Spark Fibre 200 with Landline (Voip)

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73 posts

Master Geek

#1305264 14-May-2015 16:11

Thanks for the reply but for the customer wanting to upgrade there is no incentive to stay with spark, Its not that i am against the new contract as such but why should i be disadvantaged for the privilege of wanting to upgrade and give spark more money plus switch away from the copper phone line to phone through fibre which benefits spark.

Steve

cbrpilot

955 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Spark NZ

#1305285 14-May-2015 16:48

Hi Steve, I'm not aware of what other providers are doing here, but as stated previously Spark does get charged for Fibre speed changes by Chorus (and I presume other LFCs). Instead of passing those costs on to our customers (of which I'm sure you're thankful), we require out customers to re-contract with us so that we can be sure we recover the costs over time.

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Sred

73 posts

Master Geek

#1305308 14-May-2015 17:03

cbrpilot: Hi Steve, I'm not aware of what other providers are doing here, but as stated previously Spark does get charged for Fibre speed changes by Chorus (and I presume other LFCs). Instead of passing those costs on to our customers (of which I'm sure you're thankful), we require out customers to re-contract with us so that we can be sure we recover the costs over time.

yes 'home solutions' explained that chorus charge for the upgrade and rather than pass on the fee they put you on a new contract which is fine but why not offer a discount for the new 12 month contract to those who don't want a new router/modem/phone. why should I be potentially worse off?

cbrpilot

955 posts

Ultimate Geek

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Spark NZ

#1305314 14-May-2015 17:15

That's a fair question Steve.
Not being the one who makes decisions like that, I'd be only guessing if I'd answer.
And I'd guess that the cost/complexity of having multiple contract costs/periods etc for different upgrade scenarios is the reason. As I say, that's just a guess.

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

benokobi

927 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1305333 14-May-2015 17:54

Had chorus install fibre voice but speeds still not changed from 100/50... except my upload has dropped to 20 for the past week since ordering the change to 200/20.

cbrpilot

955 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Spark NZ

#1305335 14-May-2015 18:01

benokobi, can you please IM me your details and I'll get this fixed for you.

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

benokobi

927 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1305708 15-May-2015 11:30

cbrpilot: benokobi, can you please IM me your details and I'll get this fixed for you.

Thanks for the great help Dave.

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HamishO

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1306455 16-May-2015 23:11

Hi, I'm currently under contract with 100/50 plus a copper landline with Spark in central Auckland. Others in the household rely on @xtra email addresses so I'm therefore a very loyal Spark customer and contract extensions don't worry me. I am happy to move to the new 100/20 plan as it is $30 cheaper and I have no need for more than 20Mbps upstream (my torrenting ratios might just drop a tad!). We still have a landline because the cell phone reception in parts of our house is pretty poor (and Spark unfortunately doesn't offer femtocells), but also because our alarm monitoring uses it. I am actually quite keen on moving the landline to be through the ONT's ATA as that feels like the most technically advanced solution, but there's no practical reason for that other than cost. The redirect to mobile function might be useful though. But I really need to know that my alarm monitoring will keep working over VoIP. I realise this is something I will probably have to call my monitoring company (Matrix Security) about, but I was wondering if anyone here knew in general if there were any reasons this shouldn't work? If it will work I will probably just buy a 240V AC UPS to power both my ONT and RGW, it will be nice to have my laptop still work when the power goes out anyway - during the big outage from the Penrose substation at the end of last year the cell towers were screwed too so it was almost impossible to load just one page over 3G to figure out what was happening. I'm am worried that if it won't I would have have to upgrade my entire alarm system and run extra house wiring for the IP connection just to maintain the level of service I have now! If this is the case I will just pay Spark the surcharge to keep my copper line active for a few more years - does anyone know how much it is?

Sorry for such a long first post!

Jase2985

13463 posts

Uber Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#1306478 17-May-2015 08:54

Wow, wall of text :) a few paragraphs would go a long way.

You really need to talk to your alarm company and find out how they interface with fibre, it could be a simple IP module like an ALARMSERVER AS 200, or it might be more complicated that that, it all depends on how the company does it. there really is no quick answer sorry.

HamishO

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1306702 17-May-2015 17:15

Jase2985: Wow, wall of text :) a few paragraphs would go a long way.

Sorry, I didn't realise how much I had written until the end.

You really need to talk to your alarm company and find out how they interface with fibre, it could be a simple IP module like an ALARMSERVER AS 200, or it might be more complicated that that, it all depends on how the company does it. there really is no quick answer sorry.

Hmmm, that sounds like a lot of extra cost as presumably I will need an alarm technician to come visit the house as well as the free Spark provided one. My ONT and router are both nowhere near the alarm unit so if they had to be connected that would be more than a 5 minute job.

Anyway thanks, I will get the actual account holder to give the alarm company a call once Spark starts getting us to switch over. The account holder doesn't even know what an ONT is so I will have to do some explaining first! I still fear this will end up being an expensive expensive just to avoid a surcharge to keep the copper line, and therefore it may not be worth it.

On a wider level, I don't know how Spark and other ISPs deal with less techy people who have monitored alarms and sky boxes etc.. I guess they just tell the customer to call their service providers and have them sort it out. That must leave a sour taste in customers mouths though when their 'free' fibre upgrade is no longer so!

Jase2985

13463 posts

Uber Geek

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Lifetime subscriber

#1306703 17-May-2015 17:23

but like you say if you save $30 a month its pretty easy to recoup any costs you might have interfacing the alarm

sbiddle

30853 posts

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Retired Mod

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Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1306706 17-May-2015 17:26

The alarm industry themselves are their own biggest problem. They sat around denying that the PSTN network was going to eventually go, and many companies are still stuck in the 1980's only supporting cheap alarm concentrators over regular POTS lines.

There are still plenty of major alarm companies that don't support IP monitoring (whether it be over the internet and/or 3G), despite the fact this should now be the norm.

Why won't they move? It means upskilling, and having to invest in better infrastructure. Many don't want to do that - they just want to reap the profits from selling overpriced monitoring.

If anybody in the same boat rings their alarm company and doesn't get a good IP based solution put in front of them (and Contact ID to IP modules are cheap as chips), it's time to move to a better alarm company.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1306708 17-May-2015 17:29

HamishO:
Jase2985: Wow, wall of text :) a few paragraphs would go a long way.

Sorry, I didn't realise how much I had written until the end.

You really need to talk to your alarm company and find out how they interface with fibre, it could be a simple IP module like an ALARMSERVER AS 200, or it might be more complicated that that, it all depends on how the company does it. there really is no quick answer sorry.

Hmmm, that sounds like a lot of extra cost as presumably I will need an alarm technician to come visit the house as well as the free Spark provided one. My ONT and router are both nowhere near the alarm unit so if they had to be connected that would be more than a 5 minute job.

Anyway thanks, I will get the actual account holder to give the alarm company a call once Spark starts getting us to switch over. The account holder doesn't even know what an ONT is so I will have to do some explaining first! I still fear this will end up being an expensive expensive just to avoid a surcharge to keep the copper line, and therefore it may not be worth it.

On a wider level, I don't know how Spark and other ISPs deal with less techy people who have monitored alarms and sky boxes etc.. I guess they just tell the customer to call their service providers and have them sort it out. That must leave a sour taste in customers mouths though when their 'free' fibre upgrade is no longer so!

whilst the alarm is probably annoying and expensive, the 'loss' of the ability to order PPV directly throgh the myslky box is such a minor thing.

1) very few people actually use their sky box for this purpose (since it is so ludicrously expensive)
2) you can always phone up to order the movie/event anyway

richms

28191 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1306715 17-May-2015 18:11

Sky have had idle ethernet ports on the mysky boxes since they started giving them out. No excuse not having a solution for them by about 3 years ago.

The other boxes are based on 20 ish year old technology so well overdue for a trip to the dump. Sky have said they will be swapping them out but delayed doing anything.

All sky's problem to deal with and they only have themselves to blame. The day naked broadband was available it was already too late for them to start thinking about a solution.

Richard rich.ms

HamishO

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1306750 17-May-2015 19:18

whilst the alarm is probably annoying and expensive, the 'loss' of the ability to order PPV directly throgh the myslky box is such a minor thing.

1) very few people actually use their sky box for this purpose (since it is so ludicrously expensive)
2) you can always phone up to order the movie/event anyway

I absolutely agree on that matter. We don't have either of our mySky boxes connected as there are no nearby telephone plugs and have never missed the ability.

Jase2985: but like you say if you save $30 a month its pretty easy to recoup any costs you might have interfacing the alarm

Hopefully. As long as the alarm company does it as a few hundred dollar exercise only and not a few thousand dollar one.

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