Skinny Announcing New Plans on Wednesday

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Skinny Announcing New Plans on Wednesday

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1932 posts

Uber Geek

#2478958 7-May-2020 21:51

ronw:

Just currious about MMS I am on Skinny Direct monthly and of course I cannot reply to MMS. Is there any answer to this does one have to but a monthly add on to your prepaid mongthly amount. What would seem pretty pointless considering the few times I would use it. Did find out today I ordered click and collect from PB tech and when it was ready for pickup the texted me and said reply to this message. But I cannot reply as it refuses to allow it on prepay.

I know the long term answer is everyone use Signal and I do but its hard to get non tech literate people to switch. Is there any other alternative

richms:

When I got my phone that could send SMS, and then they finally allowed that to be used I had to pre buy a pack of lots of SMS that from memory worked out about 7c each if I used them all, but I didnt because I only had 2 people I could send them to and neither could reply. It certainly has come a long way. Its unlimited on most plans now so its all meh about smsing till someone sends a MMS and you accidentally reply to it.

Free MMS on Kogan mobile all plans.

ronw

1222 posts

Uber Geek

#2478966 7-May-2020 22:05

No interest in trying Kogan, looked at their page and it sounds way too complicated. I just like a single plan that I am on but would like some improvements.

Nokia 7 Plus
Nexus 6P 32Gb
Nexus 6 Phone
Nexus 5 Phone
Nexus 7 2013 Tablet
Samsung TAB A 8"
Samsung TAB A 10"

& many Windows laptops, Desktops etc

JarrodM

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2478982 7-May-2020 23:08

ronw:
No interest in trying Kogan, looked at their page and it sounds way too complicated. I just like a single plan that I am on but would like some improvements.

I was previously with skinny direct, you can buy “extras” credit (well you could when I was with them) which you could then use for sending premium sms and mms, along with overseas data/calling packs. I used it when I went to the USA to grab a 24hour data pack so I could use my phone before getting a local sim. Think you can get $5/10/$20 packs, works just like prepay credit.

SirHumphreyAppleby

2844 posts

Uber Geek

#2479022 8-May-2020 08:14

Linux:

@SirHumphreyAppleby When I started at Vodafone just on 20 years ago it was 20 cents an SMS then and zero included, The included SMS really only started around 2005

I'm not sure if you are supporting my point or missed it.

boosacnoodle

963 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2479052 8-May-2020 09:19

SirHumphreyAppleby:

That's what the casual rates are for.

Your choice is to either seriously over-pay for services at casual rates ($0.2 per text message!), or over-pay for a plan you don't need. The exorbitant casual rates need to come down. Why these haven't been regulated I just can't understand... it was $0.20 for a text message more than 20 years ago.

Yes, that is very much an issue. However I think the issue with casual rates is that there's no "baseline" for your spend each month, whereas this is clearly defined with the "Unplan" broadband which has a clear price floor.

ronw

1222 posts

Uber Geek

#2479076 8-May-2020 10:22

Yes I realise that (not sure if they still exist) but it seems an expensive way to allow a reply to an occassional commercial text or reply to mms. I would be lucky to use it once a month and the money would just disappear each month. I don't really care about MMS it is the odd times I need to reply to a text like the PBTEC yesterday I had to hang around outside the shop and shout at PB staff when there was one in sight that I cannot reply to your text. Radio NZ is another crowd that use the same system. They encourage you to send them texts and the immediately it fails becuase they want to send you a pay forward text saying something like Thank you for your text. Stupid, I am guessing they make some money out of the reply texts but it is crazy way to treat your customers

JarrodM:
ronw:

No interest in trying Kogan, looked at their page and it sounds way too complicated. I just like a single plan that I am on but would like some improvements.

I was previously with skinny direct, you can buy “extras” credit (well you could when I was with them) which you could then use for sending premium sms and mms, along with overseas data/calling packs. I used it when I went to the USA to grab a 24hour data pack so I could use my phone before getting a local sim. Think you can get $5/10/$20 packs, works just like prepay credit.

Nokia 7 Plus
Nexus 6P 32Gb
Nexus 6 Phone
Nexus 5 Phone
Nexus 7 2013 Tablet
Samsung TAB A 8"
Samsung TAB A 10"

& many Windows laptops, Desktops etc

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#2479159 8-May-2020 11:08

ronw:

Yes I realise that (not sure if they still exist) but it seems an expensive way to allow a reply to an occassional commercial text or reply to mms. I would be lucky to use it once a month and the money would just disappear each month. I don't really care about MMS it is the odd times I need to reply to a text like the PBTEC yesterday I had to hang around outside the shop and shout at PB staff when there was one in sight that I cannot reply to your text. Radio NZ is another crowd that use the same system. They encourage you to send them texts and the immediately it fails becuase they want to send you a pay forward text saying something like Thank you for your text. Stupid, I am guessing they make some money out of the reply texts but it is crazy way to treat your customers

I mean a big selling point of Skinny Direct was spending the fixed amount each month. You couldn't accidentally overspend.

I don't think extras credit expired each month? So you could buy $5 and have it last however long you need

It is a grandfathered product now, They have similar plans on regular Skinny but you can't get quite as good as the old $30 pricing.

Regular Skinny also has similar 'set and forget' card payment now where it renews your plan directly using your card rather than having to top up first.

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

ajw

1932 posts

Uber Geek

#2479446 8-May-2020 17:37

@Dochart

A friend is a engineer for kiwirail and recently switched to kogan from skinny by rail he says vodafone is far superior for coverage. His phone does not have band 28.

Dochart

804 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2479447 8-May-2020 17:40

ajw:
@Dochart

A friend is a engineer for kiwirail and recently switched to kogan from skinny by rail he says vodafone is far superior for coverage. His phone does not have band 28.

Where I live Spark/Skinny is the best for me due to Band 28 4G 700mhz.

This website is good for checking where the cell towers are at so different areas will have better coverage depending on which network the tower is using.

https://gis.geek.nz/map/celltowers

ajw

1932 posts

Uber Geek

#2479448 8-May-2020 17:52

@Dochart

Yes I visit that site all the time.

Dochart

804 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2479450 8-May-2020 17:54

ajw:
@Dochart

Yes I visit that site all the time.

Same it’s my go to website when I want to know if I can get coverage or not at certain places.

richms

28174 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2479498 8-May-2020 20:52

ajw:

@Dochart

A friend is a engineer for kiwirail and recently switched to kogan from skinny by rail he says vodafone is far superior for coverage. His phone does not have band 28.

I would say that their experience is not really worth paying attention to since its hard to judge a telco when you only use half of it. We will revisit these issues when 5g becomes a thing, but for now all phones should support all networks equally, and someone chosing one network over another because of unsuitable hardware isnt something to pay attention to.

Richard rich.ms

ajw

1932 posts

Uber Geek

#2479506 8-May-2020 21:10

richms:

ajw:

@Dochart

A friend is a engineer for kiwirail and recently switched to kogan from skinny by rail he says vodafone is far superior for coverage. His phone does not have band 28.

I would say that their experience is not really worth paying attention to since its hard to judge a telco when you only use half of it. We will revisit these issues when 5g becomes a thing, but for now all phones should support all networks equally, and someone chosing one network over another because of unsuitable hardware isnt something to pay attention to.

Well in his case he has never regretted the move to Kogan not only does he get better reception but for just over $21 per month and this is a full month (on a kogan 12 month discount) gets unlimited talk (nz and au) 4GIG of data unlimited MMS nationwide VOLTE and unlimited free access to voicemail. Never will I see Spark/Skinny offer this much for this price and unlimited text..

GSManiac

488 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2481151 11-May-2020 13:13

Annoyingly I had switched from the $36 to the $16 per month plan while in Lockdown. I don’t want to switch back to endless data plan and not be able to access my banked roll over. so guess I’ll be sticking to the $16 plan until I use up 15gb of data. By which point I’ll likely switch to Kogan mobile.

doug3

100 posts

Master Geek

#2481500 11-May-2020 20:54

Last year I used 3, 30GB plans for $198 and 10, 1.25GB plans for $160.
Total data used, 102.5GB at total cost $358, average every 28 days, 7.885GB at $27.54.

To get the same amount of data now I would have to buy the $46 (Endless Data plan) 67% extra.

They need to make the unused full speed data rollover on all the Endless Data plans so that the reduced speed doesn’t start till all the rollover data is used, otherwise these plans are just away of increasing the data cost by a large amount.

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