During disasters like Cyclone Gabrielle, cellphones become a vital way to gather information, but won't be much use without working phone towers. Photo: RNZ / Phil Pennington
A working cellphone can be the difference between life and death during a natural disaster.
When cellphones failed to transmit emergency alerts in 2019 wildfires in California, the state ordered telecommunication companies to have 72 hours of backup power to cellphone towers in high-risk places.
In New Zealand, hundreds of towers went without power for two days when Cyclone Gabrielle smashed the power grid two years ago.
But for most towers, battery back-up lasts just a few hours, with arguments still raging over whether batteries, generators or some other backup would be better.
"In fact, it seems to have fallen off the radar a little at the government level... and that's really worrying for our businesses and our communities," says Hawke's Bay's regional economic development agency head Lucy Laitinen.
Every respondent to a recent survey put upgrading infrastructure at the top, she said.
A study commissioned by her agency and other Hawke's Bay business leaders seven months ago called for 48 hours of battery back-up.
Hawke's Bay's regional economic development agency head Lucy Laitinen. Photo: Supplied
"It's sitting there, waiting for someone to action that," said Shayne Walker, a board member on the development agency.
The main cyclone inquiry stated 10 months ago that investment in longer-lasting cell site batteries was wanted, but government direction on the standards was needed.
But no standards have been forthcoming - and there are concerns that batteries were not even the answer.
The messages from government have been unclear to many - a few weeks ago, officials in a short email told 40 councils and companies the government's work to improve the resilience of critical infrastructure was being stopped, with no indication why or what might replace it.
The threat remains of a mass power cut taking out cellphone towers in a big disaster, even though the towers themselves may be okay, as happened at hundreds of towers in the North Island during Gabrielle and other big storms in 2023.
Things are somewhat better now - newer technology means the batteries can last a bit longer than the 4-8 hours seen during Gabrielle.
Laitinen and Walker said there was more talk than action. Walker led local efforts to restore cellphone coverage during Gabrielle, nabbing a chopper to fly a 1.5-tonne generator in to Wairoa.
"It was the first request from council to deal with the cellphone tower in town," said Walker, of Māori Growth Partners.
Officials frequently failed to prioritise communications, even obstructing efforts to get fuel to generators to re-power cell towers, multiple official inquiries have found.
So engineers who wanted to fly in to power up outlying towers, such as at Tutira, to restore the cell network, turned to Walker.
"The number one thing was communication."
Since the storms, local people had taken the initiative, buying their own generators and Starlink satellite links.
"If our communities aren't safe then we've got to do something else about it," said Walker.
California's 72-hour backup power mandate has faced industry pushback over costs and how to do it.
Paul Brislen - a spokesperson for big telcos in New Zealand - said the local pushback was not about the cost, which the Hawke's Bay study estimated could be $700m for big batteries nation-wide, but that other technology like solar was better.
"What we are saying to the government is if you want to mandate a particular approach to back-up power, you need to mandate that so we can invest in that," Brislen said.
He said they were not hearing what they needed.
"We want some clarity and we want some direction right across the board from the civil defence... local council, all the way through central government."
The telcos have sought changes to consent rules to allow bigger batteries, which the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is working on.
Generators were the other option used a lot during Gabrielle, but this was also constrained.
A few key towers have permanent backup generators, but there are strict constraints around fuelling, refuelling and maintaining these.
Hylton Read struck the limits during Cyclone Gabrielle. He needed to get to the generator running his company's transmission tower, serving multiple FM stations on a hill outside Havelock North.
The scramble over what to do about a slip on the road was made worse when "we lost all our cell phone coverage, so I couldn't contact people", Read said.
He went to the Civil Defence centre, where a guard would not let him in - "fair enough," he said - but hooked him up with the owner of a truck and a digger.
"The chap I had with me, he said to him, 'Here's the keys, just take it and do it', so that was a big relief."
The hands-on of local heroics contrasted with MBIE's approach, which is mostly hands-off.
"Telecommunications networks are owned and operated by private companies, therefore the resilience of telecommunications infrastructure sits with the network operators themselves," the ministry said.
But it has recently helped put 24-hour backup batteries at 44 towers run by the Rural Connectivity Group, along with six hubs. There is also funding to boost 50 more.
Elsewhere during Gabrielle, many cell towers relied for a power reboot on having portable generators flown in. Telcos have spent a million dollars on buying more portables since the storm.
It is not the comprehensive response the North Island Severe Weather Event inquiries envisaged.
"Who is going to build back better?" asked Walker.
"It definitely needs to be clearer."
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