Rural Broadband and mobile coverage arrives at Glentunnel

4 June 2013

Rural Broadband and mobile coverage arrives at Glentunnel

Mobile coverage and broadband options just got better for residents, and visitors through Glentunnel as Vodafone lights up its newly built cell site under the Governments Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI).

A 25 metre lattice tower provides new service to over 700 households in the area. The service, 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 six new RBI sites in the Selwyn District – along with Glentunnel, towers have already been built at Springfield and Southbridge. New towers are planned to be built at West Melton, Castle Hill and Bankside. Jointly these will provide new mobile coverage and wireless broadband for over 3900 homes and businesses. Vodafone is also upgrading ten of its existing sites in Selwyn to deliver the wireless broadband service to rural residents, six of these are already complete.

Vodafone’s Business Development Manager Jake Vargo says the new cell sites bring 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 farming 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 farming districts like Selwyn, in dealing with emergencies, transport logistics, road safety and other real life circumstances that have been hampered by limited coverage,” said Vargo.

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. 43 new sites have been built so far, and an additional 157 have been upgraded meaning new services for well over 100,000 addresses in rural New Zealand.

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

Wireless Broadband will be installed by a Vodafone arranged technician, and installation fees will apply. In the unlikely event your installer determines you may not receive a good experience, the installation will not proceed and you will not be charged.

Vodafone Wireless Broadband Plans and Pricing

Need additional data?
From 26th March customers can purchase an additional 10GB of data for $10

Vodafone Wireless Broadband Calling plans
Wireless Broadband and Calling plans come with a standard per minute calling plan, which includes unlimited local calling and great rates to national and international landlines and mobiles.

National calls are 26c per minute, capped at $2.50 per call (for up to 2 hours).

Calls to New Zealand mobiles are 36c per minute.

A great range of calling add-ons are available, including calls to NZ landlines for $20 a month.

For a full list of add-ons and international rates as well as popular phone line features such as voicemail, visit www.vodafone.co.nz/rural-broadband.

Promotional installation offer
From 1st April – 31st May all customers signing up to Wireless Broadband 4 plans on 24 month term will receive standard installation for only $49. All customers signing up on this plan during this promotional period also go into a draw to win a Samsung tablet & Galaxy SIII smartphone.

Standard installation charges for Wireless Broadband

Please see www.vodafone.co.nz for more information and for a full list of our terms and conditions.

ENDS

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