The Government's push for better rural connectivity has hit another milestone with the Rural Connectivity Group's (RCG) 300th 4G cell tower going live.

The RCG site is located on farmland beside the busy Tairua Whitianga Road and provides 4G wireless broadband and 4G mobile services from Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees to over 95 households in the Coroglen area.

'This Government is committed to ensuring rural communities can reap the social and economic benefits of fast, reliable broadband and mobile services,” says Minister David Clark.

Coroglen's tower takes the total number of new mobile sites in the Waikato Region to 27, with another 30 sites planned in the region by the end of the programme in December 2023.

Across the wider Waikato region, including Thames Coromandel, RCG sites connect over 2,700 homes and businesses, 50km of local State Highway and five tourism areas with high-speed 4G wireless broadband and quality mobile coverage.

The Government also has a number of other partners delivering rural broadband under the same scheme, meaning all up a total of 7625 homes and businesses in the Waikato region will receive broadband coverage.

'The positive outcomes stemming from the Rural Broadband Initiative Phase 2 and Mobile Black Spot Fund programmes are something Government is immensely proud of," says Clark.

'Rural connectivity helps farmers modernise and streamline the way they work, it enables local businesses to offer mobile Eftpos payment options and other online services, and it gives peace of mind that emergency services are just a mobile call away.

'Not to mention the positive effect it has on people needing to work or learn from home.

'In addition to rural broadband, the Crown funded Mobile Black Spot Fund programme has delivered mobile coverage to 902 kilometres of State Highway and 72 tourism sites. In these cases there was previously no mobile coverage at all, and now coverage is available for customers of all three mobile broadband operators.

'We've also delivered Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) to 85 percent of Kiwis. Under the Marae Digital Connectivity programme we have connected including 516 marae to broadband and provided essential hardware.”

-Thames Coromandel District Council.