I got mixed messages when I engaged the 2 Degrees helpdesk: Responses  were "there is no issue and that is just the quality you are going to get" to "we need examples" (which I gave, to no avail). There just wasn't any traction and that just left a bad taste in my mouth.

In the end - I gave up. I'm not going to spend hours trying to jog the helpdesk into logging a fault. I ported the remainder of my mobile connections over and now VFNZ has 7 of my Paymonthly / On Account mobiles... and the quality on/offnet (eg. to Spark) is great, whether I'm using 2G, 3G or VoLTE!
You can tell however when you call a 2 Degrees number as there is a very noticeable quality drop.

I really, really hope that this can be used to improve the customer experience. Again - I'm not trying to bash 2 Degrees here, we need a strong competitor who offers outstanding customer experience, great network performance and innovative pricing plans - I want to see them learn from this.

I've got both Spark (Work) and 2degrees (Personal). For the longest time I have not bothered with having a work number as I never wanted to carry 2 phones but late last year I ended up getting a Spark eSim activated on my phone to test call quality as it sounded like something was wrong with my iPhone (call quality was terrible to off-net numbers, especially Spark). I had to ask people to repeat themselves, people had to ask me and people also complained about call quality.

On Spark I didn't have such issues - ported this Spark number onto a corporate plan at work and slowly over time been getting my colleagues to call me on that number instead of my 2degrees number for call quality reasons.

My mother - who is on Spark now calls me on my work Spark number (HD Voice) as she found it hard to understand me on my 2degrees number. My father is on 2degrees and we get HD voice calls no problems (on-net). My iPhone operates in dual sim mode with both Spark and 2degrees on the same device.

Lastly, as I am in a VoLTE "test" area I've found I've been missing calls. WiFi calling is useless as calls drop when your WiFi does.

I have not been too vocal about this as I know that VoLTE was "coming" but this is half-baked as VoWiFi calls don't hand over to VoLTE still resulting in dropped calls and I swear the voice quality has actually gotten worse off-net. I have also raised this with 2degrees and got told I need to send my phone away for repair.

For what it is worth - calling from Spark to Vodafone is also very clear. Calling Vodafone to Spark is clear, Spark to 2degrees is rubbish and actually sounds muffled, Vodafone to 2degrees is also terrible and it appears it is getting worse.

This does seriously need to be looked at. I'm using an iPhone 12 Pro Max and not some el-cheapo phone. Just like the "Slow YouTube" thread this has now been going on for long enough - it is clear there is an issue and 2degrees needs to acknowledge this instead of burying their heads in the sand once again as this won't fix the issue. Many people are also technical and do know what they're talking about so when you've got a whole bunch of geeks complaining about something you should be looking into the problem with priority.

Would any of the Gen 1 sites (when 2D was originally Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown only) have problems doing VoLTE or would these likely be the priority to be rebuilt using Ericsson gear?

I am not a 2degrees customer but I have been watching this thread with interest, and the indifference from 2degrees seems quite bizarre given the severity of the problem.

Is it possible that their ability to respond to technical problems has been hamstrung by the redundancies that occurred during the lockdown last year?

Hi everyone

Thanks for your feedback, I hear you and appreciate what you're saying.

I’ve raised this thread with our network operations centre manager. He has put meetings in place with our network teams as well as our vendors to explore this. We’re hoping for updates next week and I’ll share them with you when I hear more.

Cheers,

Seems to take 2D a looong time to get serious about widely reported problems. Would put me off.

linw:

 

Seems to take 2D a looong time to get serious about widely reported problems. Would put me off.

 

Hi there, this isn't an official channel of raising tickets of investigation. We choose to be here to keep in touch and because we appreciate the feedback. Our way of raising tickets for investigations is by number of comms with our customer care team. This is the fastest way to bring issues to our attention as this is the process for raising with our technical specialists. Anyone with issues or want to pass on to us something to investigate should call us on 0800 022 022 or flick us a PM on Facebook/Twitter.

Cheers and have a good weekend

Thanks @morganbrowne for raising this. Appreciate this isn't an official channel but many of us (including me and people I know outside of these forums) have attempted to raise this via official channels also to get a resolution with no success. I personally got told I need to send my phone away for repair.

Looking forward to your update!

morganbrowne:

 

linw:

 

Seems to take 2D a looong time to get serious about widely reported problems. Would put me off.

 

 

 

 

Hi there, this isn't an official channel of raising tickets of investigation. We choose to be here to keep in touch and because we appreciate the feedback. Our way of raising tickets for investigations is by number of comms with our customer care team. This is the fastest way to bring issues to our attention as this is the process for raising with our technical specialists. Anyone with issues or want to pass on to us something to investigate should call us on 0800 022 022 or flick us a PM on Facebook/Twitter.

 

Cheers and have a good weekend

 

With good intentions @morganbrowne, I would ask her to try and raise a ticket. To tell us to raise tickets when a lot of us have tried is not a fair response. This issue is clearly an intended consequence by 2 degrees for what reason who would know...perhaps low call quality means less bandwidth which means savings for 2 degrees. I would imagine most 2 degrees staff use this network and are well aware of this issue.

The wonderful thing about being on prepay and not caring about the number is that I can just stop givng them money.

And sort-of-related, a workmate has been wasting time trying to get 2D support to help him with the non-existent VoLTE on his various 2D devices. As he's in Wellington, VoLTE isn't even available (as per the other thread). 2D support have decided that all 4 related phones (all less than 2 years old, and all bought from 2D locally) must be simultaneously "faulty" and will need to be sent in for repair.

Someone really needs some better internal comms to let the staff know that 2D VoLTE is only available for one tiny little section of the country.

This is related to trying to find some way (_any_ way) to make the call quality more tolerable.

Hi guys, update as promised.

Our network operations centre are monitoring this closely due to some inefficient call routing. We’re working on changes to optimise routes. We’re working with our vendors on some features that might improve this and are doing some testing and learning. The issue, from our testers’ observations, is that this is a noticeable audio quality issue, however not severe. The network operations centre expect this to be an ongoing test and learn exercise so at this stage we don’t have any ETAs to share, but will send updates when available.

Cheers

@morganbrowne Glad the issue was found and thanks very much for the update :)

morganbrowne:

 

Hi guys, update as promised.

 

Our network operations centre are monitoring this closely due to some inefficient call routing. We’re working on changes to optimise routes. We’re working with our vendors on some features that might improve this and are doing some testing and learning. The issue, from our testers’ observations, is that this is a noticeable audio quality issue, however not severe. The network operations centre expect this to be an ongoing test and learn exercise so at this stage we don’t have any ETAs to share, but will send updates when available.

 

Cheers

 

Thanks for your response. I believe the issue is severe enough to consider changing networks, so I do hope a solution is found in the coming weeks.