Ok yea I know that module well, that’s what I use and it supports the Vodafone bands.
Im confused what you mean by:
First with Cat-M1 you don’t need to set the APN, the network will do that for you (although it doesn’t hurt). Also you wont see a Hologram tower or anything like that, you will connect to Vodafone in NZ, Hologram just has agreements for their simcards to work on Vodafone’s network. So as far as the modem sees it connects to “real” or “physical” networks like Vodafone, AT&T, Telstra / etc.
You can also try the following AT commands with that module:
AT+URAT=7 << sets the module to only look for CAT-M1 (disables NB-IOT). This helps searching for networks
AT+UMNOPROF? <<checks the profile settings 0 = default, basically search for everything, 19 = only vodafone (although I would verify it picks the correct bands, it may be Vodafone UK)
AT+UBANDMASK? << can be used to tell which frequencies the device will search
AT+CEREG? <<checks for EPS registration status
AT+CGDCONT? << prints the PDP context definitions (should show “hologram” and an IP address if all is well)
Note Cat-M1 is not officially supported in NZ by hologram (see similar post in Australia: Hologram in Australia - #2 by Maiky) but it may work fine. Cat-M1 is much closer than normal LTE than NB-IOT so in many cases “it just works”