Residents in Ladbrooks, a seven-minute drive from the edge of suburban Christchurch, say living in a cellphone coverage blackspot is annoying and dangerous.
Some rural residents are ropeable over the lack of cellphone coverage in their area. Stock photo Photo: 123rf
Ladbrooks School, with its 150 pupils, sits in the centre of a semi-rural area with an increasing number of lifestyle blocks.
It also sits in the middle of a cellphone black spot.
Ladbrooks School principal Margaret Dodds said the lack of cellphone coverage was much more than an inconvenience.
"Fire drills, bomb threats, any evacuation procedures that we have to make," said Dodds. "Even during lockdowns we cannot use our cellphones to communicate building to building, because there is no cell phone coverage."
Local resident Karl Hurst said with many people now working from home the lack of cellphone reception was becoming an increasing problem.
"Its impossible to get calls in and out unless you are standing out in the middle of the front lawn," Hurst said.
"Where it really comes to the fore in an emergency situation, you are then relying on the landline to get that call out and as we know the landlines are being phased out. The copper network is ageing and the maintenance is just not being done."
One resident is worried about having to rely on a landline. Photo: 123RF
Hurst also oversees the local community hall, where a defibrillator was recently set up for use in an emergency.
"There was concern about getting access to that in an emergency situation. Leaving it unlocked left it open to vandalism, so the process is to call 111 to get access to the defibrillator, but of course getting that phone call out to call 111 with our coverage is often not possible."
Nearby West Melton has similar issues.
Gerard Gibb, who lives halfway between West Melton and Rolleston, said his telecommunications provider told him it was just a localised problem for him, but a survey on his local community Facebook page found more than 400 people with similar complaints.
"If you have a look through the data that's in there, people say our cellphone coverage used to be good and now it's not. So this is not a problem where we've moved into an area and we're complaining because we've got no cellphone coverage. It was good when we got here and now it's rubbish."
Spark, Two Degrees and Vodafone said they were continuously improving their cellphone coverage.
Vodafone said it has a number of cell sites in the south and southwest of Christchurch, but they were focused on the areas with higher population density.
Two Degrees said it was continuing to roll out new sites, but the economics needed to stack up against any investment.
Spark said it does intend to build a new site in the northern area of Lincoln, but the location and timing have yet to be confirmed.
It said residents could also look at getting a Cell-Fi booster which could help with reception.
Very expensive to roll out technology
Paul Brislen, the chief executive of the Telecommunications Forum, the industry association, said the mobile network now covers 99.8 percent of the country's population, but that doesn't mean it covers 99 percent of the country.
"There are still large tracts of New Zealand that don't have cellphone coverage, primarily because it is a very expensive thing to roll out and the population density simply isn't there to support it."
He said areas like Ladbrooks were still very rural, with what were previously farms being split into lifestyle blocks.
"Developers are usually trying to reduce their costs as much as possible. They will put in water or power where they are required, but when it comes to broadband services, whether it is mobile or fixed, there tends to be a reluctance to support those."
Brislen said he would like to see local councils requiring developers to include digital infrastructure along with more traditional infrastructure.
The Rural Connectivity Group (RCG) is also working to increase cell coverage with around 400 new cell sites to be built across rural New Zealand by December 2022.
Ladbrooks is not currently on RCG's list, but it said communities that wanted to go on the list should contact Crown Infrastructure Partners which is gathering information for the any future government programmes.