The Geraldine Fairlie Highway is one of the South Island's more notorious roads.
Along this highway, not too far from Geraldine, the home of Barkers jams, lives Mike Brown, a long-time local – primary school in Albury, high school in Fairlie, the hills of South Canterbury his home.
"Back in those days we didn't have any of these communications, it was the old snowy TV and valve radio," Mike says, reflecting on his days working in the hills of the Mackenzie country.
Connectivity has come a long way since then but, as in many spots around New Zealand, Mike has been living without mobile coverage for years.
"If you wanted to check your phone you jump in the ute and either head south to the Skipton Bridge for service or back through to Geraldine about 15km to receive your texts and voicemails. I missed messages all the time – some of them had been left weeks earlier, then it's a non-event really isn't it?"
But finally Brown is receiving you, loud and clear. Enter Farmside and Sure Signal. Based locally out of Timaru, Farmside has recently started providing Sure Signal to customers nationwide, enabling mobile connectivity alongside their broadband.
Brown has a broadband account with the company and, when he was offered a chance to trial a new solution to his coverage problem, he decided to check it out.
"They are good bunch of people at Farmside, and I thought I'd give it a try," he says. They came up with the goods. Brown is now able to get coverage in his home, something which has changed his life.
"I would really recommend it to others. There's nothing wrong with the thing," he explains with classic Kiwi understatement.
"From the moment it was geared up, it's been perfect."
Sure Signal is a small device that is plugged into your modem and then boosts the 3G network strength considerably, meaning you can call and text within your home, even if there was no signal before. It feeds off the data from your internet connection, is simple to use and compatible with all Vodafone and Farmside mobiles.
Brown has some reassuring words for people who are a little tech-phobic: "I'm pretty dumb with all the technology stuff – the TV remote is about my level – but even I can work the thing. It's a piece of cake, really."
He's had Sure Signal for a couple of months now and the difference it's made to his daily life is significant. Brown is supposedly retired but, as a well-known stock worker with a great team of dogs, his skills are still in demand.
Previously he would miss many work opportunities he was offered due to bad reception; now he's connected whenever he's within range of the modem.
"The official range is 30m-50m from the modem but I can actually get coverage 500m away," he says, the polar opposite of the days when he had to drive off in search of a signal.
The Sure Signal devices cost a one-off $199 or they can be spread across 12 months and paid each month with a Farmside broadband contract.
Brown says many friends have shown interest in the device and he has no hesitation in recommending it. His advice – get on to it, quick smart, you won't know how you managed without it.