$59 rollover plan no more - 1.2Mbps experiences?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › $59 rollover plan no more - 1.2Mbps experiences?

1 | 2 | 3

122 posts

Master Geek

#2856484 26-Jan-2022 10:13

Linux: 2degrees do a $40 4GB Rollover plan and I am sure if you ask the right person $30 per month at the moment

It is true 12 month carryover and data sharing with other 2degrees mobile numbers including Prepaid

2deg sounds good. I might pop into the local shopping mall and see all 3 providers. Talk to a human, rather than a script-follower on a phone. :)

DarrenJ

122 posts

Master Geek

#2856487 26-Jan-2022 10:16

unowho08:

Or you could try Kogan Mobile which uses Vodafone, including their 5G network and hotspot capability (there are several detailed threads here if you search). $5 for the first 30 days (unlimited calls & texts to NZ/AU, 15GB data). If you like it, it's $35 per 30 days when you pay one month prepaid at a time. This drops to the equivalent of $27.50 per month if prepaid for a year. Seems like this amount of data should have you covered for any unexpected usage.

There are half price deals that come along from time to time so you may want to prepay month-to-month until you can jump on one of the half price deals (assuming everything works out for you).

Only you will know if Vodafone coverage is good in the places you go, but the price of admission is low to at least try it out for 30 days and you can easily port your number in/out.

I never considered Kogan, I'll do some investigation. I guess in the past I've found comfort in the big brands (VF, Spark), but it's really hit home that customer loyalty is not a priority so I might start provider-hopping haha.

Dulouz

883 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2856490 26-Jan-2022 10:19

If Spark didn't offer interest free deals on iphones and other apple products there is no way I'd be on their pay-monthly deals.

Amanon

DarrenJ

122 posts

Master Geek

#2856493 26-Jan-2022 10:20

DarrenJ:

nztim: Try talk to their retention team I am on VF and my work phone is on Spark and have to say Sparks coverage is superior

That's good to know with coverage. I've thought the same, but dunno if that was my old school thinking or not.

Retention team - One I managed to get someone online it was literally copy/pasting current deals and standard 'other than this, we'll be sad to see you leave' and 'we don't match other providers'. On phone, no progress with a human robot trying to retain me. Apparently an agent will call be back tomorrow sometime, so I think it was her knockoff time haha. Spent probably good 1hr + trying to get an answer with the delayed replies and callback. VF - Online 8 mins from beating the bot, talking to human, getting a deal. That was pretty impressive.

I got the call back today from Spark. Another robot-human who just read off their current plans. I asked about a retention team, and she said is there none. I did explain the really bad experience Spark gives and the amount of time its taken just to talk to someone, vs Vodafone 8 min total to give me a deal. "I understand, is there anything else I can help you with?" <insert my laughter as I hung up>.

The good thing is I'm not pushed off my existing plan until March, so I've got some breathing space to shop around.

DarrenJ

122 posts

Master Geek

#2856494 26-Jan-2022 10:21

Dulouz:

If Spark didn't offer interest free deals on iphones and other apple products there is no way I'd be on their pay-monthly deals.

yeah the more I look at Spark, the more their pay monthly deals are pretty meh.

Talkiet

4792 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2856506 26-Jan-2022 10:37

cokemaster:

[ Re Spark] B. when they start treating their staff a bit better.

I've had a fair few jobs in the tech industry and Spark has been easily the best employer I have ever had - by a LONG way. While there has been a lot of pain in the transition from monopoly to separated retail company in a very competitive market, they have, in my experience, treated staff very well.

I've mentioned it before but it's worth restating every time someone blasts out a vague dig - after the Chch earthquakes Spark contacted all affected employees as soon as possible and told everyone that they should just focus on themselves... Spark provided tangible and financial assistance for affected staff and there was never any pressure on staff to return before they were comfortable. That wasn't just the emergency response either... The quakes and the number of displaced staff from work premises really forced our hand of having to deal with remote working and Spark embraced that for those that could do it.

Your throwaway comment reminds me of news stories about corrupt police - that's a bad thing and it makes headlines, but it unfairly detracts from the vast majority of Police that are doing great work and genuinely have the community interests at heart. Same thing here - for every bad employment experience you may hear about a Spark/Vodafone/2D/Chorus staffer - it's likely to be an outlier... I can state from 15 years of personal experience that as far as Spark goes - it will be.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

toejam316

1466 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2856521 26-Jan-2022 11:14

Talkiet:

cokemaster:

[ Re Spark] B. when they start treating their staff a bit better.

I've had a fair few jobs in the tech industry and Spark has been easily the best employer I have ever had - by a LONG way. While there has been a lot of pain in the transition from monopoly to separated retail company in a very competitive market, they have, in my experience, treated staff very well.

<SNIP>

While I don't keep it a secret, I also don't really talk about who I work for, I just try help where I can but keep my head down. With that said, I can't help but jump in on this - I've got about 10 years experience in the industry, and I can safely say I have never been treated better than my time with Spark. There's always gripes with big corporates, but it feels almost nitpicky when I compare the position I'm in and how I'm treated to my previous experiences, at both a Chorus contractor and a WISP tech. If that's your only reason for not using Spark, then consider it debunked.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

cokemaster

Exited
4929 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2856527 26-Jan-2022 11:28

Context for @Talkiet / @toejam316: I’ve worked at Spark for 10 years. There were some awesome things that they did, particularly around the earthquakes…. Not disputing that. I’ve seen firsthand and also with former workmates folks getting a very rough deal (even to this day) post the introduction to agile.

Maybe it’s isolated to a couple of tribes, but there was definitely a shift post agile implementation and not necessarily for the better.

webhosting

Loose lips may sink ships - Be smart - Don't post internal/commercially sensitive or confidential information!

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2858244 29-Jan-2022 21:45

Back to topic In hand. My wife got the same email. She hasn't tried talking with anyone yet but it looks like Spark are not very interested in retaining customers.

Currently they have all of our telco business. Their response so far over us switching to fibre and if the responses on this thread are anything to go by may see them ditched altogether.

There is a complete lack of response on this thread from anyone at Spark. If Vodafone and 2 Degrees can have people responding to similar threads about year services/products you'd think Spark would do the same.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

quickymart

13944 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2858245 29-Jan-2022 21:52

Is 1.2Mb/s suitable for using a Virtual Desktop, or is it laggy/slow? I may change my plan if it works at that speed.

richms

28174 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2858248 29-Jan-2022 22:12

the limit on spark is IMO unusable for much, it seems very agressive, hits hard and there is no burst over it when pages load. Often items on the page would fail to load on the first try and it took a reload to get all the embedded stuff to load fully.

Vodafone will let it crank at full speed for a good few seconds and that will usually have a page load. Never notice being throttled on vodafone other than when scrolling instagram and its trying to preload many videos and the whole thing bogs down. Other than that its fine. Totally different experiance to the 1 month I had on spark before giving up.

They may have improved it since I used it a while back, but I couldnt deal with it back then so flicked that number over to vodafone (since I actually use that phone number it was a port so all the drama that brings).

Richard rich.ms

antonknee

1133 posts

Uber Geek

#2858256 29-Jan-2022 22:38

Spark as an employer - there will be good and bad in any organisation that size. Colleagues and friends of mine who work(ed) there either love it or hate it, no middle ground.

Spark as a telco - their throttling to 1.2Mbps is very aggressive and borders on unusable in comparison to Vodafone and 2degrees. Anecdotal, but I’ve been on an endless plan with all three and the overall experience once throttled on VF and 2D is miles ahead of Spark. Additionally, I’ve found the customer service from Spark very lacking, they certainly don’t seem to care about retention, and I think their plans are the worst value.

cokemaster

Exited
4929 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2858264 30-Jan-2022 00:01

I've had a family member received the end of life letter for this plan. Nothing else on Sparks line up is particularly attractive.

Key takeaway is that you don't need to give 30 days notice, so it makes evading Sparks 30 day notice fee a breeze. She now has some fairly sharp pricing with Vodafone and so is doing an ASAP port (once the SIM is delivered).

webhosting

Loose lips may sink ships - Be smart - Don't post internal/commercially sensitive or confidential information!

Linux

11424 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2858307 30-Jan-2022 08:55

@DarrenJ Did you check out 2degrees?

DarrenJ

122 posts

Master Geek

#2858976 31-Jan-2022 08:39

Linux:

@DarrenJ Did you check out 2degrees?

yeah looks better than Spark (mind you everything does :) ).

I'm probably going to go with Skinny, as I know the Spark network has coverage everywhere I go based on experience currently. Just going to wait a month in the faint hope Spark might wake up at the poor offerings. I see over on Reddit there has been a lot of conversation as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/sdl1ve/thanks_spark_less_for_more/

1 | 2 | 3