Sabotage and theft continue to plague cell towers

Connectivity lost as attackers hit key infrastructure

In late September a pair of cell towers near Wānaka went offline after suspicious fires. The damage affected coverage for Spark and One NZ customers. In July 2025 a tower on State Highway 8 (Lindis Pass–Tarras Road) was significantly damaged in an act of sabotage.

These are just the two most visible examples of recent attacks on vital infrastructure. So far in New Zealand the attacks have been sporadic and criminal in nature.

In June, more than 30 towers along a stretch of highway on Sweden’s Baltic coast were damaged. No one wants to point a finger, but rising tensions between NATO and Russia have been mentioned in news coverage of the incident.

Cell tower attacks now a fact of life

TCF CEO Paul Brislen says while attacks on towers have been a fact of life for the mobile industry since the 3G roll-out 20 years ago.

“Unfortunately, Northland is the worst affected area. It’s not just towers being attacked, but also batteries and generators are being stolen. Most of the time it’s the rural sites that depend on generators, so it can mean no connectivity in some of the most remote parts of the country.”

Tackling remote cell tower sabotage is difficult. In some areas police can get CCTV footage to identify the criminals. Yet Brislen says attacks are often in remote areas or in light industrial areas where there a few cameras.

Attackers often set fire to towers, but that’s not the only approach. Brislen says there was one in a beach in the Bay of Plenty where someone used a digger to attack the tower.

Lost contact

Often, the first indication that a remote tower has been attacked is when a network operations centre realises it has lost contact with the site.

Aside from loss of connectivity, the attacks have other implications. It can cost more than NZ$1 million to build a tower. If a damaged tower must be replaced, communities waiting for new builds may have to wait longer to be connected.

Attacks eat into budgets for maintenance and network expansion. Ultimately the cost is passed on to consumers, who are the real victims of these crimes.

TCF urges rethink of telecommunications development levy

The Telecommunications Forum (TCF) has told the government’s regulatory review that it is time to rethink how the telecommunications development levy (TDL) operates.

It says the current approach is expensive to operate for industry and government alike.

TCF CEO Paul Brislen says the TDL was originally introduced as a fund for the rural connectivity programme. Putting aside the issue of whether there should even still be a levy, he says it involves complex calculations and is expensive to administer.

TDL calculations are cumbersome

“The way it's calculated is so clumsy that it costs the telcos a lot of money to manage and to oversee their share of this fund. The problem is it's based on last year’s market share.

“This was supposed to be simple and straightforward. But it's quite a complicated process and the telcos have to hire auditors to make sure they're not telling the commission the wrong numbers, which makes it expensive, slow and not transparent.”

He says this makes it hard for telcos to pass the levy on to customers. The TCF has suggested simpler alternatives, such as a fixed monthly fee per retail customer or a simple percentage of service revenue.

One NZ expands network with eight new sites in August

One New Zealand says it completed work on 26 cell sites in August. The work included eight new builds and expanded 5G coverage at 21 locations. This brings the company’s total build for the year to 166 new or upgraded site and 136 locations with extended 5G coverage.

When One NZ sold its tower network to Fortysouth in 2022, the deal committed the companies to add a further 390 sites over the next ten years. At the time of the transaction, One NZ, then called Vodafone, had around 1,484 towers. When the programme completes, the additional sites will add around 25 percent more towers to the network.

In other news...

• This is the swansong of the modern smartphone era — Listener (paywall).
• Total international bandwidth now sits at 1,835 Tbps — Telegeography.
• Spare a RF thought for the engineers building a radio telescope datacenter — The Register.
• What happened when a volcano cut Tonga's connectivity? — The Guardian.

Farmers grumpy about poor rural connectivity

A poll published in Farmers Weekly found more than two-thirds (68 percent) of those who responded believe their internet connection is no better than it was two years ago. The newspaper quoted two farmers who said their connections are affected by the weather.

Unpaid debts force IT Professionals closure

A simple message on the IT Professionals website tells members the organisation is insolvent and is closing.

The news will come as a surprise to many.

A review of finances found unpaid debts, many which go back years. The scale of the problem only became visible recently but the board says it was left with “no responsible way forward other than liquidation”.

Because the ITP is a member organisation, it needs to hold a special general meeting to confirm the liquidation and appoint a liquidator.

It will leave a gaping hole. The ITP certifies IT degrees at the nation’s universities, it checks the skills of immigrant IT professionals looking for work in New Zealand and it overseas the Cloud Computing Code of Practice. It also plays a role in IT education.

Evidence a folding screen iPhone is coming

Korea’s Chosun Biz reports Samsung’s display division has “begun preparations to supply OLEDs for foldable phones to client companies”. The news story goes on to say: “Samsung Display is known to be the exclusive supplier of OLEDs for Apple’s foldable phone to be released next year.” Samsung, Huawei and others have sold folding phones for years but they remain an expensive niche product.

Five years ago: ComCom finalised wholesale guidance

The Commerce Commission released its final guidance on wholesale service providers’ obligations.

This time last year there were reports of congestion on the Starlink low earth orbit satellite broadband network and a teenager was arrested in New Zealand’s first SMS blaster scam. Away from telecoms, WordPress found itself in a fight with WP Engine.