Spark New Zealand Mobile

[1][2][3] After lengthy internal and corporate trials, a Vodafone New Zealand and Telecom dispute about network interference pushed the date to 29 May.

With the launch of the XT network, a number of new services were available to subscribers, including Prepaid roaming, video calls, Mobile TV, and high-speed internet access.

However, Telecom had said it is working with Vodafone to resolve the issues and was surprised by that company's decision to pursue legal action.

[4] On Monday, 14 December 2009 at approximately 4:30 am, the Telecom XT Mobile Network went down for the majority of people who live south of Taupō for eight hours (although there were claims of issues slightly before this time).

Telecom said a technical fault, affecting a Christchurch-based technology component that was installed to fix a prior fault, had caused the loss of mobile service, including voice, SMS, and mobile broadband[6][7] At approximately 7:00 am on the morning of the network outage, Telecom published a statement via Twitter acknowledging the issues.

On Wednesday, 27 January 2010 around mid-morning, the Telecom XT Mobile Network once again suffered a major outage, affecting approximately 100,000 customers south of Taupō.

Advertising material at the time proclaimed the network to reach "97% of places Kiwis live and work".

[10] As of 2011 the meaning of "XT" remains unknown to the public, as even Telecom's website fails to address this anomaly.

"The 4G LTE coverage was initially offered to subscribers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch starting 12 November 2013.

[15] The first 4G 700 MHz (LTE Band 28) cell sites came online in areas of rural Waikato in mid 2014.

Spark launched its 5G Wireless Broadband service on September 26, 2019[20] in Alexandra, Westport, Twizel, Tekapo, Hokitika and Clyde.

The accelerated rollout will introduce 5G to an additional 15 locations across New Zealand by the end of 22; including expanding and upgrading existing 5G cellular sites.

As well as utilising the current N78 5G standard for urban areas; Spark plans to enable access to the 600MHZ band to allow further coverage.