Can I reuse old Skinny 4G Huawei B315s-608 with sim from a different provider?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Can I reuse old Skinny 4G Huawei B315s-608 with sim from a different provider?

Blurtie

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#323622 23-Dec-2025 12:10

Season's greetings team,

As per title, I have an old B315s Huawei modem that I used as part of a fixed wireless broadband connection with Skinny. The last time I used it was when I moved cities back in 2018/19 - all I had to do was grab a new skinny sim as the account had deactivated/expired. I was keen to use it again this summer (checked address and it said it's available at the location) so was hoping all I needed to do was grab a new sim again, but to my surprise Skinny have said they no longer offer the ability to activate a new sim with this modem and suggested I sign up for a new contract to grab a new modem for free. Not really what I want as I only need it for a month or so.

So my question is - what would happen if I just grabbed a say a prepay sim from another provider and put it in there? Will it work? Any settings to update?

TIA

MaxineN

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#3446657 23-Dec-2025 12:59

@gajan might be the one to ask or @cbrpilot

Had it been an original Vodafone NZ B315 I would have said yes you can do whatever (same with the B818[non farm side]and the Deco X58)

Edit, the b315 is also incredibly ancient and pretty slow... I wouldn't want to use this honestly.

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Talkiet

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#3446661 23-Dec-2025 13:31

Yeah, even if it does work, don't. It's ancient and MUCH slower than anything newer.

Cheers - N

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Blurtie

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#3446662 23-Dec-2025 13:49

Thanks both.

Yes, appreciate its quite old tech, but for what I need it for/to do - kids general web browsing, youtube, netflix etc (recall it worked fine all those years ago for my household when I had fixed wireless) I'm keen to try and reuse it for the month or so if I can, rather than fork out money for new gear that I'm unlikely to use again. Just seems like a bit of a waste to be honest. Only other real alternative is hot spotting, which I'm also keen to avoid.

In saying that, if anyone has any kit they'd like to pass on in Chch then I'm all ears and happy to play it forward after I'm done with it.

quickymart

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#3446663 23-Dec-2025 14:00

Can you not just purchase a SIM from a dairy and then use that in the device? They don't usually ask at a dairy what you're planning to do with the SIM.

CamH

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#3446664 23-Dec-2025 14:04

If it's just a standard SIM and you sign up for a plan on it, then put it into the router, sure - it'll work fine.

If you are talking some sort of fixed wireless product however, these SIMs are TAC locked into specific routers. For example, the OneNZ fixed wireless will not work on these B315's, but a Skinny or Spark Fixed wireless should.

gajan

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#3446665 23-Dec-2025 14:10

... as others have said...

I cant recall which B315 variant was which, but one did miss out on some of the capacity bands on Spark/Skinny and for other operators might be missing out on some of the LTE bands in use (so likely speeds and reliability might be impacted).

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Blurtie

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#3446667 23-Dec-2025 14:56

CamH:

If it's just a standard SIM and you sign up for a plan on it, then put it into the router, sure - it'll work fine.

If you are talking some sort of fixed wireless product however, these SIMs are TAC locked into specific routers. For example, the OneNZ fixed wireless will not work on these B315's, but a Skinny or Spark Fixed wireless should.

Thanks - Yes the B315 I got was part of a Skinny fixed wireless BB connection I signed up for years ago.. So the Skinny SIM that's in there is TAC locked and there's no way around that? This is where I'm confused as Skinny has said I can't put in a new sim since it's expired.

So just to be clear - if I purchased a pre-pay sim and loaded an endless data plan, this won't work?

CamH

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#3446671 23-Dec-2025 15:12

Blurtie:

CamH:

If it's just a standard SIM and you sign up for a plan on it, then put it into the router, sure - it'll work fine.

If you are talking some sort of fixed wireless product however, these SIMs are TAC locked into specific routers. For example, the OneNZ fixed wireless will not work on these B315's, but a Skinny or Spark Fixed wireless should.

Thanks - Yes the B315 I got was part of a Skinny fixed wireless BB connection I signed up for years ago.. So the Skinny SIM that's in there is TAC locked and there's no way around that? This is where I'm confused as Skinny has said I can't put in a new sim since it's expired.

So just to be clear - if I purchased a pre-pay sim and loaded an endless data plan, this won't work?

I'm not as up to date with the Spark/Skinny fixed wireless product, but the way it works with all fixed wireless products is that the fixed wireless service SIMs from any big provider (One/Skinny and Spark/2degrees) are TAC locked. These SIMs will only work in the specific router types they've specified.

As far as I know, B315's should still work with the Spark/Skinny FWA. We do a bit of Skinny Jump and there are still plenty of FWA services using the B315's. But whether Skinny will simply sell you a new SIM on a FWA product to use with an old router is another question. I'm guessing what they've told you is that the SIM is expired and can't be reactivated. The router itself does not expire.

A pre-pay SIM is not a fixed wireless product. It's just a standard SIM. So yes, as long as the plan supports hotspotting (as the unlimited Spark Prepaid service does), then it should work fine.

Just a correction to my previous message - I read this as B615, not B315. The B315 is also supported on OneNZ still. And I echo what everyone else says, get a new router - a cheap TP-Link from PBTech is going to be significantly better than a B315!

Blurtie

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#3446674 23-Dec-2025 15:41

Thanks for the detailed response @CamH - really appreciate it. Yes, makes more sense to me now.. The SIM has expired and no, Skinny did not want to sell a new SIM on a FWA product like they did last time. They were pushing me towards a new contract to receive a 'free modem' on a fixed contract - which is totally not what I wanted.

Is there a real-world difference between fixed wireless product and standard SIM? Is this the slow speed people are referring to above?

MaxineN

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#3446675 23-Dec-2025 15:45

Blurtie:

Thanks for the detailed response @CamH - really appreciate it. Yes, makes more sense to me now.. The SIM has expired and no, Skinny did not want to sell a new SIM on a FWA product like they did last time. They were pushing me towards a new contract to receive a 'free modem' on a fixed contract - which is totally not what I wanted.

Is there a real-world difference between fixed wireless product and standard SIM? Is this the slow speed people are referring to above?

It will go as fast as the tower, conditions and the equipment will go.

Most* FWA plans on cellular networks do not have speed limits. They MAY have different priorities but the difference is minimal at best.

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Blurtie

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#3446693 23-Dec-2025 16:29

Thanks all.

Will chuck in my OneNZ work SIM and see how it goes...

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tangerz

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#3448274 31-Dec-2025 03:13

This will work, but if you use a SIM that is not on the Spark network, (Spark, Skinny), then you'll need to change some settings in the router, (APN if I remember correctly), to make it work. Just throwing in a One NZ SIM won't get it running.

I set one of these up for my sister and her family last Christmas when they were over from the UK and traveling around NZ in a camper. I put a 100GB travel SIM from One NZ in it and it kept their phones, tablets and laptops fed with data everywhere they went. I've also used it myself as a backup WAN when our fibre was taken out unexpectedly. Damn diggers drivers!! 😡

As others have said, it's older and you won't get the fastest speeds from it... but it will get the job done! And I agree with you that it's better to repurpose something like this than buy something new that you may never use again...

Blurtie

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#3448861 2-Jan-2026 08:37

Thanks @tangerz - yes i did have to change some settings in the router to get it to connect on the OneNZ sim, but otherwise it's working a treat for what I needed it to do!

Kids are happy and there's plenty of speed for us.

Thanks all for the help!