Download Weekly: Network upgrades and satellite moves
In this edition:
— One NZ network upgrades
— Customers, businesses online disconnect
— Amazon Leo’s enterprise play
One NZ upgrades and expands mobile network
One New Zealand says its engineers upgraded 21 mobile network sites in October. The works include nine new sites and 5G expansion improvements at a further 12 sites.
This brings the total for 2025 to 227 new or upgraded sites across the motu. 175 sites are 5G.
Thaigan Govender, GM of One’s Mobile Access Network, says: “We don’t just focus on the big cities or the speed-test headlines — we’re making sure our customers get connectivity they can count on in more of the places they visit.”
One NZ is preparing to shut down its 3G phone network at the end of December 2025. In readiness for this, the company has upgraded every mobile site to 4G.
The company crowdsources its network upgrade planning asking customers to indicate where they experience slow data speeds or dropped calls. Govender says where there are lots of problems in the same place it becomes an upgrade priority.
One NZ new sites in October: Henderson shops, Lake Pupuke, Pukekohe North, Gulf Harbour, Haumoana, Kerikeri Southwest, Kerikeri Township, Lottin Point (RCG site), Arthurs Point.
Upgraded sites: Te Atatu Central, Meadowood, Upper Khyber Pass, Quay Street East, Otara, Te Puke, Papanui, Queenstown Gorge Industrial, Pokeno, Te Kauwhata Straights, Lambton Quay, Greytown.
InternetNZ finds online engagement disconnect
A report commissioned by InternetNZ found a significant disconnect between how New Zealand businesses and consumers view online engagement.
Customers want to buy online, but businesses neither recognise nor prioritise this. The survey found 54% of consumers primarily see websites as a means for online purchases. Only 38% of businesses view this as a key benefit.
The researchers found businesses think email is for conversation, while consumers want information updates.
Meanwhile businesses consistently rank social media benefits higher than consumers do across almost all categories. The report suggests businesses may be overestimating social media's effectiveness while they continue to invest heavily in it.
There’s a similar gap with AI chatbots. A third (34%) of businesses see AI chatbots as useful for online sales. Just 4% of consumers agree.
The survey also found that 47% of small businesses lack a website, with the figure rising to three in four sole traders operating without one.
Overall, businesses tend to underinvest in the areas where consumers would prefer, mainly websites for sales and information while they potentially over invest in areas that consumers care less about: Social media, AI chatbots for sales.
In other news…
- Hands-on with Apple's latest smartphones, the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro — Interest
- Understanding the risks with New Zealand's submarine cables — RNZ
- Judge mutes 'sovereign citizen' accused of torching Wānaka cell towers — ODT (paywall)
Amazon Leo reveals enterprise satellite plans
Details have emerged of plans for Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper), the satellite internet service aimed at enterprise customers. There are now more than 150 satellites in orbit.
This week the company showed Leo Ultra, a high-speed antenna capable of 1 Gbps download speeds and upload speeds of up to 400 Mbps. Amazon says it is the fastest customer terminal currently in production.
Amazon Leo is offering what it calls an “enterprise preview programme” which will give earlier access to selected business customers so they can test the network before next year’s full commercial roll out.
One key feature is Direct-to-AWS connectivity. This lets customers connect directly to their cloud workloads with simplified network management and lower latency. Also coming soon is a Private Network Interconnect capability that lets enterprises establish private connections to their data centres in days rather than weeks or months.
AST SpaceMobile ramps up manufacturing
2degrees’ satellite partner AST SpaceMobile has expanded its US manufacturing with two new factories. These will be used to build the company’s next generation of BlueBird satellites.
The new satellites feature large phased-array antennas and AST’s custom AST5000 chip. This delivers up to ten times the bandwidth of earlier models and promises peak speeds of around 120 Mbps.
Apple phone shipments set to overtake Samsung
Analyst firm Counterpoint says Apple is set to ship more mobile phones than Samsung for the first time in over a decade. The iPhone 17 is selling faster than its predecessor or any other phone model. Total phone shipments are set to rise 3.5% this year.
Counterpoint forecasts iPhone shipments will increase by ten percent in 2025. When the year ends, the analyst firm expects Apple will finish with a 19.4% share of the handset market. Samsung is on course to finish the year with an 18.7% share. Counterpoint does not expect Samsung to return to top spot in the next four years.
Five years ago New Zealand was reeling from a post-lockdown cyber crime wave
Cert, the government’s Computer Emergency Response Team, reported a 33% increase in incident reports. That was close to double the level the same time in the previous year. Elsewhere Crown Infrastructure Partners reported that UFB uptake was at 62% with 22 new towns added to the network in the quarter.
This time last year the US Federal Communications Commission granted conditional authorisation for Starlink to provide direct-to-mobile services in the United States. This paved the way for One New Zealand to roll out its direct-to-mobile text service.
Download Weekly is an industry newsletter. You are welcome to pass it on to your friends and colleagues. Although the newsletter is free, reader support helps enormously. If you’re reading this for work, donations are tax-free.
Have your say. Sign up as a subscriber to comment on any of the stories on this site. We don’t collect any personal data other than an email address.
The Download Weekly is supported by Chorus New Zealand.
Member discussion