I got cold-called by Spark tonight offering a tempting deal to switch my broadband over to them.
The offer is a 12-month contract for UFB 30/10, unlimited data, phone included, for $79/month, with a further $10/month discount off my Spark on-account mobile plan. They are also throwing in the modem (Huawei HG630b) for free.
I'm currently with 2Degrees, having been carried over from Snap. I had been hoping for Bigpipe to start supporting UFB in Palmerston North, and was planning on switching to them when they went live here (rumoured to be in a month or so), but this offer would give me most of what I'm looking for. I don't need more than 30/10, the unlimited data is the main thing I'm after, and the phone line included means I will be making a decent saving on my current plan (and works out cheaper than my plan to move to BigPipe and port my phone back to Xnet through VFX). However, I wanted to check a few things first:
1. My Snap/2Degrees UFB connection has been pretty solid, with no notable outages. Do I have anything to be concerned about with Spark?
2. The Huawei modem looks pretty basic. I currently have a Fritzbox 7390, which is okay (but the wifi performance is appalling, with several deadspots in my house). Is the Huawei HG630b better or worse, especially on the wifi front? Would it be worth trying to upgrade it to the 659b? Is there a notable performance boost?
Any other fishhooks I need to think about? Does this sound like a good deal to you?