Vodafone doubles Auckland’s network capacity

Vodafone has doubled its network capacity in Auckland, improving coverage and increasing speeds to two thirds the city.

Designed to bring the best technologies to New Zealand, the major investment programme was carried out over the city's 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," he 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, Baird says these frequencies allow mobile signal to travel further and deeper into built-up areas – and double 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.”

In preparation for the 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.