New cell towers to remove Transmission black spot
Abig fix is coming for cellphone users driving along the new Transmission Gully motorway out of Wellington. There have been reports of cellphone black spots on the road since it opened, presenting a risk for drivers and emergency services.
Now, four new cell towers are being installed to plug the gap.
The Rural Connectivity Group, set up by Spark, Vodafone and 2Degrees, builds and operates rural and remote sites nationally. The company has 423 sites live at present, covering about 1000 kilometres of black spots.
Company chief executive John Proctor said it was a natural progression for the company to oversee the Transmission Gully project.
There were two holes along the motorway at present — the northern and southern holes — which have affected coverage for cellphone users, although Proctor did not believe the dropouts prevented calls to emergency services as there was still 111 coverage.
“We got into this a little late . . . we got a proposal agreed upon just before Christmas, but we’ve worked very, very quickly since then. There’s a temporary site which we managed to get in at a very fast pace before Christmas to help on the northern hole, and we’re now planning four sites which will actually give contiguous service for all operators all the way through.”
Spectrum has been donated to the company by all the operators, so when a site has been built, it covers all three operators.
He believed having towers on four sites would be enough to offer continuous service.
“Putting them in will be no problem and there’ll be no impact on drivers.”