Vodafone, Spark and 2degrees announced that new rural broadband and mobile services are now live into twenty rural locations across New Zealand.
The new sites are the result of an industry leading collaboration between the three mobile network operators and Crown Infrastructure Partners (CIP) to build essential broadband and mobile services for rural New Zealand. CIP contracted the Rural Connectivity Group (RCG) which was established to provide connectivity to rural New Zealand. The RCG is a joint venture between Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees, to build, operate and maintain this essential rural network infrastructure. Services are now available over the RCG network to customers of Spark, Vodafone or 2degrees.
The twenty new sites, the first of more than 500 new sites, range from the Far North all the way down to Southland. The new sites will provide high speed wireless broadband and quality mobile coverage to around 1,600 rural homes and businesses, across 70 kms of state highway and to 13 tourist sites.
The RCG network uses Nokia 4G Multi Operator Core Network (MOCN) which has been deployed successfully with three mobile network operators. This new technology allows RCG to deploy one Radio Access Network (RAN) to connect to the three differently architectured core networks of Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees. This allows all three mobile networks to provide services to these rural communities from just one cell site that requires only three antennas to operate.
Jason Paris, CEO, Vodafone NZ
This once in a generation opportunity for all three mobile network operators to provide both competitive ultra-fast broadband and world class 4G mobile infrastructure will not only deliver the connectivity for rural New Zealand, but also the safety of Kiwis living in those remote areas.
Jolie Hodson, CEO, Spark
Bringing together the investment from Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees along with the Government’s RBI2 funding has been the key to providing service into more challenging and remote areas of New Zealand.
