2DEGREES MOBILE – WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU NEED TO CONSENT AND ROLL OUT A NATIONWIDE CELLPHONE NETWORK BUT FORCES ARE CONSPIRING AGAINST YOU?

Underdog market darling, 2degrees Mobile, faced this mammoth challenge in 2008 before hiring Andrew.Stewart to deliver all aspects of their network consents.

2degrees has built the first tier of their nationwide telecommunications network, with the intention of shaking up the industry in New Zealand, and ensure that for the first time, New Zealanders have real choice and true competition in mobile communications. Sounds like a good fit for Andrew.Stewart, and it was.  

Being a new player in the market, 2degrees was eager to make sure that its network was delivered without a hitch. Sadly the telco began encountering programme delays and bottlenecks due to planning-related problems.

Enter Andrew.Stewart, who played a crucial role in 2degrees ability to achieve its major milestones and rollout goals, by managing the consenting process through to approval. Jason Britten from 2degrees says, “Andrew.Stewart Limited and 2degrees have built a great relationship. The team at Andrew.Stewart have worked extremely hard and were 100% committed to the project, which has enabled our 2degrees team to consistently achieve our resource consenting targets and deliver our infrastructure within extremely tight timeframes”.

Andrew.Stewart Managing Director, Aaron Andrew describes the situation; “The biggest challenge was the timeframes we were working within, overcoming people’s perception of cell sites and finding workable technical that worked for Radio Frequency, Transmission, Planning and Site Acquisition perspectives.” He goes on to describe the winning formula, “Our success was based on our experience in programme related consenting, flexibility, responsiveness, and performance.

“We were not afraid to recommend solutions, especially around site selection, that resulted in improved efficiency and timely delivery.” Key work included: 

• Site selection and planning advice 
• Liaison with Councils throughout NZ
• Community consultation 
• Engaging sub-consultants including landscape design, arborists and lawyers
• Acquisition of necessary land use consents
• Attendance and participation in internal 2degrees meetings 
• Providing planning advice to 2degrees, including expert advice on the National Environmental Standard for Telecommunications 

Andrew.Stewart has established relationships within Councils throughout New Zealand. The company is able to leverage off these relationships to facilitate the smooth delivery of consents. They also seek to work collaboratively with the councils, so that as much as possible site selection can take Council issues into consideration, which can be a complex issue in itself.

Aaron Andrew continued, “We also worked with Councils so that they could more effectively programme their own resources, which meant that our consents were processed as efficiently as possible. This was a big issue at the time due to other concurrent telco programmes, and the fact that Councils were facing increasing pressure to use internal resource and not external consultants for processing.”

2degrees has over 435 sites built and operating, with the majority of the required consents for these sites being obtained with assistance from Andrew.Stewart. There are further sites yet to be built, and Andrew.Stewart will continue to manage the consenting process for these.

The continual success of this project demonstrates Andrew.Stewart’s ability to:

• provide planning advice throughout the entire consenting process including advice to design and radio frequency engineers to ensure positive environmental outcomes 
• work collaboratively with Council to find agreeable, environmentally sound solutions on problem sites 
• consult with communities who often have a negative opinion towards proposed activities
• work closely with the client ensure timely delivery of the project