Papamoa and Mount Maunganui residents are irate to find cellphone towers being erected in their area by phone company 2 Degrees.

A new tower has gone up on Enterprise Drive in Papamoa and a Mount Maunganui resident has noticed another on top of an apartment complex.

A new 2 Degrees cell tower being erected in Papamoa.

2 Degrees communications manager Michael Bouliane says they announced in February a plan to invest an additional $100m in their network over the next two years.

'Tauranga is an important city and we want our network to continue to meet the growing demands of smart phone and data device users there,” says Michael.

'By further investing in our network – and building mobile phone sites, we will continue to bring the benefits of increased competition – better value and better service – to the residents of Tauranga and throughout New Zealand.”

Residents who've contacted SunLive with their concerns want to know why such locations have been chosen for these ‘eye sores'.

Michael says choosing a mobile phone site location is based on sites that will have the least possible impact on the community and the environment.

'The site on Enterprise Drive in Papamoa is in a light industrial area, but we've taken the community's concerns into account and tried to locate our site as far away from nearby residences as possible – much further away than the other company's mobile tower,” says Michael of a nearby Vodafone tower.

'Rather than putting more equipment on the existing tower that is closer to residences – and making it bigger – we chose to locate our site further away from the homes. 'The closest residential home to our site is more than 100m away.

'In order to properly provide this area of Mount Maunganui with quality mobile phone coverage, locating our site on top of a building was necessary.”

Michael says they are still in the midst of the planning process and even though they may have the necessary approvals, site locations are still only potential sites and not yet confirmed.