[Steadybears]

We had awful experience this weekend - our 18 year old went out with some mates - first time since leaving SA - and we had a call from him asking us to fetch him from town in the early hours of the morning- as taxi too dear. OH went through to collect him and then we tried calling to find out where he was - 2 n half hours later we still looking and of course neither of their phones working - seems we having problems with Vodafones having no signal.


I have old mobile from SA with vodaphone pre paid and OH and son have new NZ mobiles - and have vodaphone contracts. My phone is the the only one with comms around the our home and anywhere else.

We contacted Vodaphones who state they arent aware of any problems - in our area can anyone tell me if the reception is good or can we have recommendations on what we can do?

Would hate a repeat of our Saturday morning - we eventually found him he had the sense to go to our old flat and OH decided maybe that was best place to look for him. My nerves dont stand up to this kind of dramas too well.!!

Thanks again
Jayne

[Genie]

I can't even begin to imagine how frantic you must have been Jayne. What a horrible experience for you all. :(

Glad to hear your son is OK and how clever of him to go to your old flat. We are planning on bringing our UK mobiles and buy new sims from Vodafone, but this is making us look at this again.

[ellenmelon]

that sounds very unusual. i have two phones from overseas (i only use one of course!) and my partner has one and we never have any problems with vodafone's coverage. it's no better or worse than telecom. i get signal in the basement at uni for example. maybe you should head into a vodafone store and explain the situation to them. could be the phone or the sim. they'll have a store sim to check maybe.

(in hindsight your son should've said where he would be in the inital phone call but that's hindisght for you eh?)

[mossum]

have had this problem too ...I found turning phone off & then on again returned the signal .... easier said than done when you've had a night out though !

[JandM]

I used my UK Vodafone SIM (with the roaming thingy) in NZ last year. I found the coverage was about what I'd expect in the UK - good in populated areas, less so when farther out, but with occasional issues when in or near very solid buildings, or in the shadow of a hill from a mast, for example. Very bad luck that both your menfolk had that kind of problem simultaneously.

[aberdian]

Found the coverage w vodafone pretty dreadful w our Nokia 6300, but excellent with a crappy old phone. Go figure.....

[neilw71]

Both networks are as bad as each other IMHO - at work we changed from Telecom last year as reliability was so bad - things are no better with Vodafone! Calls regularly drop and it took me 3 calls to complete a conversation with a colleague last week.

Useless all of them!

Neil

[Steadybears]

Thanks for all the messages of support - we have been to Vodaphone who assure us thats its not there signal - so we off to see if there is something wrong with the phone which we have just bought here - must be the phones - as my old crummy brick type phone works well!!!
Unfortunately we had lost signal with hiom before he could say where he was - anyway hes home safe and sound!!
Odd thing is that both OH and son have full signal while inside out house but yet cant try calling each other - just goes straight to voice mail - oh this techno stuff is too much for me!!

Tks again
Jayne

[mgbridges]

I have a handset and SIM purchased from Vodafone NZ on a pre-pay plan. The reception in our house is useless with a capital 'U'!! There is one spot near the kitchen window but otherwise nothing. Now this may be because we are in a valley, kinda tucked into the hillside but still we're in what I consider to be central Auckland so its very frustrating.

Bizarrely I also have problems sending text messages to one of my friends but not receiving from her.

I've kinda learnt to live with it and tend to give out my home phone number as I'm more likely to answer that!

Anneliese

[kanatakiwi]

We had awful experience this weekend - our 18 year old went out with some mates - first time since leaving SA - and we had a call from him asking us to fetch him from town in the early hours of the morning- as taxi too dear. OH went through to collect him and then we tried calling to find out where he was - 2 n half hours later we still looking and of course neither of their phones working - seems we having problems with Vodafones having no signal.


I have old mobile from SA with vodaphone pre paid and OH and son have new NZ mobiles - and have vodaphone contracts. My phone is the the only one with comms around the our home and anywhere else.

We contacted Vodaphones who state they arent aware of any problems - in our area can anyone tell me if the reception is good or can we have recommendations on what we can do?


Thanks again
Jayne


The issue can be with overseas phones. I had a Nokia from North America and although it was triband and supposed to work in NZ, it really did not work very well. I limped along and finally got someone who told me what the problem was: To work in NZ the triband phones have to be 900, 1800 and 1900 mhz. many overseas phones are 850, 1800 and 1900. That 850 mhz is the crucial number because in NZ I was told only the old 025 numbers (now extinct) operated on 850 and so coverage is very very spotty.

I then bought the exact same Nokia model but with the triband operating on the 900 etc, and works like a damn, get coverage everywhere all the time. :nice1

something to check out. In the case of my phone, you could tell the difference because the battery was labelled A for north america and other places, and b for asia and pacific

And beware, many of the phones sold here second hand on Trade Me etc, are actually overseas phones. :mad:


worth checking.
Gloria

[Steadybears]

Thanks Gloria - funny thing is that my old phone which we brought from South Africa works well and OH and our sons cell bought here in NZ - new- are the ones that cant pick up any receptions in and around the Hamilton area.

So frustrating - 18 year old feels his heart has been ripped out - you know what they all like with their mobiles!!!

Jayne

[kanatakiwi]

Thanks Gloria - funny thing is that my old phone which we brought from South Africa works well and OH and our sons cell bought here in NZ - new- are the ones that cant pick up any receptions in and around the Hamilton area.

So frustrating - 18 year old feels his heart has been ripped out - you know what they all like with their mobiles!!!

Jayne

Hi again Jayne

dont know if this has any bearing on whats happening with you, but went to Vodafone today to buy a sim card for my OH's new phone, and they refused to sell me one! Said all of their latest batch of sim cards are faulty and people are all having problems. They won't have any new ones for another week! shocking. They said this is a nationwide problem.
G

[Steadybears]

Thanks Gloria - we did give Vodafone a call and they said they checked his sim etc etc - whatever it is they say they checking - and all was fine - suggest its maybe the mobile. Contacted Sony Erikson and they say will have to send mobile away for a few weeks and check what/if there is aproblem. Seems as though everyone shifting the blame.
We were reading up on some forum about complaints about mobile receptions and so many from NZ were all complaining - so maybe its the network here. Maybe we gonna give Telecom a try and see if we can get reception with them.
OH and our son sitting here with full reception on their phoones but neither can call each other or anyone else - seems odd doesnt it.

Thanks anyway
Jayne

[andrewp]

A quick thing you can try. See if there is a way of setting the phones to not use 3G (assuming they are newer type phones that have 3G). Most new phones support different modes and the default is usually "dual". You can usually find the setting under your "Network" settings. You want to set it to "GSM" as opposed to "UMTS" or "DUAL". Worth a try...

If they are newer phones, the odds are they support 3G. However, it's possible that the cell tower you are near may have 3G problems (this is a common problem across our GSM networks in South Africa). I always make sure my phone is set to GSM, even though it is a fancy Nokia all singing and dancing phone. By doing this I get much longer battery life and far more reliable calling.