'Frustrating': 3G shutdown leaves farmers struggling for signal

Some farmers say they're "quite frustrated" by patchy and unreliable rural mobile phone coverage after the 3G network was fully switched off earlier this year.

A newly-released Federated Farmers Rural Connectivity survey of nearly 650 farmers found half of farms now have mobile coverage on less than half of the property since the 3G network was switched off in March.

Federated Farmers telecommunications spokesperson Mark Hooper said last year's report already showed service levels were "hit and miss", and things had gotten worse.

"A third of farmers told us they have a place on their farm that previously worked on 3G but no longer does. For most, these holes in service aren’t just on one part of the farm."

He said patchy or non-existent coverage created "obvious risks when there’s an accident or emergency, especially when people are working alone".

"Nearly two in three farmers told us they can’t rely on reaching 111 from most of their farm, and 8% said connecting to emergency services wasn't possible anywhere on the property," Hooper said.

As one survey respondent from Southland commented: "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."

Hooper said many farmers had to spend thousands to replace equipment that relied on that network including irrigation and pivot controls, cow collars and other farm systems.

The report found two in three farmers paid for workarounds such as satellite broadband, while only 15% of those surveyed regarded satellite-to-mobile as an adequate substitute for a cell tower.

"Earlier talk from telcos that rural residents don’t have to worry about the shutdown of 3G networks has proved hollow," Hooper said

"The assurances were that the vast majority of areas previously covered by 3G now have 4G and 5G. Our survey shows how different wireless frequencies travel across the landscape, and whatever other factors might be at play, have left too many farming families and businesses with significantly lower standards of service and reliability.

"It’s of considerable concern to hear feedback that reporting problems to providers often doesn’t result in a fix - with some providers pretty much denying there’s an issue."

The survey, carried out in late August/early September, found of 126 farms that reported coverage and reliability problems, just two had the problem resolved.

"That’s very frustrating and indicates their concerns aren't being taken seriously."

Hooper said Federated Farmers is holding urgent meetings with telcos to get a better understanding of what scope they have within existing infrastructure, or planned investment, to improve the situation.

"We have some sympathy for the argument that further extensive investment in 'old technology', such as new towers, when satellite calling/call support and the like is on the way, may not the best use of resources.

"But we’re also interested in the here and now, and what fine-tuning of existing infrastructure might be possible.

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

More than 40 farmers said they had nowhere on their property where they can reliably reach 111.

One farmer said they’d failed a WorkSafe audit because patchy coverage on their property meant they couldn't check on their staff every two hours.

"While the telcos have an agreement that if a 111 call fails on one network, the call will be redistributed across whichever networks reach that spot, it cannot create coverage where none reaches," Hooper said.

NZ Telcommunications Forum chief executive Paul Brislen, who represented all phone companies across the country, told Breakfast they had done "a huge amount of work with the rural community in the lead-up to the 3G shutdown to make sure they were ready".

He said "customers should be able to find 4G wherever they used to find 3G".

"And in some places we've got 5G as well in the urban areas. So these kind of things are often attributed to the 3G shutdown, but I'm not sure that that is the case. So we need to do some investigations," he told Breakfast.

He said not being able to get through to 111 "shouldn't be happening at all".

"We've increased the amount of coverage of 4G throughout the country to the point where the Commerce Commission now says there's more 4G available than 3G was at its peak. So there shouldn't be this kind of problem," he explained.

"I would strongly urge farmers who are having this kind of issue to report to their telco so that we can do some investigation and figure out what's going on. But that shouldn't be happening at all," he added.

"It’s worth knowing about the Rural Connectivity Group (RCG) and the work that’s gone on putting cellphone towers in really remote areas of the country. This is done in conjunction with the government because these are largely areas where very few people live all year round, so they’re not commercially viable. We’ve built more than 600 towers to add coverage to rural roads, tourism hotspots and remote communities."