It revealed roughly two in three farmers couldn\u2019t rely on reaching 111 on their farm and only 35% of respondents could reliably call 111 from most places.<\/p>\n
That compared to the September 2025 report, conducted while 3G was still available, which showed only 38% of farms experienced issues with mobile coverage.<\/p>\n
Federated Farmers spoke to 641 farmers between August and September to understand the impacts of losing 3G.<\/p>\n
One meat and wool farmer from Manawat\u016b-Whanganui reported that her husband was recently trapped under a bike for four hours on the property. \u201cWe have had to buy my husband a smart watch that has the ability to call 111 if he gets in trouble on the farm as we cannot reliably get coverage over all the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another local respondent said it\u2019s \u201cvery dangerous\u201d not having coverage in places where accidents might happen \u2013 like the house, an isolated shed or when working with machinery.<\/p>\n
Manawat\u016b District Council rural ward councillor Alison Short said there was consistently poor coverage and complete blind spots on sections of her home farm, just north of Halcombe, since the 3G shutdown.<\/p>\n
![\"Manawatū](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/manawatu-district-councillor-alison-short-says-rural-mobile-ZKVO5G7VP5AO5CTXK7323QTK3U.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Manawat\u016b district councillor Alison Short. (Source: Local Democracy Reporting)<\/p>\n
Short said the new report revealed a hard truth about the impacts of losing 3G at rural properties.<\/p>\n
\u201cRural mobile coverage has gone backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mobile network was officially shut down at the end of March after a phased disconnection from the end of 2025, to replace it with newer generation 4G and 5G networks.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing the low-frequency 3G network, which was more flexible, has impacted much of our district including hill country, rural roads, coastal areas and Ruahine Forest Park,\u201d Short said.<\/p>\n
She said the council had a digital radio network linking to 20 rural schools and community hubs which were tested weekly \u201cto ensure communication lifelines exist when commercial cell phone coverage completely fails\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"NZ](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/mobile-cell-phone-coverage-VKBDISVR4FGYLCMUQM4RRS6TOU.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
NZ Telcommunications Forum chief executive Paul Brislen says no one should have issues reaching 111. (Source: Local Democracy Reporting)<\/p>\n
But February\u2019s extreme storm event showed the council many of the 20m cell towers in the district only had 12 hours of battery backup – causing issues for people navigating road closures, debris and weather conditions without coverage.<\/p>\n
The council worked with various rural broadband providers and energy authorities to improve coverage in parts of the district and secure funding but this didn\u2019t go far enough, Short said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs council moves into a 4% rates capping environment, it\u2019ll be challenging to fund other initiatives to strengthen rural connectivity through rates alone, but we will continue to seek other funding sources.\u201d<\/p>\n
Geraldine dairy farmer Jimmy Emmett said patchy or non-existent phone coverage created risks when there was an accident or emergency. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n
Mayor Michael Ford said he too had poor phone coverage at his property, something which was \u201ctypical at Colyton and many other parts of our district\u201c.<\/p>\n
The representative for all phone companies, Paul Brislen NZ Telecommunications Forum chief executive, told Breakfast earlier this month that there shouldn\u2019t be any issues reaching 111 and he urged farmers to report these issues to their telco.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Manawat\u016b councillor says \u201crural mobile coverage has gone backwards\u201d as a new report finds roughly two in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,14934,31044,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-643047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-farming","tag-manawatu-wanganui","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}