Vodafone New Zealand has revealed it completed the deployment or upgrade of 20 cell sites last month, despite needing to implement heightened COVID-19 health and safety measures. This included seven new mobile sites, three new Rural Connectivity Group (RCG) towers and ten upgrades to existing base transceiver stations (BTS). The majority were split across Auckland and the Bay of Plenty area on North Island, where essential upgrades were needed as data use continues to increase as a result of confinement measures. Additionally, for IoT customers, 263 RCG cell sites were upgraded to Vodafone CAT-M1 IoT technology.
Thaigan Govender, Head of Mobile Access Networks at Vodafone NZ, commented: ‘In times of uncertainty, keeping connected digitally is essential for our customers, and our team knows how important it is continually improve mobile phone coverage and wireless broadband connectivity. With heightened alert levels, we’re putting health and safety requirements at the centre of our programme.’