A newly built cellphone tower in Oropi is bringing mobile coverage and broadband access to the rural Western Bay of Plenty.

The new 30metre monopole tower on Oropi Road is part of the Government's Rural Broadband Initiative and will provide broadband to an estimated 410 households in the Oropi area.

Along with the new RBI site at Oropi, four new towers are planned to be built in the Western Bay of Plenty in the next three years, including Aongatete, Maketu, Te Ranga South and Paengaroa.

Jointly Vodafone says they will provide new mobile coverage and wireless broadband to more than 5200 homes and businesses. Vodafone is also upgrading all six of its existing sites around the Western Bay to deliver the wireless broadband to rural residents.

The service delivers not only mobile coverage, but wireless broadband via a high performance modem, adding a WiFi network into the home. Phone calls can also be made through this service by plugging an existing landline phone directly into the modem, removing the need for a landline connection. Customers can port their existing landline number to this new service.

Vodafone's Bay of Plenty business development manager Andrew Hitchfield says the new cell sites bring greater options to the community, with households and businesses now having choice in broadband service.

"Switching to wireless broadband can provide a consistent and reliable service to residents. It also offers the rural farming community the opportunity to increase production and monitoring through machine-to-machine automation."

An additional benefit of RBI for rural communities is the extension of mobile coverage to include an estimated 4500km of rural New Zealand roads, which until now have been without, says Andrew.

"This is a massive benefit for farming districts like Bay of Plenty, in dealing with emergencies, transport logistics, road safety and other real life circumstances that have been hampered by limited coverage," says Andrew.

Under the five year RBI plan, Vodafone will upgrade 387 existing cell towers and build a further 154 new towers in rural areas all over New Zealand.

The government is funding the civil construction costs of these new sites designed to accommodate Vodafone equipment and other mobile and wireless operators. A total of 47 new sites have been built so far, and an additional 161 have been upgraded meaning new services for over 110,000 addresses in rural New Zealand.

Customers can find out if this service will be available at their address by checking online at www.vodafone.co.nz/rural-broadband.