Setting the Scene
Each year tens of thousands of tourists travel to New Zealand during the Christmas period, which is also the peak domestic holiday season during which families typically leave their home base and 'go bush' (or beach) for their summer holiday.

It is also a busy time communication-wise as people get in touch with their loved ones placing additional pressure on the mobile communications network. This causes a problem for mobile carriers such as Vodafone, who optimise their network where the majority of people are based the urban centres. To cap it off a dramatic increase in the uptake of 3G handsets occurred in the latter half of last year, which placed additional strain on the network.

The Challenge
To achieve the service levels it endeavours to provide to its local and international customers, Vodafone realised it needed to make a series of upgrades to its network to increase the backhaul capacity at cell sites all around New Zealand, from The Cape to The Bluff. These upgrades needed to be accomplished in a very short timeframe.

Infratel's Role
Working to an incredibly tight response time for the proposal or works Infratel called upon the immense experience and skill of its engineers (who have worked in all parts of the world on all range of projects) to rapidly design a fail-proof network deployment plan.

Once approved by Vodafone the network upgrade was successfully achieved at over 500 sites within a 5 week period - nearly two weeks ahead of schedule and well before the start of the peak season.

This was largely due to Infratel's efficient deployment methodology not to mention the rigorous quality standards the company adheres to which ensure the implementation was to the highest quality standards. As such the project easily passed Vodafone's own extensive testing procedures first time with no reworking required

Benefits for Vodafone
Vodafone was able to deploy the new infrastructure on-time and on budget which ensured the network was able to support the rise in Christmas traffic and deliver Vodafone customers with uninterrupted services wherever they were in New Zealand.