Antennas melted to the top of one cell tower, like those pictured, during the two suspicious fires. Photo: boscorelli
Police are investigating two suspicious fires that have knocked two cell towers offline near Wānaka, affecting coverage for both One NZ and Spark customers.
Emergency services were called to Allison Avenue in Albert Town at about 11.30pm on Saturday, where police said one cell tower and two data boxes were alight.
FortySouth, which owns all One NZ towers, confirmed its tower was no longer working.
Chief technology officer Jo Stansfield said the company was able to maintain cell reception using other towers in the area, but capacity could be affected.
"The more people that are trying to use cell towers in the area, the more likely those other towers will provide a little bit more intermittent coverage.
"So if that gets to that point, people will have trouble making calls and they may drop text messages," she said.
The tower would need to be replaced, Stansfield said.
"All the antennas have melted onto the top of the tower, so we will need to replace it, and we're working on that at the moment," she said.
In a statement, Spark confirmed a cabinet housing important electronics had been vandalised, and as a result a nearby Spark cell site was offline.
There was some overlapping coverage but given the extra volume of devices connecting to those sites, Spark customers could experience a temporarily degraded service, the company said.
"To help provide more capacity in the area, we are working as quickly as possible to deploy a temporary cell site," a spokesperson said.
"It is important to note that New Zealand's mobile network operators have an agreement where 111 calls will be carried by any available mobile network, regardless of who the customer's provider is."
Stansfield said the fire followed two recent attempts to burn cell towers in the Bay of Plenty, but in those instances there had been no damage.
People should remember damage to cell towers was not a victimless crime, she said.
"People rely on these towers and rely on mobile connectivity to connect to their families, to connect to emergency services.
"There's a lot of us working from home now and being able to do that needs mobile connectivity," she said.
"We've been lucky on this occasion that we are able to cover the service, but in many cases that's not available.
"It's disappointing to see this kind of wilful damage to an asset that's so important to many people."
Police said a scene examination had been carried out and enquiries were continuing.
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