2degrees testing in the Manawatu?

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codyc1515

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#87519 30-Jul-2011 20:30

Hi everybody,

I was writing an app in C# today that cuts down on all the clutter of traditional GUI's for Mobile Broadband USB modems (I'm looking at you Vodafone Mobile Connect ;) and I came across something peculiar: running the AT command "AT+COPS=?" on my modem (Vodafone K3805Z) resulted in the following output:

+COPS: (2,"vodafone NZ","voda NZ","53001",2),(1,"vodafone NZ","voda NZ","53001",0),(3,"2degrees","2degrees","53024",0),,(0-4),(0-2)

I will break this down into separate lines with explanations as its quite technical:

Method (e.g. automatic, manual), Long name, Short name, MCC/MNC, Service type (e.g. GSM/UMTS)
(2,"vodafone NZ","voda NZ","53001",2)
(1,"vodafone NZ","voda NZ","53001",0)
(3,"2degrees","2degrees","53024",0)

From this we can gather:

vodafone NZ has an UMTS service available nearby
vodafone NZ also has a GSM service available nearby
2degrees has a GSM service nearby

This is interesting to me because, as far as I'm aware, 2degrees do not have towers around Feilding/Palmerston North and I am not using a 2degrees SIM Card (I'm on Vodafone). A quick check tells me that 2degrees has a nationwide license to use the 1800MHz (one that I checked, didn't check others), so they are free to do what they like basically.

Also interesting is that my iPhone 4 did not pick up 2degrees (presumably as it has a special marker (number 3 instead of 2 or 1) for network selection). This would indicate that they are only testing in the area at this stage.

Thoughts?

codyc1515

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#499885 30-Jul-2011 21:11

Maybe its part of 2degrees roaming setup with voda?

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codyc1515

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#499886 30-Jul-2011 21:12

Regs: Maybe its part of 2degrees roaming setup with voda?

But I am only on Vodafone, I can't see any reason it would show this to me.
Its broadcasting with the 2degrees MCC/MNC, not Vodafone as you would expect.

DjShadow

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#499890 30-Jul-2011 21:26

2degrees does have backhaul frequencies registered from Ashhurst through Palmerston North and continues on to Levin, Otaki and joining up with current coverage which ends in Waikanae. Its possible they are installing gear in Palmy now and beginning testing

Publius

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#499892 30-Jul-2011 21:28

2degrees are expanding to Palmy so it is quite possible you can see them testing their network.
Hamilton has just gone live acording to reports from there, other sites that will go probably go live soon are Tauranga. Further areas to come are palmy/levin, invercargill, whanganui, napier/hastings, taupo, rotorua, whangarei.

codyc1515

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#499897 30-Jul-2011 21:45

Publius: 2degrees are expanding to Palmy so it is quite possible you can see them testing their network.
Hamilton has just gone live acording to reports from there, other sites that will go probably go live soon are Tauranga. Further areas to come are palmy/levin, invercargill, whanganui, napier/hastings, taupo, rotorua, whangarei.

Do you have a link? Curious to find more info as I am actually out near Halcombe, not near Palmerston North.

Publius

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#499899 30-Jul-2011 21:54

Source is http://www.geekzone.co.nz/BarTender/7403
In particular the link there in the 2degrees section "And New Cell Site Locations (that only have microwave backhaul so far)."

BarTender

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#499955 31-Jul-2011 10:11

Publius: Source is http://www.geekzone.co.nz/BarTender/7403
In particular the link there in the 2degrees section "And New Cell Site Locations (that only have microwave backhaul so far)."

I'll look to do a new export from RSM shortly and see if anything new has turned up.

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Publius

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#500019 31-Jul-2011 16:02

BarTender, it is curious that Dunedin has nothing? They can't be skipping the city for places like Invercargill, and they cant be all fibre site in Dunedin either.

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#500025 31-Jul-2011 16:08

Publius: BarTender, it is curious that Dunedin has nothing? They can't be skipping the city for places like Invercargill, and they cant be all fibre site in Dunedin either.

My guess would be they are going off the cities/areas where they have the most customer demand and setting them up first.

But yes I would of picked Dunedin also to get towers sooner than later

*edit* I just did a search on the RSM database for Two Degrees and Dunedin and came back with backhaul locations for Dunedin CBD so yep looks like its heading there

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#500030 31-Jul-2011 16:20

Publius: BarTender, it is curious that Dunedin has nothing? They can't be skipping the city for places like Invercargill, and they cant be all fibre site in Dunedin either.

One thing you can't forget is that (well my bet would be) 2D get stats about where 2D customers are roaming on Vodafone's network and where they are having the pain points from a cost perspective. Well I know if I were 2D I would expect to get that sort of information out of the CDR's from Vodafone. That way they would know where it would be cost effective to build into new regions.

Don't forget it's ~200k per cell-site (well maybe 100-150k, just my finger in the air) after resource consents, getting fibre and power trenched in let alone the gear itself, councils and the NIMBY folks kicking up a stink about getting cancer from the site while complaining about poor mobile coverage, standing next to their micowave oven and perfecting their sun-tan's.

So the sites wouldn't be registered in RSM until 2D were well down the path of those sites selected and all the major boxes were ticked.

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#500034 31-Jul-2011 16:33

OT I'd hope once 2D gets towers into all the main cities as they appear to be doing that it will cause VF and XT to bring their data prices down a bit for mobile broadband

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#500064 31-Jul-2011 19:44

Just done another dump from RSM.

I can't see any Dunedin sites as per the Access MDB Dump, but the file was created on the 27th so things may have changed.

What I have noticed is that now from the dump earlier this month is the Tauranga have a lot of their sites have their Mobile freq's (the SZ's) with 9xx Mhz ranges.

All 2D Locations across the country.

KML or Google Maps Link

When RSM comes back online again I will do a search online and see what's missing from the MDB.

allstarnz

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#500682 2-Aug-2011 10:13

Hmmm, hopefully I'll see my 'insider' in the next week or few, I'll hit him up about it.

codyc1515

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#504560 10-Aug-2011 17:43

While I was at work today I noticed two guys up the tower which initially made me curious. I did a scan while I was around it and look what I found! No pics of the tower sorry (phone image quality from a distance is not so good). Also, I did not have a 2degrees phone on me to test with so unfortunately I cannot say for sure if it is working.

joshr

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#507526 16-Aug-2011 20:01

Hi,

First time poster, I googled across this thread as I am looking into porting my 027 number to 2degrees, since GSM phones are a whole lot cheaper to import than XT compatible phones.

Any more updates on this tower/coverage for Palmy Nth?

Going by the 2deg coverage map online it doesn't look like good coverage for mobile broadband in my area :(

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