Spark Upgrade New Zealand programme

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#205191 2-Nov-2016 13:00

Just received:

Spark launches ambitious Upgrade New Zealand programme

Upgrading customers from fault prone copper to fast, more reliable fibre and wireless broadband

Spark wants to move as many customers as possible off old copper broadband and onto the newer broadband technologies, fibre and wireless broadband.

Jason Paris, CEO of Spark Home, Mobile and Business explains, “We’re announcing an ambitious new programme today called ‘Upgrade New Zealand’. First, we want to accelerate take up of fibre: we are trialing new deployment methods that aim to simplify the process of installing fibre in individual homes and improve the efficiency of the roll out of fibre across New Zealand. Second, we are encouraging customers who are low to moderate data users and currently have copper broadband to move onto far more reliable and easy to install wireless broadband technology.”

Chorus copper lines are a legacy technology; they are getting older and are increasingly prone to faults. Every month, Spark logs around 30,000 requests with Chorus for customers who report faults on their broadband or landline services that rely on a Chorus copper line connection – and these volumes increase over the wet winter months. It is not uncommon for some unfortunate customers to experience multiple faults within a few months, each requiring investigation by Chorus technicians.

Paris says, “During winter, we apologized to customers for the poor experience they had on the Chorus copper network. Now it’s time for Spark to take action, to help customers avoid the pain that they experienced last winter, in future. We’re making sure that when customers do experience faults, that they can get back online quickly – and now we’re providing options so many of them can change to a more reliable broadband solution.”

Accelerating fibre take-up through a ‘street in a week’ streamlined installation process
Spark and Ultrafast Fibre (UFF) are trialing a new scheme that aims to makes it much easier and quicker for homeowners to install fibre for their broadband service. The scheme involves upgrading all homes in the same street that want Spark fibre broadband, in just one week – with customers having the certainty of being able to select a specific day within that week for their fibre installation.

This new approach should be a big improvement from the current process, where customers need to place their order with their service provider (such as Spark) and then go into the queue for the local fibre company to carry out the installation.

The current process involves a great deal of ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ between the customer, their service provider, the fibre company and the contracting technicians who actually carry out the installation. It can take several weeks or longer for installations to take place.

Jason Paris, CEO of Spark Home Mobile and Business, says the ‘street in a week’ trial with Ultrafast Fibre aims to boost the take-up of fibre by Spark customers by removing a lot of the frustration and uncertainty from the installation process:

“Spark has been a big supporter of the UFB fibre rollout, with a 43% share of the fibre broadband market. We’ve upgraded a good proportion of our broadband customers who have already had fibre laid in their street from their old copper line connection to fibre.

“However, while our customers tell us that they love fibre when they get it, the process of getting it installed is often problematic and can involve lots of hassle. For many customers, that can prove a turnoff as the installation process seems just too hard.

“Many of our ‘early adopter’ customers have already got fibre, so we’re really pleased to be partnering with Ultrafast Fibre to explore new, more efficient installation methods to encourage many others to move across to a fibre broadband connection.”

William Hamilton, CEO, Ultrafast Fibre adds, “We are constantly working to identify quicker, smarter ways to complete fibre connections for our Retail Service Providers and we’re excited about testing any new initiatives that may enhance the industry’s migration to fibre and the End User customer experience.”

The initial trial aims to upgrade a neighbourhood of 400 households to fibre, in selected streets in Nawton, Grandview Heights and Western Heights in Hamilton, in mid-November. Spark and Ultrafast Fibre are aiming to take the feedback from this trial and then use it to scale up the approach for further communities. Spark is also looking to work with other LFCs to take this approach to other communities.

Moving customers with lower data usage onto wireless broadband
While fibre is the preferred broadband technology for customers who use large amounts of data, Spark is offering wireless broadband to customers with low to medium data usage, who currently have a copper broadband connection.

Wireless broadband uses Spark’s super-fast 4G mobile network to provide home broadband, without the need for a copper line connection. Essentially, customers who live in the wireless broadband ‘footprint’ (an area with a strong 4G mobile signal) receive their broadband and phone line to a modem in their home over the mobile network – and then the modem allows them to access the internet on their computer or mobile device using Wi-Fi in the same way as they would with a copper or fibre connection.

Kayne Munro, Spark’s lead for wireless broadband, explains, “The 4G network offers fast speeds, with less risk of faults than most copper connections. Spark customers relying on a copper line connection are approximately 50 times more likely to report a fault compared with those on the Spark mobile network.

“The 4G network continues to expand the reach of Spark broadband – 150,000 NZ homes that previously had no access to copper or fibre broadband can now sign up to wireless broadband. In total, over 1.6m homes and businesses can access wireless broadband. And we continue to expand coverage: in the last three months, wireless broadband has become available to 40,000 more addresses.

“Best of all, it’s really easy to set up. The customer can have a modem delivered to their door in a couple of days. They call Spark to activate their connection and then jump online in minutes. No technician or installation is needed. Customers tell us they enjoy the ease of installation for wireless broadband and are loving the speed and reliability improvements they’ve experienced since upgrading from a copper connection.”

From today, wireless broadband is available in Spark stores, online at www.spark.co.nz/wirelessbroadband, or by speaking to Spark on the phone or through online chat.

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#1662919 2-Nov-2016 19:58

This sounds really positive - copper is buggered and it's time to start planning for its demise. I would really like Spark to quantify their plans for rolling out fixed 4G going forward. The press release states that they have added 40,000 households in the last three months, but that's not a huge figure and I doubt that the majority of households were already in the catchment three months ago.

I live in an urban area in a main centre, use less than 30Gb a month on average, am satisfied with modest speeds, and don't want the hassle of a fibre install. So, it would seem that I'm a perfect candidate for fixed 4G, yet it's apparently still not available here. Am I likely to be waiting for a month, six months, a year, three years...?

kornflake

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#1662941 2-Nov-2016 20:36

Although the 4G option is a good idea in theory, data caps are going to kill this one, as in the more users get used to the better experience the higher their data usage is going grow, most people don't use much data at present as their sync rates are so poor, the inclusion of Lightbox isn't going help either and will create a real problem as one can not lower the definition level to keep their bandwidth usage in check. I know that the idea is for high users to move to Fibre, but we all know this isn't always possible or available everywhere and can be a nightmare to have installed.

**Edited as I did not clearly point out I was referring to the 4G option.

nakedgeek

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#1662987 2-Nov-2016 22:09

Last time I checked (last week) their 4G sign up form (http://www.spark.co.nz/shop/internet/rural/orderform?planid=fwvbundle040801) accessed from the "Order now" button was plain HTTP and was asking for a LOT of personal information. I have advised them over twitter and apparently this has "been fed back to the right team", but it was still HTTP when I checked this morning after reading this announcement.

(Edit: Specify that the 4G signup form is http, others seemed to be https, but i didn't check them all)

chevrolux

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#1662990 2-Nov-2016 22:15

Hehehe I wonder what Chorus thinks of this.

Very interested to see this "street in a week" happen. Really hard to understand how it might work with coordinating with all the home owners. I don't see how they could do that differently to how MDU's are dealt with. But clearly they have thought about it. Again, keen to see what Chorus thinks. Delayed Chorus UFB installs are just the bane of my life lately.

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#1662995 2-Nov-2016 22:23

kornflake:

Although the 4G option is a good idea in theory, data caps are going to kill this one, as in the more users get used to the better experience the higher their data usage is going grow, most people don't use much data at present as their sync rates are so poor, the inclusion of Lightbox isn't going help either and will create a real problem as one can not lower the definition level to keep their bandwidth usage in check. I know that the idea is for high users to move to Fibre, but we all know this isn't always possible or available everywhere and can be a nightmare to have installed.

**Edited as I did not clearly point out I was referring to the 4G option.

Thats a generalisation. Not everyone is a wannabee data user. Many use email, web, Youtube, they don't use 20,000GB per month. For those that use 120GB or less, its a real option. If you use more, its not a real option. It will cater for many copper users to get a better experience.

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#1662997 2-Nov-2016 22:25

chevrolux:

Hehehe I wonder what Chorus thinks of this.

Very interested to see this "street in a week" happen. Really hard to understand how it might work with coordinating with all the home owners. I don't see how they could do that differently to how MDU's are dealt with. But clearly they have thought about it. Again, keen to see what Chorus thinks. Delayed Chorus UFB installs are just the bane of my life lately.

What does an MDU have to do with it? Its a 4G solution, using a 4G modem to connect to the tower. Single one bedroom house, or one in a 400 unit building, makes no difference.

sonyxperiageek

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#1663007 2-Nov-2016 23:37

tdgeek:

chevrolux:

Hehehe I wonder what Chorus thinks of this.

Very interested to see this "street in a week" happen. Really hard to understand how it might work with coordinating with all the home owners. I don't see how they could do that differently to how MDU's are dealt with. But clearly they have thought about it. Again, keen to see what Chorus thinks. Delayed Chorus UFB installs are just the bane of my life lately.

What does an MDU have to do with it? Its a 4G solution, using a 4G modem to connect to the tower. Single one bedroom house, or one in a 400 unit building, makes no difference.

I think he's talking about the fibre acceleration programme, not the uptake of wireless broadband.

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#1663017 3-Nov-2016 00:45

nice move, will be interesting to see if average 4g speeds dip much by the idea.

As for the street in a week plan, who would have thought of that one eh? going out in a burst and doing the area at once... its almost like someone stopped to think how best to both speed up and optimize the process!

Hope the other LFCs can catch on and join in too.

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linw

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#1663878 4-Nov-2016 16:13

Got my letter today offering wireless broadband as they are "upgrading the broadband" in our street. This street has had fibre for over 4 years and I was the first hooked up. Telecom (as it was then) didn't have fibre plans so I have been with Orcon since then.

But, interesting that they are pushing wireless in a street that the govt has spent heaps on to get fibre laid.

scrounger

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#1664175 5-Nov-2016 11:45

With Upgrade NZ Spark saves $40 per month per connection that they normally pay to Chorus for the the copper connection. Spark charges exactly the same for the wireless service as for ADSL + Landline. So for 150,000 households over the next year Spark is saving themselves $72 million a year in payments to Chorus annually. That's quite a motivation to convert people onto wireless and there was no specific upgrade of their 4G network for this. They are basically leveraging the unused capacity of their 4G network and this offering will likely stop once their 4G network is saturated or consumer interest dwindles (once the fibre rollout gains more credibility). It's not a mobile service unlike your cell phone, the modem is loosely tethered to a specific cell tower and they police you if they detect you are roaming with it to other cell sites and cut you off if you are caught.

Some copper connections can be dodgy, so the wireless solution may be a better option in some cases. But to make sales targets they are not always explaining the drawbacks on the landline features: like in a power outage you have no phone, it doesn't support home security or medical alert systems and it doesn't work with your in-home phone wiring (and even if it did will they support the same wire maintenance agreement you now have with your copper plan).

It's doubtful they have performed adequate stress tests or even shaped the anticipated traffic on their network to determine if adding 150,000 connections, each downloading roughly 100GB per month, will adversely impact other network users - mobile phone customers. But those complaints will merely be pushed to their call centre if you can wait a few hours or a few days to get a return call to tell you that everything is now "fine".

BUT THE MOST ASTONISHING THING about this whole offering is that the Upgrade NZ pricing plan points out the dramatic inequity in mobile data charging rates.

Using Spark's monthly plan charges from their website a land line rental charge is $10/month can be imputed. Using this, then a wireless broadband plan for 60GB/month costs $1.25 per GB ($85/month - 10/month / 60GB) and the 120GB plan costs just $0.71/GB ($95/month - 10/month / 120GB). Compare this to the $9/GB/Month you pay for adding an extra 1GB of data on their mobile phone plans (over the exact same network). So a mobile phone user pays nearly 13X the cost per GB than on a wireless broadband plan for consuming the same 1GB over the same network.

Wow! No wonder they don't want to let you roam with a wireless modem. Just think about how much money Spark would lose from customers reducing their spend on mobile phone data plans. And the option doesn't exist for wireless broadband customers to utilize any of their data cap for their mobile phones that use the exact same network.

In short it looks like the public is getting ripped off by having 2 single entities that own the NZ mobile network and silently conspire to keep access costs inflated. And the commerce commission is happy to let this happen even though they agreed that they couldn't trust the same players to manage the copper and fibre networks.

Telecom may have changed their name to Spark and off-loaded Chorus, but the attitudes are tougher to change. This is just one more of Spark's little victories over the public.

staticnz

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#1664183 5-Nov-2016 12:22

It costs a lot more to provide capacity across the entire network for a mobile user - they might need to use it anywhere whereas a fixed wireless connection is only being used in a single location and is much cheaper to provide capacity for.

chevrolux

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#1664199 5-Nov-2016 13:02

scrounger:

With Upgrade NZ Spark saves $40 per month per connection that they normally pay to Chorus for the the copper connection. Spark charges exactly the same for the wireless service as for ADSL + Landline. So for 150,000 households over the next year Spark is saving themselves $72 million a year in payments to Chorus annually. That's quite a motivation to convert people onto wireless and there was no specific upgrade of their 4G network for this. They are basically leveraging the unused capacity of their 4G network and this offering will likely stop once their 4G network is saturated or consumer interest dwindles (once the fibre rollout gains more credibility). It's not a mobile service unlike your cell phone, the modem is loosely tethered to a specific cell tower and they police you if they detect you are roaming with it to other cell sites and cut you off if you are caught.

That's a given. Of course they want people on their own network as opposed to renting Chorus copper. No different to Vodafone not installing UFB where they have their own HFC.

Some copper connections can be dodgy, so the wireless solution may be a better option in some cases. But to make sales targets they are not always explaining the drawbacks on the landline features: like in a power outage you have no phone, it doesn't support home security or medical alert systems and it doesn't work with your in-home phone wiring (and even if it did will they support the same wire maintenance agreement you now have with your copper plan).

Of course it will work with home wiring, it's just a built in ATA on the router. In fact I am pretty sure they offer a service for a tech to come and integrate back to the home wiring. There are much better IP based solutions for monitoring your home security. And medical alert, sure. Those alarms are finally coming in to the 21st centruy so not such a big deal.

It's doubtful they have performed adequate stress tests or even shaped the anticipated traffic on their network to determine if adding 150,000 connections, each downloading roughly 100GB per month, will adversely impact other network users - mobile phone customers. But those complaints will merely be pushed to their call centre if you can wait a few hours or a few days to get a return call to tell you that everything is now "fine".

Spark test stuff. It took them a number of years to roll out a VoIP offering because what they had wasn't going to work. It's extremely stupid to suggest they don't have a thorough understanding of what their network is capable of. And of course there will be peak load times, but it's not like you are going to get people "downloading the internet" on these plans.

hio77

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#1664361 5-Nov-2016 18:57

You need to remember 4G offerings like this are not directly comparable to mobile plans, for starters you are allocating capacity on a single tower, that connection shouldn't move (Would not surprise me the least bit of its locked to a given tower)

While spark are saving the line rental, they are still paying for the capacity in some form - be it not a flatline exactly 40$.

This is purely an offering for the little folk doing their emails, not for those who torrent the hell out of their connection. Spark have smartly targeted that area with their accelerated UFB deployment in an area at the same time.

@chevrolux covered everything else pretty well!

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Talkiet

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#1664377 5-Nov-2016 20:17

scrounger:

With Upgrade NZ Spark saves $40 per month per connection that they normally pay to Chorus for the the copper connection. Spark charges exactly the same for the wireless service as for ADSL + Landline. So for 150,000 households over the next year Spark is saving themselves $72 million a year in payments to Chorus annually. That's quite a motivation to convert people onto wireless and there was no specific upgrade of their 4G network for this. They are basically leveraging the unused capacity of their 4G network and this offering will likely stop once their 4G network is saturated or consumer interest dwindles (once the fibre rollout gains more credibility). It's not a mobile service unlike your cell phone, the modem is loosely tethered to a specific cell tower and they police you if they detect you are roaming with it to other cell sites and cut you off if you are caught.

Some copper connections can be dodgy, so the wireless solution may be a better option in some cases. But to make sales targets they are not always explaining the drawbacks on the landline features: like in a power outage you have no phone, it doesn't support home security or medical alert systems and it doesn't work with your in-home phone wiring (and even if it did will they support the same wire maintenance agreement you now have with your copper plan).

It's doubtful they have performed adequate stress tests or even shaped the anticipated traffic on their network to determine if adding 150,000 connections, each downloading roughly 100GB per month, will adversely impact other network users - mobile phone customers. But those complaints will merely be pushed to their call centre if you can wait a few hours or a few days to get a return call to tell you that everything is now "fine".

BUT THE MOST ASTONISHING THING about this whole offering is that the Upgrade NZ pricing plan points out the dramatic inequity in mobile data charging rates.

Using Spark's monthly plan charges from their website a land line rental charge is $10/month can be imputed. Using this, then a wireless broadband plan for 60GB/month costs $1.25 per GB ($85/month - 10/month / 60GB) and the 120GB plan costs just $0.71/GB ($95/month - 10/month / 120GB). Compare this to the $9/GB/Month you pay for adding an extra 1GB of data on their mobile phone plans (over the exact same network). So a mobile phone user pays nearly 13X the cost per GB than on a wireless broadband plan for consuming the same 1GB over the same network.

Wow! No wonder they don't want to let you roam with a wireless modem. Just think about how much money Spark would lose from customers reducing their spend on mobile phone data plans. And the option doesn't exist for wireless broadband customers to utilize any of their data cap for their mobile phones that use the exact same network.

In short it looks like the public is getting ripped off by having 2 single entities that own the NZ mobile network and silently conspire to keep access costs inflated. And the commerce commission is happy to let this happen even though they agreed that they couldn't trust the same players to manage the copper and fibre networks.

Telecom may have changed their name to Spark and off-loaded Chorus, but the attitudes are tougher to change. This is just one more of Spark's little victories over the public.

I know the people that did some of the modelling of the impact of this service. I'm out and out calling you completely wrong when you suggest "It's doubtful they have performed adequate stress tests or even shaped the anticipated traffic on their network" and it's insulting to all the tech people at Spark that you would think that. We have one of most (if not the most) well dimensioned networks in the country and making up things and posting them here is doing a disservice to our service, planners and yourself.

You also don't really seem to have much current or valid knowledge of the costs involved in the dimensioning and management of large mobile networks - and despite working in Spark - NEITHER DO I... I'm a hell of a lot closer to it than you are and I don't know the detailed economics. I do however know several of the people involved and they are smart cookies. I trust them.

We've changed a lot more in the last few years than the opinions of many disgruntled customers... We weren't and aren't perfect, but it's ever frustrating to be judged by history.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Technofreak

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#1664387 5-Nov-2016 21:26

Interesting developments, the delivery of broadband internet via 4G makes a lot of sense for many internet users, and their ISP.

It was only two months ago on the Gigatown thread where I was rubbished when I questioned the value of having FTTH everywhere. In that thread I suggested this sort of service will make FTTH unnecessary for many home owners. We are just seeing the start of wireless broadband.

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