Farmers say mobile coverage worsened since 3G shutdown

Feds survey reports gaps in rural service, including for 111 calls

Mobile coverage on farms has deteriorated since the 3G network closed in March 2026, according to a Federated Farmers survey.

Half of the farms surveyed have coverage on less than half of their property. Nearly two in three farmers say they cannot rely on reaching 111 from most of their land.

Federated Farmers telecommunications spokesperson Mark Hooper says earlier talk from telcos that rural residents had nothing to worry about “has proved hollow”.

The survey of nearly 650 farmers ran in late August and early September. It follows a similar survey last year that found service was already “hit and miss”.

Holes in service

A third of farmers say a place on their farm that worked on 3G no longer does. For most, Hooper says, the gaps are not confined to one spot.

One Southland respondent put it this way:

“Our main yard by the road had perfect coverage, now you need to stand on one leg and hold your tongue a certain way to have any chance of making a call.”

Four in five farmers know a stretch of their regular roads where service fails. Only 4 percent say they do not experience drop-outs. Eight times as many farmers say highway coverage has worsened over the past year as say it has improved.

Emergency calls and safety

The telcos have an agreement that a failed 111 call is redistributed across whichever networks reach that spot. Hooper says this “cannot create coverage where none reaches”.

More than 40 farmers say there is nowhere on their property where they can reliably reach 111. One farmer failed a WorkSafe audit because patchy coverage meant they could not check on staff every two hours.

Hooper says poor coverage creates obvious risks in an accident or emergency, especially when people work alone.

The cost of workarounds

One in seven farms had to replace equipment that relied on the 3G network. It included irrigation and pivot controls, cow collars and other farm systems. Some spent many thousands of dollars. Most of the gear replaced was still working.

Two in three farmers paid for workarounds such as satellite broadband. Only 15 percent regard satellite-to-mobile as an adequate substitute for a cell tower. These services let phones connect directly to satellites.

Problems not fixed

Of 126 farms that reported coverage or reliability problems to their provider, just two had the issue resolved. Hooper says some providers are “pretty much denying there’s an issue”.

“That’s very frustrating and indicates their concerns aren’t being taken seriously,” he says.

What the telcos said beforehand

Telcos said before the shutdown that few people would be affected. In 2023 Spark said it planned to boost 4G in the few areas that had only 3G. 2degrees chief executive Mark Callander told customers they could “rest assured” the company was expanding 4G to those areas.

Spark was more cautious in June 2025. Network and operations director Renee Mateparae said there could still be coverage issues “at the edges of the network”. She said Spark would work with affected customers. Options included WiFi calling, external antennas and satellite.

Spark also said its 4G and 5G networks reached 99 percent of the population. It had built 70 new 4G towers over two years and upgraded 600 sites.

Others raised similar concerns. Research for the Digital Equity Coalition Aotearoa, reported in July 2025, listed coverage gaps in fringe locations among the risks. It named rural communities among the groups most at risk.

The problems also predate the shutdown. Federated Farmers’ own 2022 survey found almost a third of farmers said their mobile service had declined in the previous 12 months.

Industry response

NZ Telecommunications Forum chief executive Paul Brislen told TVNZ’s Breakfast programme that customers “should be able to find 4G wherever they used to find 3G”. He said problems are often blamed on the shutdown, but he was not sure that was the case here.

Brislen said the Commerce Commission now reports more 4G coverage than 3G had at its peak. He urged farmers with problems to report them to their telco. He also pointed to the government-backed Rural Connectivity Group, which has built more than 600 towers in remote areas.

The forum said in June that mobile networks reach 98.5 to 99 percent of where New Zealanders live and work. It acknowledged the new footprint is not identical to the old, because different frequencies behave differently.

Hooper makes a similar point about frequencies but draws a different conclusion. He says they have left too many farming families with lower standards of service and reliability.

What happens next

Hooper says Federated Farmers is holding urgent meetings with telcos to find out what they can do with existing infrastructure or planned investment.

He has some sympathy with one argument. More towers using “old technology” may not be the best use of money when satellite calling is on the way. But he wants to know what “fine-tuning” of existing equipment is possible now.

“At the very least, surely we can get more farmers hooked back up to the service standards they had with 3G,” he says.

Boost Mobile MVNO targets niche communities

Australian-owned Boost Mobile plans to challenge New Zealand’s mobile operators with a simpler approach to mobile plans and a focus on communities built around sport, music and youth culture.

Chief executive of Boost Mobile New Zealand Jason Haynes says the company wants to compete on value and customer service rather than simply offering the lowest prices.

Haynes says mobile plans have become too complicated, with too many options and rules for customers to navigate. “It’s not meant to be the cheapest. It just means good value. That’s the focus”, he says.

Boost has yet to reveal its New Zealand plans or pricing, but Haynes says customers should have flexibility in how they use the data they buy.

The company also plans to build its brand through communities with shared interests, including motorsport, surfing, mountain biking and music.

Haynes says Boost will go beyond sponsoring events, supporting grassroots participation and building relationships with those communities. He believes that bringing together several interest groups can create a large enough customer base to sustain the business.

Specialist focus

He contrasts Boost’s specialist focus with retailers that sell mobile services alongside thousands of other products. “But I think the big difference between us is we’re focused on mobile”, he says. He says a business dedicated to mobile can give its products and customers more attention than one for which telecommunications is an additional category.

Boost is entering a market where mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) have struggled to gain significant market share.

Haynes says Australia has been more receptive to MVNOs, partly because mobile operators have recognised that one brand cannot serve every customer. He believes there is room for more competition in New Zealand and says Boost will challenge established operators on products and services.

Boost will use One NZ’s mobile network under a 10-year agreement between One NZ and Advantai Group, whose Prvidr NZ business will provide billing, customer management and operational services. Haynes says the company will draw on its Australian experience but build its New Zealand business around local customers.

Zone Direct to focus on data centre hot spots

EonFibre, the wholesale fibre arm of One New Zealand, has launched a data centre connectivity service.

Zone Direct is built around the six zones Invest New Zealand has promoted as best suited to data centres: North Waikato, Taupō, Taranaki, Manawatū, South Canterbury and Central Otago. It offers a connectivity brief for each zone, site-level fibre assessments and a single point of contact through to design and build.

Chief executive Richard Mooney says investors need to know how capacity at a new campus will reach customers in Australia, Asia and the United States. He says EonFibre can answer because it holds both the national routes and the international capacity.

EonFibre operates more than 11,000 kilometres of fibre, co-owns the Tasman Global Access cable and worked with Google on fibre for the Honomoana cable north of Auckland.

The launch comes as network operators position themselves for the expected wave of data centre investment. Rival Chorus has launched its own data centre connectivity service, Express Connect.

EonFibre is a wholly owned subsidiary of One NZ, which is almost entirely owned by Infratil. Analysts say a sale or spin-off of the fibre business would fit Infratil’s record of recycling assets, although neither company has announced such plans.

ComCom targets reseller delays in number porting

The Commerce Commission wants to address delays in transferring phone numbers between providers, particularly where resellers are involved.

In a draft determination on local and mobile number portability, the Commission says some resellers operate outside the industry’s Number Portability Interface Management System (IPMS). This can complicate transfers and cause delays.

To fix this, the Commission proposes that the provider allocated the numbers remains responsible for meeting porting service levels, even when it uses a reseller. A reseller’s failure to respond should not, by itself, be grounds for rejecting or delaying a port.

The Commission is asking for submissions on whether resellers should be required to participate in IPMS if they handle more than a specified volume of number transfers.

Alongside the reseller changes, the draft determination would retain regulated number portability for another five years and introduce measures to reduce fraud and make it easier to reverse unauthorised transfers.

Submissions close at 5pm on 6 November, with cross-submissions due on 16 November. The Commission expects to make a final determination before the current rules expire on 19 December.

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