Cyclone Gabrielle: How to get the best out of bad cellphone reception

Thursday, 16 February 2023

Esk Valley resident Warwick Marshall talks about the destruction Cyclone Gabrielle caused.

After Cyclone Gabrielle brought down telecommunication networks and caused mass power outages, people in affected areas have been left with poor or no cellphone reception.

A national state of emergency was declared on Tuesday after destruction was felt across much of the North Island.

With cellphone service making life harder for many, an expert has a few tips about how to best keep in contact with loved ones using what little connectivity may be available.

University of Auckland computer science senior lecturer Dr Ulrich Speidel said sticking to text and voice calls as much as possible will conserve battery power for both your cellphone and for cell sites.

A tree came crashing down on the back deck of his unit on Lotus Lane in Auckland.

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“Minimise use of video calling. It's also not a good time to hunker down with Netflix, TikTok, YouTube, Vimeo, or any other video-based application,” Speidel said.

Warrick Marshall and his wife Trish are amongst about 130 people living in the Esk Valley. His home has been destroyed by floodwater.

The best place to be to try and get service is outside, as close to a cell site as possible, he said.

“The fewer walls, windows and obstacles, the better.”

As a rule of thumb, halving the distance to the cell site means using one quarter of the power, Speidel said.

If you’re in a group, turn off mobile phones that aren’t needed - as they still use the cell site even when they are not active, draining the battery on both ends, he said.

“Consider using SIM cards from two providers in a dual-SIM phone: If one network can't provide coverage, another might.”

If you have a fixed-line internet connection to your house, either ADSL or VDSL, and the power in your area is out, the street-side cabinets can often run for 24-48hrs after the outage, so the internet may still work, he said.

“Use it before it dies. Once it dies, expect it to stay off for a while even if power comes back on as restart of the cabinets can still be a manual process.”

Other, less easy options to set up, are starting up an account with satellite internet providers, or Starlink.

These providers include Gravity, Wii, Uber NZ, Wireless Nation and Farmside.

Spark said they are continuing to focus on getting communications back online in impacted areas, with urgent attention on restoring connectivity to the Northland, Coromandel, Gisborne, and Hawke’s Bay regions.

“Our network teams are doing everything they can to get cell sites back up and running, deploying generators, and arranging cargo planes and helicopters to get things fixed,” Vodafone said.