Spark Vodafone and 2 Degrees, in partnership with Crown Infrastructure Partners (CIP), announced the first step in a plan that will provide high speed wireless broadband to rural homes across New Zealand.
Twenty new sites are due to be built to provide homes in the area with high speed wireless broadband and quality mobile coverage. This is the first step of a plan to build 500 new sites across New Zealand to improve coverage to around 1,600 rural homes and businesses, across 70km of state highway and to 13 tourist sites.
Services are now available over the Rural Connectivity Group (RCG) network to customers of Spark, Vodafone or 2degrees. Depending on your provider and your current mobile phone, you may need to get software updates or upgrade your phone.
Check out the list below to see whether you are in one of the first twenty location to receive improved rural broadband. If you are, you will have more broadband plans available to choose from, and may receive much faster broadband speeds. Broadband Compare can help you compare the options and make an informed choice about which broadband plans is best for you.
The twenty sites that have just been announced are the first of 500, so its worth checking in with Broadband Compare regularly as the project rolls out to make sure you are on the best broadband plan for you.
Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees are working together as a group called the Rural Connectivity Group (RCG), which was established to provide connectivity to rural New Zealand. The group is building, operating and maintaining the essential rural network infrastructure.
The Government via Crown Infrastructure Partners contracted the RCG to be the infrastructure provider to bring mobile and wireless broadband coverage to rural New Zealand under the Rural Broadband Initiative 2 and the Mobile Black Spot fund.
Once the RCG project is completed it will deliver new mobile and wireless broadband coverage to at least 38,000 rural homes and businesses. It will also provide mobile coverage to a further 1,200 kilometres of state highways and provide connectivity to at least 152 top New Zealand tourist destinations by December 2022.
Northland Region
Auckland Region
Hawkes Bay Region
Taranaki Region
Ruapehu Region
West Coast Region
Southland Region
