Telecommunications companies are working around the clock to restore services to communities along the East Coast, after Cyclone Gabrielle left a trail of destruction in its wake.
Many communities are currently cut off from the rest of the country, with limited access to essential services.
Information is crucial to those affected, but the infrastructure has been severely impacted.
People in Tairawhiti are being advised to use their cell phones for text messages and phone calls only, to help ease the load on the limited bandwidth available.
Despite the challenges, progress is being made in restoring services with a little bit of the Kiwi ‘number 8 wire’ mentality. Vodafone was able to set up a temporary small cell site on top of a scissor lift at Gisborne Airport.
Vodafone Chief Technology Officer Tony Baird spoke to Rachel Smalley about the progress made to reconnect the disconnected,
"Across the country now, we have 58 Vodafone cell sites down against a total of 1700 cell sites," Baird said.
"Northland still has about 18 down, Gisborne, Napier, Hastings and the Hawke's Bay region have 34 Vodafone cell sites down.
"Things have improved quite a bit, at the peak we're up in the hundreds of cell sites affected, but that doesn't help people in those areas where the tends to be clusters of cell sites down, at the very edge of the network, there are gaps and if you lose a cell site the gaps just get bigger, that's probably the biggest issue."
Baird highlighted the issues the telco provider is facing reconnecting the region.
"Cell sites require two things, they need electricity and they need backhaul.
"Backhaul is the way that the cell sites communicate back to our data centres, that backhaul historically used to be called microwave radio, we connected Gisborne with microwave radio last night.
"That legacy technology doesn't have bandwidth which is the size of the pipe."
Baird said Vodafone is working to restore the fibre optic connection which will improve the bandwidth capacity.
Listen to the full interview between Tony Baird and Rachel Smalley above.
You can also download the full interview on the First Light podcast, and listen on the go.
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