This article provides tips and advice on how to prepare for emergencies and keep your telecommunications services running during severe weather events or other emergency situations.
You should know
- Being prepared is extremely important during emergencies
- Follow the advice on this page on GetThru.govt.nz for household preparedness
- Our network may experience congestion or outages during severe events
Our network status
Check the network status page on our main website
for any issues with our network.
Landline and computers
- If you have a landline phone, it is good to have an older-style corded phone which does not require mains power. In the event of a power cut, you may be able to use this when cordless phones would not work.
- Surge protectors are a great idea to protect sensitive home electronics like computers and broadband modems in the event of lightning strikes or major power surges.
For your emergency kit
- Many mobile phones have built-in FM radios - these usually require a wired headset to function (It acts as the radio antenna). As FM radio can be extremely useful for urgent emergency communications, you may wish to keep a spare headset packed in with other emergency supplies.
- Consider picking up an external battery pack with a USB charging port on it - these can hold their charge for a long time, and can be very helpful - especially if friends or relatives have phones running on an empty tank.
What to do if power is lost?
Extend your phone battery life
In case of an emergency with no mains power, you can take the following steps to extend your phone's battery life:
- Turn off non-essential features like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
- Lower screen brightness and enable power saving mode
- Turn off mobile data to prevent apps from consuming power
- Avoid frequently turning your phone off and on
- Switch to 2G-only mode if supported (conserves battery)
What to do if the Network is congested?
- Text, don't call
- During emergencies, text instead of calling to reduce network congestion
- Turn off your smartphone's data connection
- Cell sites may be unavailable or running on backup power
- Consider the communication needs of others