Spark Ultra VDSL unlimited pricing query/change – strange response from Spark agent

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yitz

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#1672886 17-Nov-2016 15:02

mortonman:
To be honest I dont think she really knew why the bill had been split although the $115/month I was paying was the amount i signed up to

I am starting to think it may well be just that and nothing to do with whether or not you are charged $10 extra for having had a splitter/filter installation. I have had similar experiences of Spark agents not really knowing things, I'm not sure how closely they are trained to follow the script.

NonprayingMantis

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#1672889 17-Nov-2016 15:09

If you paid $99 up front, then almost certianly you are not on a fixed contract, which means you can switch providers.

Have a shop around - there are plenty out there who offer VDSL for much lower price than what you are paying.

(you won't need to get a new splitter either - just keep using the one you have)

e.g. Bigpipe, Flip, 2Degrees, Voyager.

yitz

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#1672890 17-Nov-2016 15:12

NonprayingMantis:
If you paid $99 up front, then almost certianly you are not on a fixed contract, which means you can switch providers.

Back in 2013/2014 existing Spark ADSL customers had to pay a $99 fee to upgrade to VDSL.

kiwipearls

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#1700617 9-Jan-2017 18:23

I just queried this charge today as I was going over my bill as I am moving house.

I understood I was paying extra for VDSL from ADSL when it came out, I was on a old telecom broadband account with 500GB of data and last January I upgraded to unlimited broadband and thought that Ultra VDSL $9.99 charge would have gone (I can't remember if ADSL and VDSL package at the start of Jan 16 was $104.98 - or if VDSL was $114 ) got no screen grabs.

But now I see ADSL and VDSL charges are the same - there is no difference so I queried it today and got told it was for a splitter install from DSL to VDSL- and I said but I got VDSL years ago, and you guys have been charging $120 p/y for 3+ years (I can't be exact as I don't know when VDSL became available could be 4-5 years ago now - that's very expensive.

She then told me that Spark removed that charge in November 2016 and is reimbursing me that charge back-dated to then.

Seems there may be a few people like me still being charged for it.

"In the real world as in dreams, nothing is quite what it seems" - The Book of Counted Sorrows

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Jase2985

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#1700655 9-Jan-2017 21:47

Hmmm thats got me thinking too

@wheelbarrow01 whats the story?

and how do i go about finding if im still in a contract? i believe i only had a 12 month one when i signed up to VDSL, and even still i believe ive has it since Jan 14 so should be well and truely out of a contract

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#1700731 10-Jan-2017 09:31

Jase2985:

Hmmm thats got me thinking too

@wheelbarrow01 whats the story?

and how do i go about finding if im still in a contract? i believe i only had a 12 month one when i signed up to VDSL, and even still i believe ive has it since Jan 14 so should be well and truely out of a contract

Hi all,

I work in the corporate provisioning space (for the last 2+ years), so my knowledge on residential pricing is no longer what it once was sorry. As one previous poster has eluded to, some time ago Spark was charging a $99 fee to existing Spark ADSL customers who chose to upgrade to VDSL on a new 12 month term. For that fee, the customer got a VDSL splitter installed by a Chorus technician and was provided with a new VDSL capable modem.

Customers new to Spark were offered free VDSL connection & splitter installation and a free VDSL modem, also on a 12 month term.

In terms of the monthly price of VDSL, this is not something I know much about from a residential perspective. I am aware that Spark now offers VDSL for the same price as ADSL for new customers. Quite how this filters down to existing VDSL customers I am not sure. One would assume that at the end of a current VDSL customer's 12 month term, they should be proactively offered the new (lesser) monthly price, but in reality I cannot say if that is happening or not sorry. My personal belief is that it should, but if there is any doubt then by all means call 123 and query it. In my opinion there is certainly an argument to expect the price currently advertised on the Spark website.

The views expressed by me are not necessarily those of my employer Chorus NZ Ltd

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Jase2985

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#1700809 10-Jan-2017 11:48

Thanks Simon

Just called them now (No wait time :)) and hes confirmed that yes we shouldnt have been paying the $114.99, and updated our plan to reflect, and also confirmed we shoudl get a refund up to november 2016 for the extra we were paying due to the remove of the filter charge

littleheaven

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#1704138 16-Jan-2017 14:33

Wheelbarrow01:

Hi all,

I work in the corporate provisioning space (for the last 2+ years), so my knowledge on residential pricing is no longer what it once was sorry. As one previous poster has eluded to, some time ago Spark was charging a $99 fee to existing Spark ADSL customers who chose to upgrade to VDSL on a new 12 month term. For that fee, the customer got a VDSL splitter installed by a Chorus technician and was provided with a new VDSL capable modem.

Customers new to Spark were offered free VDSL connection & splitter installation and a free VDSL modem, also on a 12 month term.

In terms of the monthly price of VDSL, this is not something I know much about from a residential perspective. I am aware that Spark now offers VDSL for the same price as ADSL for new customers. Quite how this filters down to existing VDSL customers I am not sure. One would assume that at the end of a current VDSL customer's 12 month term, they should be proactively offered the new (lesser) monthly price, but in reality I cannot say if that is happening or not sorry. My personal belief is that it should, but if there is any doubt then by all means call 123 and query it. In my opinion there is certainly an argument to expect the price currently advertised on the Spark website.

Yes, as a long-term customer (since 1996 when I bought the house) I was charged $99 to upgrade to VDSL, and they also charged me the additional $9.99. In the offer email I was sent at the time, the costs were detailed as this:

Ultra VDSL Plan:

VDSL 150GB

Monthly VDSL Plan Charge:

$109.00

VDSL Connection Cost:

$99.00

As you can see, there was no mention of a specific Ultra VDSL charge, however on my bill it was always split out as a monthly plan charge with the Ultra VDSL as a separate $9.99. I signed up to a 12-month contract at the time.

Since I upgraded in August 2013, this means I have paid just over $400 in ongoing Ultra VDSL fees. Now, I have no complaint about that - it's what I agreed to pay when the connection was set up. But, if it's a cost recoup for the installation, should it not have had an end date? I assume it would it have gone on indefinitely had I not contacted Spark in December to query it. I was told the Ultra VDSL fee would be removed, but this month I was charged it again. That's being fixed up now, apparently. It's kind of a moot point since I'm going to sign up for fibre as soon as it's available (apparently in March) because my copper connection has fallen over about five times in the last year, but I just found the whole thing quite interesting.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

Jarsky

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#1715517 4-Feb-2017 18:57

I have just done a live chat and had this sorted out. I spoke to a few reps because my billing is a bit more complicated due to the legacy billing on the Naked VDSL.

They confirmed that "older connections" were installed with a splitter installation cost of $300 spread out over 30 months ($10/m). So you can only have it removed if you've completed the 2.5 years.

Now the funny thing is, I already had a Dynamix VDSL2 splitter installed by Transfield when I had ADSL2+. So when the Visionstream tech did the install, I still had him replace the splitter since it had already been in there nearly 2 years.

These splitters at the time cost $15 FYI. This was especially surprising since I paid $99 up front for the VDSL2 install in the first place..

Like above though, I agreed to the $9.99/m VDSL surcharge, I just never knew that's what the surcharge was for.

So essentially paid $400 for a $15 splitter and 2 minutes of work to swap it out, but hey the forfeit for being an early adopter.

Now if you're on the legacy Naked VDSL plan...the condition of getting the Naked was that you had to have your mobile on postpaid (the lowest postpaid plan being the $39.99/m plan)

which gave you a $20 "naked" credit which offset the cost between the standard VDSL + POTS and the Naked VDSL pricing. If you had your mobile unlinked though, you would lose the credit.

The standard VDSL is $105, while Naked is $95. So billing was:

Home Broadband Unlimited Data Plan $104.98

$20 credit naked broadband -$20.00

Ultra VDSL $9.99

which resulted in....$95 the same as Naked.

So my question was essentially....why then if i'm paying the exact same price, do I still have my mobile on account when I can get a better deal on Prepaid?

They removed the VDSL surcharge after that question.

littleheaven

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#1721464 16-Feb-2017 17:24

Well, just got my second bill since they offered to remove the extra $9.99 VDSL charge, and I've been charged it again (making it twice since they offered to remove it). They refunded last month's charge but somehow neglected to actually stop it from billing this month. Am following up. Third time's the charm, hopefully!

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

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