Vodafone is inviting small rural communities to apply for improved mobile phone coverage in their area.

Do you live in an area with no Vodafone coverage? Or worse, no mobile phone coverage at all? If so you can now apply to Vodafone to get your community’s mobiles up and working.

Vodafone states: “During the last 6 months we have been approached by several communities throughout New Zealand who currently have limited or no access to the mobile network, and who fall outside the Rural Broadband Initiative. These communities are keen to improve their communications access, and have requested cell sites to be built in their area.”

So it has created the ‘Community cell site request scheme’, a competition-like initiative where your community could be the next to get a cell tower.

This is part of a larger push by Vodafone to improve its rural coverage. It recently announced that, as the first stage of the Rural Broadband Initiative, it is upgrading 380 existing cell towers and building a further 154 new towers in rural areas. So far 36 sites have been completed, mainly in the Canterbury, Rodney and Waikato districts and 54 more sites will be completed by June 2012.

To apply for a cell tower in your community you need to meet as many of the criteria below as possible and apply before December 15. The decision will be made by 15 January 2012 and the tower built within the year. Vodafone is going to run this process every year.

Full application criteria

Communities with no existing mobile coverage which wish to benefit from this scheme must be able to demonstrate as many of the following as possible to qualify for consideration:

• Proximity to existing mains power supply.
• Letter of support from local MP.
• Supporting petition of residents who desire the service and their commitment to support the Resource Management Act application.
• The location must be able to provide line of sight options for microwave linking (Vodafone will need to determine this).
• A willing landowner.
• Community willing to provide track maintenance.
• 4WD vehicle access.
• Support of local iwi including contact person name and number.
• Support of local Council or Community Board member/s.

Decisions will be based on the community’s ability to meet the required criteria and the positive impact the site will have on the local community, as assessed by Vodafone’s community cell site project team.

More information

• Vodafone community cell site request scheme - www.vodafone.co.nz
• Broadband Initiative - www.med.govt.nz

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