Skinny Fibre Broadband

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Skinny Fibre Broadband

Steve113

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#294095 4-Mar-2022 16:34

I'm in the process of looking for another service provider, I'm currently with Slingshot Gigabit Fibre and looking at Skinny's 12mnths deal for Gigabit Fibre which seems like a great offer at the moment.

What is everyone's experience with Skinny?

I've noticed Skinny is low touch from a customer service point of view but that's not too much of an issue as long as the service is stable.

Another question is I have a Vodafone Modem Huawei HG659 (which I've carried through throughout the ages 😀). Will I able to use it? Reason I ask is because I am too lazy to setup DHCP with all my IoT even though Skinny mentions they provide a modem as part of the deal.

I did look inside the VF modem settings and I could not find where you can set the PPPoE or VLAN 10 setting.

Overall do you recommend Skinny and their online based customer service approach more importantly how do you rate their Fibre Broadband service?

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Max
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#2879185 4-Mar-2022 17:13

VF Ultra Hub cannot be changed away from DHCP VLAN Tag 10 which is what Vocus(Slingshot, Orcon, Flip and Stuff-fibre) and Vodafone uses(although they do have PPPOE). You'll need something else. The Smart Modem is fine. Skinny is just Spark. It "just works". No issues, no service disruptions. You should have joined much earlier however, that 3 month deal was 6 months before!

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

Gordy7

gordy7
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#2879233 4-Mar-2022 20:40

Skinny Smart Modem has very good WiFi and very good Gigabit fibre.

Never had a problem that I needed to contact Skinny during my contract.

Skinny does not have IPv6.

Modem can be used with a mix of Lan static and DHCP IPs for attached devices.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

unowho08

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#2879258 4-Mar-2022 23:05

MaxineN:

[snip]

You should have joined much earlier however, that 3 month deal was 6 months before!

They've upped their offer to 4 months free on a 12 month contract, so while not as good as the previous 6 months free deal, it's still pretty decent. Correspondingly, they've removed their cheapest fibre plan ($73) so now their lowest cost fibre plan you can get is the $78/mth 300/100.

sha256

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#2879315 5-Mar-2022 10:25

The four years I've been with them can't think of a service disruption. As others have pointed out the new Smart modem has out standing WiFi capability. No BS like VLAN tagging or CGNAT. Lacks IPV6 if that matters to you. No frills it just works.

farcus

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#2879435 5-Mar-2022 14:01

been with skinny for about 5 years and absolutely no complaints. On the one occasion I needed support (my issue, not skinny's) they were very helpful - not the standard scripted responses you get from others.
You can use the HG659 - it used to be the default skinny modem. However, the skinny (spark) smart modem they will give you is much better (and you must take it as part of signing up).
You can use your own modem but will get no help setting it up - it's pretty simple to do so however.

Shindig

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#2879444 5-Mar-2022 15:27

Is Skinny Fibre the same as Spark?

The little things make the biggest difference.

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MaxineN

Max
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#2879447 5-Mar-2022 15:40

Shindig:

Is Skinny Fibre the same as Spark?

Yes

Just without the VLAN 10 requirement.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

nztim

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#2879467 5-Mar-2022 16:46

I was with bigpipe which is Sparks other cheap brand (ADSL for 2 years and Fibre for another two years) the service was bulletproof never had any major outages

My only issue is the lack of peering meaning data to geekzone for example heads to the Sydney cloudflaire node rather than the Auckland Node

I moved to Sky Broadband because it was cheaper when combined with SkyTV and has IPV6

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

sha256

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#2879855 6-Mar-2022 16:21

nztim: I was with bigpipe which is Sparks other cheap brand (ADSL for 2 years and Fibre for another two years) the service was bulletproof never had any major outages

My only issue is the lack of peering meaning data to geekzone for example heads to the Sydney cloudflaire node rather than the Auckland Node

I moved to Sky Broadband because it was cheaper when combined with SkyTV and has IPV6

25ms - that is one hell of a round trip to Sydney and back 😀 I think the local peering argument is largely a moot point now.

traceroute geekzone.co.nz
traceroute to geekzone.co.nz (104.22.32.72), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1)  0.265 ms  0.307 ms  0.351 ms
 2  * * *
 3  * * *
 4  122.56.113.4 (122.56.113.4)  2.825 ms  2.826 ms  2.861 ms
 5  ae7-2.akbr7.global-gateway.net.nz (122.56.119.53)  2.844 ms ae2-6.tkbr12.global-gateway.net.nz (122.56.127.17)  6.266 ms  3.260 ms
 6  et4-0-2.sebr3.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.232.190)  28.468 ms et3-0-0.sebr3.global-gateway.net.nz (122.56.127.50)  25.547 ms  25.397 ms
 7  et9-0-0.sebr3.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.232.182)  26.570 ms et3-0-0.sebr3.global-gateway.net.nz (122.56.127.50)  25.361 ms 108.162.247.6 (108.162.247.6)  30.708 ms
 8  104.22.32.72 (104.22.32.72)  25.998 ms 108.162.247.6 (108.162.247.6)  27.910 ms 104.22.32.72 (104.22.32.72)  26.254 ms

Steve113

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#2879873 6-Mar-2022 17:02

Thank you so much for your feedback.
I was on the 6 months free frontline worker plan with slingshot. Just coming out of it now.

Slingshot require a 4 week notice of cancellation which I had given them. My cancellation date the 26th and I plan to connect with Skinny on the 25th (a day early) so that I don't lose internet in the transition. Hopefully Skinny's planned date is accurate as I was told the date confirmation are on a best effort basis by their provisioning team.

Hoping the transition will go smoothly.

liquidcore

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#2879874 6-Mar-2022 17:07

Unless things have changed, you may have just caused some headaches by giving Slingshot notice first 😢

Please see: http://pages.bigpipe.co.nz/how-to-switch-isps-without-ruining-everything/

Somebody please correct me if this is no longer the case!

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Steve113

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#2879904 6-Mar-2022 18:25

liquidcore: Unless things have changed, you may have just caused some headaches by giving Slingshot notice first 😢

Please see: http://pages.bigpipe.co.nz/how-to-switch-isps-without-ruining-everything/

Somebody please correct me if this is no longer the case!

Thank you very much. I wish I had read that earlier.
Ok so to rectify the current situation in the correct order:

1) Call current provider(Slingshot) and revoke the cancellation order.
2) Let it tick over for about a week.
3) Sign up with Skinny on a future connection date (4 weeks). Get a confirmation order from Skinny.
4) Call back you current ISP and hand in your 4 week notice.

shk292

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#2879942 6-Mar-2022 19:20

It's interesting comparing skinny with spark, skinny quotes on 300Mbps download but Spark has 100, presumably the actual speeds will be the same but it makes Skinny seem better. Skinny slightly cheaper and includes a router, and Spark includes netflix.
Thinking I might go to Skinny to get the free router, because slingshot will want theirs returned, then consider changing to spark after a year.
I think skinny don't use CGNAT, is that correct?

MaxineN

Max
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#2879952 6-Mar-2022 19:40

shk292: It's interesting comparing skinny with spark, skinny quotes on 300Mbps download but Spark has 100, presumably the actual speeds will be the same but it makes Skinny seem better. Skinny slightly cheaper and includes a router, and Spark includes netflix.
Thinking I might go to Skinny to get the free router, because slingshot will want theirs returned, then consider changing to spark after a year.
I think skinny don't use CGNAT, is that correct?

Correct no CG-NAT.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

liquidcore

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#2879963 6-Mar-2022 20:19

Steve113:
liquidcore: Unless things have changed, you may have just caused some headaches by giving Slingshot notice first 😢

Please see: http://pages.bigpipe.co.nz/how-to-switch-isps-without-ruining-everything/

Somebody please correct me if this is no longer the case!

Thank you very much. I wish I had read that earlier.
Ok so to rectify the current situation in the correct order:

1) Call current provider(Slingshot) and revoke the cancellation order.
2) Let it tick over for about a week.
3) Sign up with Skinny on a future connection date (4 weeks). Get a confirmation order from Skinny.
4) Call back you current ISP and hand in your 4 week notice.

Sorry, I'm unfortunately not an expert in the matter at all - I have just seen people on here get stung by giving notice before signing up for the new connection.

Hopefully someone in the know will read this and respond - last thing I'd want is for the situation to be made even worse by cancelling the cancellation!

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