Rural Broadband now live in Auroa

Media Release
18 December 2012

Rural Broadband now live in Auroa

Christmas is coming early for some residents in South Taranaki as Vodafone switched on a newly built cell site at Auroa under the Governments Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI).

A 25 metre monopole tower provides service to over 690 households in the area. The service, with urban comparable pricing, delivers not only mobile coverage, but wireless broadband via a high performance modem, adding a WiFi network into the home. Phone calls can also be made through this service by plugging an existing landline phone directly into the modem, removing the need for a landline connection. Customers can port their existing landline number to this new service.

There are four new RBI sites for the South Taranaki area. Along with Auroa, new towers will be built in Normanby, Kaponga and Carrington Road. Vodafone confirms two of the existing cell sites in the area have already been upgraded to deliver the wireless broadband service – Hawera and Waverley. Existing sites in Patea, Opunake and West Egmont will also be upgraded before 2015.
Vodafone’s Business Development Manager Simon Bailey says the new cell site brings greater options to the community, with households and businesses now having choice in broadband service.

“Switching to wireless broadband can provide a consistent and reliable service to residents It also offers the rural community the opportunity to increase production and monitoring through machine to machine automation,” he said.

An additional benefit of RBI for rural communities is the extension of mobile coverage to include 4,500km of rural New Zealand roads, which until now have been without.

“This is a massive benefit for rural communities in dealing with emergencies, transport logistics, road safety and other real life circumstances that have been hampered by limited coverage,” said Bailey.

Under the five year RBI plan, Vodafone will upgrade 387 existing cell towers and build a further 154 new towers in rural areas all over New Zealand. The government is funding the civil construction costs of these new sites which are designed to accommodate Vodafone equipment and that of other mobile and wireless operators. 26 new sites have been built so far, and an additional 131 have been upgraded.

Customers can find out if this service will be available at their address by checking online at
www.vodafone.co.nz/rural-broadband.

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