Spark refunding Fibre Wire Maintaintenance

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark refunding Fibre Wire Maintaintenance

rugrat

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#288560 8-Jul-2021 13:40

Just got Email from Spark, saying they are refunding wire maintenance on Fibre connections.

When I first found out the maintenance was worthless on Fibre connection asked for refund on payments while had Fibre and they refused, good to see a change of mind now.

I haven’t had a Spark account for a few years, but in Email see there is a link where can fill out bank details if not existing customer.

cokemaster

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#2741171 8-Jul-2021 14:56

Took them long enough to rectify, UFB isn’t exactly new these days.

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#2741179 8-Jul-2021 15:19

I got a nice refund, over $100 :)

yitz

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#2741184 8-Jul-2021 15:42

Is this possibly being initiated by Chorus who no longer have enough copper technicians to actually do the repair work? Or Spark who can't wait to get out of copper fast enough...

Supposedly this insurance was to cover maintenance of integrated wiring work?

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#2741241 8-Jul-2021 16:11

No. This was a product that insurance that customers could purchase to cover wiring faults from the termination point. When chorus fixed faults past that point, they would bill the service provider but the service provider would not pass these costs on if you had wiring insurance.

In the fibre world, this isn’t as relevant… the only use case where I think you could justify this would be if you had extensive internal wiring.

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#2741621 9-Jul-2021 07:50

I'm interested to know the full story and the reasons behind this. Wiring maintenance serves the same purpose in the fibre world that it did in the copper world - insurance to cover internal faults inside the property which is cabling owned by the property owner, not Chorus or Spark. To say that it's "worthless" in the fibre world is simply not correct.

I assume for anybody with integrated wiring that has an issue now they will be told to find their own sparky (who have skill levels ranging from very poor to excellent with no real way of knowing where they fit in) or data installer to fix any issues. At least the average Chorus tech was still fairly competent when it came to understanding and resolving faults across a wide range of copper installs.

sidefx

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#2741625 9-Jul-2021 08:02

sbiddle:

I'm interested to know the full story and the reasons behind this. Wiring maintenance serves the same purpose in the fibre world that it did in the copper world - insurance to cover internal faults inside the property which is cabling owned by the property owner, not Chorus or Spark. To say that it's "worthless" in the fibre world is simply not correct.

I assume for anybody with integrated wiring that has an issue now they will be told to find their own sparky (who have skill levels ranging from very poor to excellent with no real way of knowing where they fit in) or data installer to fix any issues. At least the average Chorus tech was still fairly competent when it came to understanding and resolving faults across a wide range of copper installs.

But in the copper world wasn't their solution pretty much just "install a master filter, plug your modem into that, beyond that you're on your own" which IS basically worthless with fibre for 97% of people who just want to plug in a modem\router and use wifi?

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#2741627 9-Jul-2021 08:07

sidefx:

sbiddle:

I'm interested to know the full story and the reasons behind this. Wiring maintenance serves the same purpose in the fibre world that it did in the copper world - insurance to cover internal faults inside the property which is cabling owned by the property owner, not Chorus or Spark. To say that it's "worthless" in the fibre world is simply not correct.

I assume for anybody with integrated wiring that has an issue now they will be told to find their own sparky (who have skill levels ranging from very poor to excellent with no real way of knowing where they fit in) or data installer to fix any issues. At least the average Chorus tech was still fairly competent when it came to understanding and resolving faults across a wide range of copper installs.

But in the copper world wasn't their solution pretty much just "install a master filter, plug your modem into that, beyond that you're on your own" which IS basically worthless with fibre?

it wasn't just about xDSL related issues, it used to be really common to get people who would have problems with a phone that would no longer work as jackpoints had become damaged, typically due to corrosion.

I guess the real question is how many people are getting integrated wiring with their Spark installs these days

chevrolux

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#2741639 9-Jul-2021 08:37

10+ years we ago, doing Telecom provisioning, we would have fixed a jackpoint no questions asked in a customers house if the wiring maintenance flag was yes (and it was pretty much always yes).

But for the last loooooong time (like since it became Chorus and not just Telecom), techs have been ignoring this requirement as the codes got less and less. You would fix things, and try to claim the code and just get told no. So it didn't happen.

And as for techs fixing integrated wiring. What a laugh. They can barely get the initial fibre install within a time frame that makes them money. They aren't going to chase a jackpoint fault. To add to that though, with the cheap DECT handsets you can get these days, do we even need to care about jackpoints?

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#2741642 9-Jul-2021 08:54

Wiring maintenance was originally only for "telephone" wiring (up to 2pr Home Lan). It stopped at stand alone BT jacks and didn't cover data cabling and RJ style jacks.

fe31nz

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#2742000 10-Jul-2021 01:39

I have a vague memory of a news article about this saying the Commerce Commission had told them do the refunds or be prosecuted for taking money for a useless service. Apparently relatively few people still use the phone wiring after moving to fibre - they typically have DECT phones already and have not been using any extra jack points for quite a while.

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#2742003 10-Jul-2021 03:03

sbiddle:
I'm interested to know the full story and the reasons behind this. Wiring maintenance serves the same purpose in the fibre world that it did in the copper world - insurance to cover internal faults inside the property which is cabling owned by the property owner, not Chorus or Spark. To say that it's "worthless" in the fibre world is simply not correct.

I assume for anybody with integrated wiring that has an issue now they will be told to find their own sparky (who have skill levels ranging from very poor to excellent with no real way of knowing where they fit in) or data installer to fix any issues. At least the average Chorus tech was still fairly competent when it came to understanding and resolving faults across a wide range of copper installs.

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