Spark goodwill & loyalty credit

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SBQ

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#2170257 30-Jan-2019 15:28

I spoke with Now! NZ today and they gave me the update. They have now pushed the order to keep me on copper and could only do so because my house had no physical fiber line going in. If there was existing fiber installed TO my house, then Chorus would just outright not make the switch. Seems like a finicky excuse. Anyways they will get back to me in 24 hours to confirm the switch over date. Interesting thing is I still have internet yet I thought Spark would make the disconnection yesterday since that was the agreed date to switch ISP when I called them a month ago.

Fax to email is an option by a 3rd party. But that would incur another set of fees and hassles. Also the alarm system will have to be upgraded and then incur another set of fees for a wireless card & # for the monitoring. Add those up and no one ends up saving, just causes a bunch of hassles to pay so many bills for this and that (vs bundled under 1 bill on copper). I don't know about others but I like convenience and prefer not to track more bills.

Have spoke with my aunt that switched to naked broadband with some VOIP setup. She and her neighbours are NOT impressed with the quality of the voice line. So many delays and garbled voice makes conversation on the telephone a bad experience. And for what? To save a little bit of $ ?

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2170280 30-Jan-2019 16:05

SBQ:

Have spoke with my aunt that switched to naked broadband with some VOIP setup. She and her neighbours are NOT impressed with the quality of the voice line. So many delays and garbled voice makes conversation on the telephone a bad experience. And for what? To save a little bit of $ ?

Sounds like a bit of a QOS issue there.

that should be raised as a fault to the provider to be investigated..

Honestly sounds much like voip over adsl done badly.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

jcddcjjcd

63 posts

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#2170283 30-Jan-2019 16:07

I had a $40.00 loyalty credit that also ended. I chose to go with 2Degrees for both Gigabit fiber and Home Phone Plus.

The change over was great as has been the performance.

I did like the way Spark provisioned their phone via the ONT directly but the phone provisioned by 2Degrees and implemented in their Fritzbox router is just as good but with more features.

The Fritzbox router is easier to manage than my previous ASUS RT-AC68U and I have noticed no lesser performance even with torrenting.

Now I wish I had moved to 2Degrees earlier.

Regards, John.

hio77

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#2170286 30-Jan-2019 16:10

jcddcjjcd:

The Fritzbox router is easier to manage than my previous ASUS RT-AC68U and I have noticed no lesser performance even with torrenting.

Particularly under torrents, that AC68U will have been suffering pretty hard, I'm not surprised it's been better.

Ethernet over HG659b would have been absolutely solid performance though...

#include <std_disclaimer>

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rugrat

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#2170303 30-Jan-2019 17:37

SBQ:
I

Have spoke with my aunt that switched to naked broadband with some VOIP setup. She and her neighbours are NOT impressed with the quality of the voice line. So many delays and garbled voice makes conversation on the telephone a bad experience. And for what? To save a little bit of $ ?

I swapped to 2degrees home phone plus.
The voice sounds clearer to me then copper.

I had just lost my $10 credit with Spark, so my Spark Bill went from $105 to $115. Rang them to say not happy with $115 but was happy at $105.

Spark wouldn’t negotiate the price down when I pointed out they were more expensive then everyone else and even pointed out in Christchurch others had 200/20 at the 100/20 price.

Glad I didn’t wait for Unplan as for my situation, no benefit other then dropping entertainment.
Comparison with entertainment dropped saving $5 a month, extra phone services no additional cost, and toll free calls to landlines around the country, and IPv6 and probably a higher spec modem/router.

If you’ve got customers sending you faxes I guess your struck, but the day will come when doing things a different way will be forced regardless, including any alarm set up.
My method is to scan to computer with printer and then email, and I’ve seen printers that you can type an email address into to send a scan to.

snnet

1410 posts

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#2170306 30-Jan-2019 17:47

rugrat:
SBQ:

I

Have spoke with my aunt that switched to naked broadband with some VOIP setup. She and her neighbours are NOT impressed with the quality of the voice line. So many delays and garbled voice makes conversation on the telephone a bad experience. And for what? To save a little bit of $ ?

I swapped to 2degrees home phone plus.
The voice sounds clearer to me then copper.

I had just lost my $10 credit with Spark, so my Spark Bill went from $105 to $115. Rang them to say not happy with $115 but was happy at $105.

Spark wouldn’t negotiate the price down when I pointed out they were more expensive then everyone else and even pointed out in Christchurch others had 200/20 at the 100/20 price.

Glad I didn’t wait for Unplan as for my situation, no benefit other then dropping entertainment.
Comparison with entertainment dropped saving $5 a month, extra phone services no additional cost, and toll free calls to landlines around the country, and IPv6 and probably a higher spec modem/router.

If you’ve got customers sending you faxes I guess your struck, but the day will come when doing things a different way will be forced regardless, including any alarm set up.
My method is to scan to computer with printer and then email, and I’ve seen printers that you can type an email address into to send a scan to.

There's a few fax to email services around as well - I use 2talk as it is bi-directional. I can send an e-mail and it sends it as a fax to a real number, or people can fax a number and I get an e-mail with the attachment. I'm sure there's others out there too.

SBQ

104 posts

Master Geek

#2171723 2-Feb-2019 11:02

I swapped to 2degrees home phone plus.
The voice sounds clearer to me then copper.

I had just lost my $10 credit with Spark, so my Spark Bill went from $105 to $115. Rang them to say not happy with $115 but was happy at $105.

Spark wouldn’t negotiate the price down when I pointed out they were more expensive then everyone else and even pointed out in Christchurch others had 200/20 at the 100/20 price.

Glad I didn’t wait for Unplan as for my situation, no benefit other then dropping entertainment.
Comparison with entertainment dropped saving $5 a month, extra phone services no additional cost, and toll free calls to landlines around the country, and IPv6 and probably a higher spec modem/router.

If you’ve got customers sending you faxes I guess your struck, but the day will come when doing things a different way will be forced regardless, including any alarm set up.
My method is to scan to computer with printer and then email, and I’ve seen printers that you can type an email address into to send a scan to.

FYI, my aunt switched over to ActriX plan for naked broadband VOIP service.

Your experience with Spark was exactly the same with me. I had a $15/month discount for the past 2 years and in Dec, rang them up and they would NOT give any hint of a credit to my account. Yes it put me up to $120/month because I had 2 extra features on the landline (caller ID display & Faxability) which were $4/each/mo. I would of certainly stayed if they could give $10/mo discount but their stance was clear, "NO CREDIT DISCOUNT". Instead they try to up sell me on switching to Fiber Broadband and get crappy Enable to do a the install. I told them Enable installers are lazy and don't want to bore the lines underground, but instead run the fibre cable along my fence which would go some 30m distance. Anyways, I know the writing is on the wall in the long term future that fibre will have to be installed - give me some time to prepare when the time comes.

Our fax machine has been set to do "Fax 2 Email" ever since we bought it 5 years ago. Working both ways, I have the option to send a fax directly to email. Also when ever a fax arrives, it will automatically send to my email. This costs me NOTHING. I'm not keen on a monthly service plan for a 3rd party to manage my incoming faxes. I think it's more likely in a couple of years we will retire it and ask those customers to switch to email. With Google Chrome / Cloud, I can always have the email printed remotely to the same fax/printer.

---

It seems i'm on NOW! broadband. Yesterday all of a sudden we lost internet connection and called them up. They checked and told me to reboot modem. So my IP has changed and it's on ADSL (same as before with Spark). They also put in an order for VDSL as my modem supports VDSL. Hopefully in 3 - 4 days time they will let me know. Also they configured my landline to support Faxabilty. Something other ISPs don't offer (ie 2Degrees, Slingshot, Vodafone, etc.). I will be keen to see what my total bill is.

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SBQ

104 posts

Master Geek

#2177586 13-Feb-2019 12:42

As an update, i'm still with Now. But not happy with Spark's approach in dealing with customers leaving. I received a billing email from Spark for a whopping $127 and the billing is to include the month of February. I was shocked because I verbally spoke with Spark back in Dec to disconnect me on Jan 27th. Not sure if Spark was trying to be sneaky and thinking I would just keep paying but I was able to correct the billing through their Live Chat.

I'm still amazed of the price difference. My Now! NZ billing shows $78 ADSL that includes Faxability. Why is it such a HUGE difference in price? $49 a month difference is not chum change.

I will admit the Spark ADSL connection was slightly faster by doing the online speed test. Something like 24mbits/sec vs 20mbits/sec and the ping rate with Now at 23ms (which due to the distance from Chch to Napier, when Spark had their own local exchange in Christchurch). I had some disconnections and have narrowed it down to the Huawei modem. As soon as I went back to the original Thompson ADSL modem, no more problems. But this Friday is the VDSL line switch and i've picked up 2 more Huawei modems that support VDSL (A Spark and a Vodafone). Out of 3 Huawai modems, one of them should at least be in stable sync for VDSL.

SBQ

104 posts

Master Geek

#2183315 18-Feb-2019 22:40

OK i'm back. What can I say? I'm very happy with Now NZ and officially on VDSL2 using a Huawei HG659b (Spark badged) modem. Initially I picked up 3 modems 2nd hand. Had some issues with a Huawei HG630 modem when on ADSL (kept losing sync). For backup I picked up a Huawei HG659 (older modem) which uses the same power adapter as the HG659b. Anyways

Upstream line rate (kbit/s): 29999

Downstream line rate (kbit/s): 124311

Maximum upstream rate (kbit/s): 47837

Maximum downstream rate (kbit/s): 134180

Upstream noise safety coefficient (dB): 18.2

Downstream noise safety coefficient (dB): 9

Upstream interleave depth: 0

Downstream interleave depth: 0

Line standard: VDSL

Upstream line attenuation (dB): 15.8

Downstream line attenuation (dB): 9.3

Upstream output power (dBmV): 3.3

Downstream output power (dBmV): 14.1

Seems like a big jump in speed from ADSL2+. but not fiber speed.

and the price is right!!!

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2183318 18-Feb-2019 22:48

124/30mbit not fibre like speeds?

That's looking like a vectored dslam, with G.INP and SRA it would feel next to no difference to a standard 100/20 plan - would be just about the same latency and a tad faster than the fibre option...

I would expect that you won't feel any difference with the swap to fibre when that comes (except for slightly more consistency and less risk of copper faults arising - Rare for a circuit as short as yours though tbh.)

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

SBQ

104 posts

Master Geek

#2183461 19-Feb-2019 10:08

Yeah I couldn't believe the speed copper lines could be. I'm kinda a black sheep in the neighbourhood as everyone i've spoken to had switched over to fibre (Enable lines). I've seen Enable do all sorts of mediocre installations but that didn't seem to worry home owners here because my neighbour showed me his 200mbits/s dl speed and I thought that's pretty fast. I suppose when Chorus increased the copper line charges, (ie when Spark raised monthly prices to customers on copper lines) a lot had made the move to fibre, and being a household that demands little from internet speeds, we saw no sense to rush.

My cousin that lives further away was an early adopter of fibre. They've told me they didn't see much of a improvement in speed (perhaps PC related) and often at times, they've had just as much inconsistent speed / sync related use as before.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2183517 19-Feb-2019 11:10

SBQ:

My cousin that lives further away was an early adopter of fibre. They've told me they didn't see much of a improvement in speed (perhaps PC related) and often at times, they've had just as much inconsistent speed / sync related use as before.

Which tells me without a doubt their issue is within the home, not the physical connection.

Those issues are seriously a nightmare.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

michaelmurfy

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#2183536 19-Feb-2019 11:34

@SBQ This isn't a thread to discuss Now NZ. But since this thread has been put way off topic I'm now locking it.

Start another thread if you're wanting to discuss Now.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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