Hi all, it's been a busy start to the year with all the changes to ADSL pricing, and the on-going rollout of the Government funded fibre network, here's a quick update of some of the things happening here at Inspire.

Consumer Survey

We rated very highly in the Consumer Magazine ISP survey again this year (1st equal), many thanks to those of you that voted. Consumer have offered us a special deal for our customers where you can sign up for Consumer (online only) for $3 for 3 months. If you would like to look at this offer simply click on the banner at the bottom of this Almost Monthly. This deal is only available if you sign up to Consumer using the link below on or before March 22nd 2015.

ADSL Update for customers waiting for new solutions since Christmas

When we announced the price changes at Christmas, we were promised a new solution by Chorus for getting voice to our customers. We were not expecting the timeframe for them to deliver to be so long, but we have finally secured test circuits, and we are anticipating being in contact with customers waiting for a Voice over IP or Baseband phone solution within the next few weeks to arrange transitioning you across to the connection you requested. I apologise for the delay in making all this happen, we are a small, dynamic, nimble company, and sometimes forget how long it takes some of these larger providers to get solutions delivered.

Traffic Cap changes

A few people are starting to ask us about flat rate plans. At Inspire we have always tried to keep our plans in line with what people are using, and by making smaller capped plans available for light users, and larger caps available for heavier users. We have updated a few of our larger plans for our heavier users as follows, and while they are not flat rate, I expect these plans will be ample for 99.99% of our customers, and should be ample for customers anticipating using Netflix or other online streaming services.

200Gbyte traffic plans will be upgraded to a 500Gbyte traffic cap as of today
  -   If you are on a 200Gbyte plan, your cap will go up
  -   If you are on a current 500Gbyte plan, your price will go down when your next plan rolls
  -   This is on all DSL, Fibre and Wireless accounts

1000Gbyte and 2000Gbyte plans have had substantial price drops for businesses.
  -   Check our website for price changes on these plans

Global Mode and Netflix

For those of you who are not familiar with Global Mode, it allows your connection to look like it's coming from the USA to some of the big content networks, enabling your TV or smart device to sign up to the likes of Netflix USA. We have had Global Mode enabled by default on all fibre connections, enabling access to Netflix from the USA, and BBC content from the UK. With the imminent launch of Netflix in New Zealand, we will be turning off Global Mode by default, so that you can access the New Zealand Netflix content if you wish, but enabling a "region switcher" in our customer portal, where you can turn Global Mode off and on to start with, with an enhancement to follow where you can pick which country you want to be in from USA, UK, Australia for content.

New customer portal

In the next week or two, we will be rolling out our new customer portal on our website. This will enable you to do all the things you could previously, but also enable you to manage your VOIP phone lines, check voicemail, see how much traffic you have used for the month, as well as pay online, and download direct debit forms. Once it rolls out, I am keen on any feedback of improvements you think we could add.

Change of Office Hours at Inspire

We have been looking at our opening hours and working out what would work better for our customers, and we are introducing a few changes to our office and helpdesk hours over the coming few months.
We are changing our office hours on a Saturday from the current 9am-6pm, to now only be open from 9am-1pm on a Saturday starting from April 6th. Over the next two months, we will be adjusting our staff rosters to enable our helpdesk to be open from 7am-10pm rather than 8am-10pm, which will give better service to businesses if they have any issues at the start of the day.

UFB Fibre

We can now offer fibre services on the Government Fibre initiative in the following areas - Auckland, Wanganui, Feilding, Palmerston North, Levin, Wellington, Masterton and Blenheim. If fibre has passed or is about to pass by your house or workplace as part of the initiative, it might be a good time to look at options for putting fibre in to your house. Monthly plans on fibre are around the same price as on copper, the speed is more consistent at peak times, and services like Netflix, TVNZ On Demand etc will all work much better, especially if there are a few people in your household that like to use the Internet at the same time. If you are an Inspire Net broadband wireless or ADSL customer moving to fibre with us, we will waive our $99 setup fee on any standard connection.

Regards

James Watts
Founder, Inspire Net