hi. this is just a quick post to say dont go out and buy a cheap mobile signal booster from places like trademe or aliexpress or even mobilesignalbooster.co.nz the ones on there are mostly unathorized units that can and do go faulty causing a headache for people like me who have to track the down and ask you to please turn the device off and not to turn it back on due to the interference it is causing to the networks. what does the interference look like?places like mobilesignalbooster.co.nz give the look that they are selling approved units but they are in no way approved for use in nz and they wont. the only approved one for people to buy are the cel fi units from powertech. they are a great product and are so easy to install. any questions im happy to help out. save me the trouble dont waste your money on the cheap ones. this post is more about education more than anything.
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This is why you dont use unauthorized mobile signal booster
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Warehouse mobile international calling offer
Looks good to me. https://www.warehousemobile.co.nz/terms/pickn-go-terms-and-conditions/ NZ Minutes - Pick'n Go $4 Talk Pack 7. Purchase the Pick'n Go $4 Talk Pack and get 200 minutes that you can only use to call:a) any standard landline or mobile in New Zealand; b) selected international standard landlines in 14 eligible destinations; andc) selected international standard mobiles in 14 eligible destinations. 8. The eligible destinations are:a) International standard landlines: Australia (excludes Australian External Territories including Norfolk Island), United Kingdom (excluding Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies), Canada (excluding Canada Northwest Territories), United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii, and territories/commonwealths including America Samoa,Guam), Germany, Israel, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico, India, China, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.b) International standard mobiles: Australia (excludes Australian External Territories including Norfolk Island), United Kingdom (excluding Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies), Canada (excluding Canada Northwest Territories), United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii, and territories/commonwealths including America Samoa, Guam), Germany, Israel, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico, India, China, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.9. The following calls are excluded: a) calls made to premium-rate numbers (for example 0900, 018, call forwarding services) in the eligible destinations;b) calls to satellite phones, and
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Time to break out the Tin Foil Hats???
Received this in our mailbox last week. Thought it might amuse a few GZers... Maybe I should start a business building Faraday Cages around these people's homes! ;-)
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Commerce Commission report: Mobile market in good shape to deliver benefits for consumers
Just received:The Commerce Commission has today released the findings of its study into New Zealand's mobile services market.The Commission's final report found the established presence of three independent, national network-based providers has resulted in mobile consumers benefitting from an increasingly competitive market environment.'Having assessed the state of competition in the mobile market we haven't identified any particular problems or structural issues that could be hampering competition,' Telecommunications Commissioner Dr Stephen Gale said.The study also concluded there is an emerging market for 'virtual' operators to sell mobile services to consumers without having to build their own mobile network. This includes companies such as Vocus, Warehouse Mobile and Kogan which offer mobile services based on commercial wholesale agreements with the network operators. Trustpower also intends to enter this market and, like Vocus, bundle mobile offers with its existing broadband and energy services. Because of these developments, the Commission does not consider there is any need for regulation of wholesale access at this time.'With Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees each having a network of similar technology with similar geographic and population coverage metrics, looking forward we consider the allocation of spectrum to be particularly important for future competition. In our view, there is a need for wholesale and retail competition matters to be at the forefront of decisions relating to MBIE's upcoming allocation of 5G spectrum,' Dr Gale said. 'While we consider that, overall, mobile services are in good shape, we do think there is room for consumers to keep pressure on providers to compete harder on price and service quality. At the moment a lot of mobile customers tend to stick with their providers and are somewhat reluctant to switch even though they know it is easy to do so.'The study found 60% of consumers say it is easy to compare plans though 68% rarely if ever do, and 54% haven't switched providers in the past 5 years. 'By shopping around more frequently consumers are likely to trigger more competition between mobile providers. We are keen to see more consumer activity and will be looking into ways we can help New Zealanders understand whether they are getting the best deal possible and, if not, consider switching,' Dr Gale said.Some of the other findings from the study include:New Zealand ranks 8th out of 88 countries for 4G speed and more than 96% of consumers have 4G coverageAverage mobile data usage per month has more than doubled in the past two yearsPrices for mobile services have been falling and compare well with other OECD countriesSpark, Vodafone and 2degrees are all profitable and have collectively invested $2.5 billion in their mobile networks over the past decadeAverage revenue per user has declined slightly to around $25 per month when handset revenues are excluded.
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Airalo esims on Vodafone network
Seems bit fishy as Vodafone does not support esims so how can MVNO do esims if network does not support it.
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Warehouse Mobile problem switching to data
I have a Samsung S10e running my Warehouse Mobile sim. I've noticed that often when I leave my wifi connection it doesn't switch over to mobile data. Sometimes I get a message saying I need to topup my data (I have plenty) or to login to Warehouse Mobile. I've found if I restart my phone it solves the problem but that's a nuisance.Any ideas?
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WISPs - Cooks Beach
Where can I find a list of Rural broadband providers for this area please?
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Cell Tower Abandoned or Neglected?
I'm not sure if this abandoned by Woosh, or neglected by one of our carriers?This is Invercargill, corner of Herbert Street and Queens Drive. I assume this cabinet is part of this tower. I could be wrong. It's been like this for quite a long time now (in to the months). If it's just neglected, I'm sure there would be gear in there that's going to be costly to replace if it's not abandoned. Cheers,Gavin.
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VXT - NZ company doing voicemail to txt
I saw an interesting article on stuff about a company called Vxt that uses voice recognition to transcript voicemails to txt messages. You forward your missed calls to them instead of your provider voicemail. It costs you some of your minutes to forward voice calls, but most people have way more minutes than they need anyway.This seems like a great idea! Checking voicemail is time consuming and annoying. They've said they have trained the recognition to work better with NZ accents.They have a free tier that gives you up to 15 transcriptions per month, though it says "voicemail powered by VXT" or something after your greeting.Vodafone users beware as you may need to the setup a slightly different way.Anyone tried it? I might have a go when I get to it.
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Anti-5G meeting on the North Shore, sigh
Bit uncertain where to post this (mods feel free to move it somewhere more appropriate if there is something), but this seems to be the forum where the people who could best respond to it would be: There's a meeting on the North Shore about the dangers of 5G, this Monday at 7 at the Taka War Memorial Hall. It's by people who are genuinely concerned but misguided, using far-from-credible sources for their info. Is there anyone who's sufficiently knowledgeable in the field who can go along and correct the misinformation that'll be spread? It would require someone who's fairly knowledgeable about the whole field, i.e. who can respond to the misinformation without having to look up the details first, and also who's good at presenting that information in a fairly non-confrontational (not "you people are all loonies") manner.
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Understanding RSRQ and RSRP values on 4g routers
Hi,So I have a Huawei B618s-65d from Spark for my wireless broadband plan. I'm attaining satisfactory speeds and throughput but I was thinking of trying to place it in the best position in my home. I am trying to understand the readings on the device information screen, and, using google which in turn takes me to a lot of wikipedia pages, it suggests my stats of:RSRQ -7dB is within the range of 0 - -10 "Strong signal with maximum data speeds"RSRP -105dBm is within the range of the router being completely disconnected???If there's someone else who understands more about these readings I have more stats ofRSSI -77dBmSINR 5dBPLMN 53005 Judging by what I'm reading about most of these would the lowest reading possible be favourable in each section?Thanks in advance, total newbie with this!
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Economics of interest free mobile deals
Of late, I've noticed quite a few mobile deals/sweeteners that are only available if you buy the phone on an interest free plan. e.g.- Spark Note 10+ with a free Segway e-scooter (this offer certainly turned my head when I saw it)- Vodafone & 2degrees Note 10+ with $200 discount and Galaxy budsJust trying to figure out why these deals are interest-free only and not available if you buy the phone outright?Given the phone is interest free, I don't think you're paying for these yourself via the interest payments.I know Samsung has offered pretty good sweeteners previously (e.g. buy one s10 and get another free), but I doubt Samsung has any incentive to discourage buying upfront.Is it just the phone providers trying to lock you in to a contract without actually having a minimum term plan? Why is this better for them than (say) just having a minimum term plan?
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Civil Defence mobile alerts - coming soon...
Well - I just got a rather rude wake up call - at 1:30am my phone got triggered by a Civil Defense emergency test with a standard emergency tone (sounds like This) followed by my phone reading out the message out loud with no way of shutting it up:And, just as I was falling asleep another one came through at 1:50am. Hearing that tone sends chills down your body especially when it is played loudly on a phone right beside you...I heard they were planning this but didn't think they actually implemented a system yet but anyway - thanks Civil Defense as I am wide awake now, your system works.
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The luddites are at it again
The 5G Luddites.
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Vodafone 5G, anyone tested yet?
Curious to see if anyone has tested the Vodafone 5G network yet. ??
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Regular spam calls from different numbers
I'm getting spam calls every 1-2 days. It's a bunch of music, someone speaking Chinese in a strong accent saying something about calling from one of the NZ banks. It comes from different number each time 09, 0800, 0016, 0061.Is there anything that can be done about these? I block each number and have no idea if they try ringing back from the same number.
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pathetic service from Kogan
has anyone ever had the displeasure of dealing with Kogan Mobile NZ?It seems part of their business model must be to frustrate customers, make them give up, and steal their money... Ordered a $4.90 SIM card to get their 32GB deal in OctoberSIM card never arrivedcontacted their support team over koganmobile.co.nz (only option)support team doesn't deal with order problems, only problems with activated SIM cardsupport team tells me to logon to my account, and click the support option beside my orderlogon to my Kogan account, find my order, click support, redirects me back to same web pagetry again a few times, same resultrefresh web page, order disapparedlogoff Koganmobile.co.nz account, log back in, account doesn't existrequest password reset, account doesn't exist I can feel my IQ slipping away from me as I try to deal with their South Asian based support team, who are absolutely not empowered to solve customer problems whatsoever
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RBI Antenna Help (3G)
Evening all,Situation, live on the outskirts of Helensville, just North of Auckland (Far North West AKL)We did have a 4G /200G connection (RBI), made the move to 3G (RBI) / Unlimited plan. - Heavy Users!Using a B315 Modem, with a single external antenna (ANT-205 - 11dBi Wideband LTE Broadband Directional Antenna)Operating on Band 8 - 900Mhz Currently getting approx 7M/2MEcio: -9dBRscp:-71dBmRssi:-62dBm A few questions.Does RBI 3G using MIMO ?If Yes should I purchase a 2nd ANT-205 Antenna to get more throughput ? Or do I purchase a dedicated 900Mhz Antenna, with higher Gain was looking at he following.https://www.gowifi.co.nz/700-directional/ant-55.htmlorhttps://www.gowifi.co.nz/700-directional/ant-100.htmlI am leaning towards to the Ant-100 more gain and birds won't bend it!Anyone else in the same situation ? I and use the ANT-205 for another project so I am not worried about swapping it out, just don't want to spend $200 on an antenna if it isn't going to make a difference. Thanks
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4G MIMO Antenna Separation
Hi,If I can't get wired broadband I might try getting 3/4G with hi gain Antennas.Do the NZ carriers do multi in multi out (MIMO)? I assume they need to be at 45 and 135 degrees? What should the vertical and horizontal separation be? I could make it many meters if need be. If there is a number I assume it is related to the wavelength although how I'd measure/rig that accurately I have no idea.TW.
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Wireless broadband advice - Auckland, Clevedon
Hi all, My partner and I are moving from Palmy to a property in Auckland, Clevedon and I've been investigating internet options, which so far are pretty dismal. We don't have access to wired broadband, so I've been investigating wireless options, however there seems to be massive variety in availability, cost and data caps. Where we are we seem to unfortunately be in the sweet spot of poor reception from anyone other than Spark really. We have good connectivity to Spark, however their plans are really noncompetitive and their subsidiary Skinny (that has much better deals) stated their allocation is at capacity in the region. Otherwise it seems we can go with Vodafone and their related partners, or possibly 3rd party providers, however looking at coverage maps, we're only just falling in (or just out) the cusp of their tower range and I'm unsure how quality the services provided would be. We're moderate to medium users with streaming/gaming as priority, and I'm trying to find 200gb+ data cap with at least 5mbps down speeds, for a reasonable price.If anyone could offer advice or a local contact who could help put us right it would be very much appreciated. Our property is at roughly 600 North Road, Clevedon (see pic). Thanks for your time and merry Christmas!
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