Where to start! It's been a while and the Almost Monthly appears to be a Nearly Yearly again, time just seems to fly by. Inspire Net is growing in all sorts of directions at the moment, but we are working hard to make sure we retain our service at the same level as we grow. We do have regular updates on our Facebook page, so if you are into the Facebook thing, Like us on there and you will see a bit more about what we are doing.

We've been incubating a dinosaur egg for Te Manawa as part of our sponsorship campaign around their new exhibition, 'Dinosaur Encounter'. We're proud to sponsor this huge undertaking that will be exclusive to Palmerston North, and a great thing for our city and region.

Developed by the London Natural History Museum, Dinosaur Encounter features nine moving dinosaur models brought to life by state-of-the-art animatronics, and will give visitors a thrilling glimpse at the prehistoric beasts of seventy million years ago. Designers and scientists worked closely together to create an unprecedented level of realism.

Get ready to meet them in person, when they arrive in the Southern Hemisphere for the very first time! The gallery will be transformed and the dinosaurs will be unleashed, while reproductions of skeletons, skulls and fossil remains will add breadth to the experience. Dinosaur Encounter will open on 24 September and runs until 26 February next year.

We turned 18! We celebrated our 18th birthday this September, a suitably unhealthy morning tea was had, and we ran a Facebook competition where 18 customers each won a month of credit on their Inspire Net account.

We also came across a lot of customers who have been with us since the beginning of time, and received so many nice comments - so thanks to you, our customers - whether you've been with us for just a short time, or since the beginning of time, we appreciate your support. It's been a great journey from a couple of mates starting Inspire as a hobby in my garage at home, to 33+ staff and servicing over 15,000 people around New Zealand.

We were involved in the MoreFM 10 Wonders of the Wheel competition, on the Mike West in the Morning show, and in the end we were the last local company standing, and lucky listener Rachel Hogan won our prize of $5,000 worth of Apple products. Congrats Rachel, and we hope you enjoy your iPhone 7, MacBook Air, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini and Apple TV.

We have been installing our own fibre throughout the Speldhurst Estate in Levin, where there will be 500 houses being built over the next few years. Its a great little development, slightly out in the country, but connected at fibre speed.

We have installed a fibre headend at the Woodgate Subdivision in Palmerston North. It's on the other side of the river where the Government fibre rollout was not going to cover, so we stepped in and installed a cabinet that will be capable of servicing over 2,000 customers on fibre. We are doing the new sections in the subdivision, but also looking at options for how we could expand it to the houses in and around the Ruapehu Drive area.

We have built our first big wireless backbone site in the Wairarapa and will be working with locals under our Community Champion model over the next 18-24 months to build our wireless out to underserviced areas in the Wairarapa District.

We've painted our entrance foyer here at Inspire HQ and hope to update the outside to a brand spanking new colour scheme when the weather warms up - watch this space!...

As always, I welcome your feedback and ideas for any products and services you think we should be providing.

Cheers,

Founder, Inspire Net

Update from Paul, the General Manager of Operations here at Inspire
It's been a busy time here at Inspire Net, since I started nearly 2 years ago, we have increased our staff numbers from around 24 to now 33 with more in the pipeline as we continue to grow, to enable us to continue to meet our customer needs.

We've created more Tier 2 (Senior Agent) roles within our Help Desk to provide a growth path for staff and our increasing customer base particularly around our Business and Voice Over IP products.

Health and Safety remains a focus area as not only do we have our office based staff, but we're also out on farms, working in people's homes and businesses. Often staff are on top of a hill digging holes and pouring cement one day, and in the office programming equipment the next.

As we've grown, we've needed to employ specialist staff in certain areas of the business, and earlier in the year Karina jumped back on board with us as our Design & Brand Manager, and has been busy building our brand identity and awareness, and working with the team on sponsorship opportunities within the community. Check out the bus driving around town with our advert on the back here!!

A short time later we hired John, who is our sales specialist. John's been out and about talking to business customers particularly around business Voice Over IP solutions and Internet connections, and we're really noticing growth in this area.

We pride ourselves on having real people answer your call, and our current answer time is just a few seconds - not even enough time to make a coffee!

Please remember any feedback is welcomed, good or bad, and it's only 13 weeks until Christmas!

Cheers,
Paul Watts

General Manager of Operations

Message from Pete, the Helpdesk Manager here at Inspire
After 8 years as a Help Desk Agent, Alex J is ending his career at Inspire Net to try his luck in another industry. Alex has long been a fond agent for many of our customers and for good reason, and we would all like to wish him happy trails.

Due to this, we have a new Help Desk Agent opening, so feel free to check out our ad on Trade Me and pass it on to anyone you think would be keen.
ISP Helpdesk Agent

Congratulations is also in order for our 3 newly promoted Senior Agents, Rowan, Arie and Dylan. They will be joining the rest of the Senior Agents team in handling any tier 2 escalations along with assisting the rest of the Help Desk team to ensure we are providing the best service support possible.

Over the past few weeks the team and I have been excited about getting new desks for our Help Desk area, and after a few designs and quotes we believe we are close to purchasing them! I'll make sure that we put some photos of the new snazzy desks on Facebook for everyone to see once they are installed.

That's all from me for now. Hope to see you all at the animatronic dinosaur show!

Cheers,
Pete

Helpdesk Manager