Vodafone New Zealand Doubles Capacity of its Auckland Network

Published on: 29th Jan 2013

­Vodafone New Zealand says that it doubled the capacity, improved coverage and further increased speeds to two thirds of its Auckland network over Anniversary Weekend.

Tony Baird, Vodafone Chief Network Officer, says the company has upgraded 300 of its 450 cell sites in Auckland, with the rest to follow over the coming weeks.

"This major boost to our network means customers will really notice a difference; increased speed in more areas - up to twice as fast - and better coverage, particularly in buildings."

Baird says Vodafone has added to the frequencies it uses to deliver 3G services, with upgraded sites now running on the 900MHz and the 2100Mhz spectrum bands. Together, these frequencies allow mobile signal to travel further and deeper into built-up areas - and doubles the capacity of the network.

"We've also upgraded sites in Auckland with the latest Dual Carrier (DC) technology, which means customers can go up to twice as fast with a DC capable device.

"We know this is important to customers, as the rising popularity of smartphones and the explosion of mobile broadband has seen data usage on our network roughly quadruple over the past two years."

Vodafone is making a significant investment in Dual Carrier (DC) technology which will be deployed on approximately 50% of its cell sites, covering roughly 70% of the population by April 2013 as it is progressively rolled out nationwide. DC is a network technology that provides faster internet speeds and a far quicker browsing response time.

In preparation for this upgrade, over the past several months Vodafone has installed new equipment on two thirds of its cell sites in the Auckland region, with the remaining third to be completed over the next few weeks.

Similar upgrades will be completed in Wellington and Christchurch over the next few months, with other towns and cities being upgraded during the year. Sites constructed under the Rural Broadband Initiative also already use Dual Carrier technology.

Vodafone's network upgrade is being carried out in partnership with Nokia Siemens Networks.

 

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