Spark buys 26% of NOW

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark buys 26% of NOW

sbiddle

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#185685 1-Dec-2015 19:35

I'm surprised this hasn't made bigger news today. The ISP acquisitions are still clearly happening..

Link to the nzherald article which seems to be about the only reference to it so far. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11554083

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#1438828 1-Dec-2015 19:38

Consolidation of the ISP market, probably not that good for consumers in the longer term.

Bobdn

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#1438856 1-Dec-2015 20:45

I wonder if it's possible to have too much competition. For a country of our size, there might be only room for three or four ISPs and beyond that there's not really enough money to go around and little room for reinvestment and innovation. Having a smaller number of ISPs could benefit consumers in the medium to longer term.

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#1438865 1-Dec-2015 20:57

Consumers are already getting fantastic deals - that's why buyouts are happening. Cut throat pricing with very little margin for most customers means it becomes a numbers game - if you're making a few $ per customer then this works well if you have 100,000 of them. If doesn't work well if you don't have many.

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#1438984 2-Dec-2015 02:26

Seems pretty weird to only buy 26%

muppet

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#1438993 2-Dec-2015 06:30

Oh no.
They're my ISP here in The Bay and they're really good. Quick to respond, actually care, are helpful.

This makes me very nervous.

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#1439010 2-Dec-2015 07:26

Ragnor: Seems pretty weird to only buy 26%

It's probably somebody's existing shareholding or it is was simply for a capital injection it's probably resulted in a share dilution of other parties. If you look at the companies office website you'd pretty quickly be able to confirm this.

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#1439020 2-Dec-2015 07:53

It's a combination of new shares issued, and the reduction in holdings from the Deller and Nation families.

http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/1221330/22072733/entityFilingRequirement?backurl=%2Fcompanies%2Fapp%2Fui%2Fpages%2Fcompanies%2F1221330%2Fdocuments

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#1439080 2-Dec-2015 09:14

I don't even know about NOW! until reading this thread.

That just shows it is not worth reporting

muppet

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#1439108 2-Dec-2015 10:43

nakedmolerat: I don't even know about NOW! until reading this thread.

That just shows it is not worth reporting

They're like, the last ISP where you can ring up and get a person to help you without an IVR.
I once sent them a message on their website contact form and someone called me back WITHIN 2 MINUTES. I near sheet myself.
They are the last of the dying breed where customer service is still more important than call metrics.
I know it won't last forever, but please Jesus, not yet. Not so soon.

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#1439155 2-Dec-2015 11:37

muppet:
nakedmolerat: I don't even know about NOW! until reading this thread.

That just shows it is not worth reporting

They're like, the last ISP where you can ring up and get a person to help you without an IVR.
I once sent them a message on their website contact form and someone called me back WITHIN 2 MINUTES. I near sheet myself.
They are the last of the dying breed where customer service is still more important than call metrics.
I know it won't last forever, but please Jesus, not yet. Not so soon.

Maybe they will switch to the Spark 'support' centre?

That would be a nice Christmas present!

Sounds like a good ISP so fingers crossed it won't change.

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#1439156 2-Dec-2015 11:41

Ragnor: Seems pretty weird to only buy 26%

It's enough to stop a major change in the way the company does business, for which you usually need a 75% vote at a shareholders' meeting.
So if Spark owns 26%, they can for example stop the company selling out to, say Vodafone.

There may also be [a desire for] commercial arrangements between the two companies for provision of transit capacity or whatever, that can be secured with a shareholding.

So 26% is not so weird

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#1439186 2-Dec-2015 12:11

muppet:
nakedmolerat: I don't even know about NOW! until reading this thread.

That just shows it is not worth reporting

They're like, the last ISP where you can ring up and get a person to help you without an IVR.
I once sent them a message on their website contact form and someone called me back WITHIN 2 MINUTES. I near sheet myself.
They are the last of the dying breed where customer service is still more important than call metrics.
I know it won't last forever, but please Jesus, not yet. Not so soon.

well we're 100% owned by spark, and no customer of ours has ever had to wait on hold, and we regularly reply to emails within a few minutes.

so I wouldn't worry too much about being merged into spark.

(disclaimer: I have no inside knowledge of this deal - I only know what I have read in this thread)

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#1439187 2-Dec-2015 12:13

I hope that Spark can sort out Now's SIP trunk offering. Had another tech ring me today saying that they could not call a remote IVR from the new Now trunks that he had installed. Now is the only SIP carrier that we have tested that uses Inband rather than RFC2833 for DTMF signaling.

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#1439646 3-Dec-2015 01:21

linw:
Maybe they will switch to the Spark 'support' centre?

That would be a nice Christmas present!

Sounds like a good ISP so fingers crossed it won't change.

They have a very large market share in hawkes bay
They also have advertisements for about 60 jobs in the local newspaper etc.
I see them as the up-and-coming equivalant of snap which had a very similar entrenched market share in Canterbury

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#1439647 3-Dec-2015 01:36

raytaylor:
linw:
Maybe they will switch to the Spark 'support' centre?

That would be a nice Christmas present!

Sounds like a good ISP so fingers crossed it won't change.

They have a very large market share in hawkes bay
They also have advertisements for about 60 jobs in the local newspaper etc.
I see them as the up-and-coming equivalant of snap which had a very similar entrenched market share in Canterbury

Didn't Now buy out and existing HB ISP

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