a 2degrees tower. (it's particularly painful seeing Spark having a 4G here haha)

sbiddle

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#2150496 25-Dec-2018 17:05

MNC 01 is Vodafone

TechnoGuy001

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#2150508 25-Dec-2018 17:20

aaaah, well that answers that then. Guess it's a bug in the app's database then.

Edit: I guess the question now is, why doesn't it connect to the seemingly 2degrees 3G network it finds.

Linux

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#2150513 25-Dec-2018 17:29

Try a manual network selection

John

sbiddle

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#2150515 25-Dec-2018 17:31

It's interesting there is Spark coverage there now as well.

This was one of many areas that's only had Vodafone/BellSouth coverage for the last 20+ years due to their contract with ECNZ which saw coverage in many hydro areas. This possibly only leaves the west arm of Lake Manapouri (where the cellsite is inside the Manapouri power station) as the only area left with VF only coverage.

My guess would be that this is a new RBI tower and 2degrees is currently not yet fully operational.

TechnoGuy001

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#2150518 25-Dec-2018 17:50

Hmm yeah, I've tried manually selecting the Voda one, and it'll connect, show 2G, but then a second later it will auto switch to the "2degrees 3G" network and land me on H+ R, while still having auto select network unticked.

Manually selecting the 2degrees 3G network just brings me back to the same H+ R.

EDIT: Just tried doing a manual network search on a friends phone here (Nexus 5x) and it only finds the Spark and voda networks, so maybe my Oneplus 2 phone is incorrectly naming networks (as done another Oneplus 3t phone I have here).

EDIT 2: Just tested on a Nokia 6.1 (2018) phone and it does show all 3 networks, but trying to manually select the 2degrees one fails, and it falls back to the voda network.

Linux

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#2150540 25-Dec-2018 19:06

Then the 2degrees cell is not unlocked / live yet

John

TechnoGuy001

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#2150543 25-Dec-2018 19:14

Linux: Then the 2degrees cell is not unlocked / live yet

John

Aaah damn, will need to remember to bring a Spark SIM with me next time I go out this way.

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#2150544 25-Dec-2018 19:17

I suspect it will be unlocked soon

John

quickymart

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#2150588 25-Dec-2018 22:13

Interesting app. Does it show Cell Info Display as well (do any operators support it still)?

TechnoGuy001

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#2150621 26-Dec-2018 08:16

quickymart:Interesting app. Does it show Cell Info Display as well (do any operators support it still)?

ooooh, was that the thing you could enable on some phones way back that would tells you the tower you were connected to on the home screen? (then no, the app doesn't show it)

I don't know how reliable that (Network Cell Info) app's info is, I found another app (Network Signal Info) that reports MNC to be 24...