How an Australian Warship Interrupted Your Wi-Fi

Over the last couple of days, we’ve been tracking a bit of a mystery on our network. Early Wednesday morning, multiple WombatNET internet towers across the Wellington region – even those tucked deep in the Hutt Valley – suddenly started dropping connections.

At first, we thought the severe weather was to blame. Heavy rain can occasionally bounce wireless signals around, causing brief hiccups in our network. But this time, the scale and timing pointed to something much bigger.

The Surprising Culprit It turns out we weren’t alone. Internet providers across the country – including Primo in Taranaki, Inspire Net in the Manawatū, and TPNet in Nelson – all reported sudden, widespread interference starting around 2:00 AM.

The common denominator? A massive radar sweep from the Australian Navy warship HMAS Canberra, which was sailing down the west coast of New Zealand.

How does a ship knock out the internet? To understand why a warship affected your home connection, it helps to know how our wireless signals work. Most modern wireless internet networks in New Zealand share the exact same radio airwaves (the 5 GHz band) as important radar systems used by aircraft, weather stations, and the military.

To avoid messing with these critical services, our tower equipment (and your home Wi-Fi router) has a built-in safety feature. If an internet tower detects a radar signal, it is legally required to automatically shut down its current frequency and switch channels so the radar can pass clearly.

When the HMAS Canberra’s incredibly powerful radar swept across New Zealand, it triggered this safety feature on a massive scale. Our towers scrambled to find clear, safe channels, causing temporary internet dropouts as the network reorganised itself.

The Fix and Looking Ahead This level of interference is rare – we haven’t seen anything on this scale in years. The fact that the ship’s radar reached all the way into sheltered areas like Upper Hutt shows just how powerful military radar can be.

• Is it fixed? Yes. If you noticed short internet dropouts or slower speeds early Wednesday morning, this was the reason. Our team has thoroughly checked our network and locked in clean frequencies, so everything is running smoothly again.

• How do we prevent this? Bizarre events like this highlight a bigger issue: internet providers need access to more radio frequencies. We are currently advocating for the government to open up the newer 6 GHz band. This would give New Zealand regional broadband operators dedicated airwaves that we don’t have to share with military warships or weather radars, preventing incidents like this in the future.

As always, if you’re having ongoing connection issues or something still seems off, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

(And if you actually do want to nerd out about frequency tuning, wireless spectrums, and radar ducting – we’re always keen to talk!)