Calling from the beach or lake just got easier this summer

Regardless of network, we’ve all had to stand on the picnic table, dash up the hill or seemingly hop on one leg to successfully make a call or send a text from some of our great Kiwi holiday spots.

Well, the one legged phone call might just be a thing of the past with 2degrees announcing they are bringing WiFi Calling to New Zealand.

All that’s needed to use WiFi Calling is a decent WiFi connection, a compatible mobile, and to switch the function on within the phone’s settings. Calling and texting then takes place, as normal, through the phone’s standard interfaces – the only difference being an icon to advise the call/text is being made via WiFi.

2degrees Chief Marketing Officer Roy Ong says 2degrees has effectively just turned millions and millions of WiFi connections around the world into potential 2degrees cell sites.

“With WiFi Calling, if you’ve got WiFi you’ve got 2degrees cell coverage.”

Mr Ong says despite 2degrees offering coverage for 98.5% of places Kiwi’s live and work, and the current unprecedented levels of investment in telecommunications infrastructure in NZ - including by 2degrees in its own $670million nationwide network – all networks will have isolated coverage challenges.

“The nature of New Zealand’s topography means there are challenging spots in gullies, or on the edges of cell site coverage areas.”

“Building materials can also interfere with call transmission resulting in patchy coverage in your home or workplace - WiFi Calling has proved popular in cities internationally as a way of addressing connectivity in basement offices and for buildings with thick concrete walls.”

2degrees WiFi Calling will very shortly be available on Samsung S8 and S8+ phones with the technology expected to be more widely available across other models in early 2018.

2degrees is also offering WiFi Calling when traveling overseas with Mr Ong saying it will work ‘as if you are calling from New Zealand’. 

“When you are travelling overseas you can call back to NZ as if you were still at home. If you have one of our great roaming packs then WiFi Calling is included.”

Mr Ong says on the back of NZ’s first time based data service, Data Clock and NZ’s first unlimited mobile data plan, 2degrees is very proud to bring another customer centric innovation to market in 2017.

“Introducing WiFi Calling to New Zealand represents a genuine innovation in telecommunications that will be of significant benefit to our customers both locally and as they travel internationally.”