This site is managed by the Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa (DIAA) and is intended for partner organisations delivering programmes endorsed and/or supported by DIAA. Currently this includes the following programmes:
Stepping UP
JUMP
DORA
Better Digital Futures for Seniors
Appy Seniors
Digital Wellbeing for All
The blog aims to address mainly operational issues associated with the delivery of these digital inclusion programmes. It provides a repository of information dealing with specific questions raised by programme delivery partners.
Today is Shelley’s last day with the Digital Inclusion Alliance after 7 years; ‘new pastures’ is probably not the right phrase as she plans to spend more time in her family horticulture business – blueberries. David, Shelley’s partner, is no doubt secretly delighted to have her back, especially at pruning time!
But Shelley also has other things in mind – she is pursuing further study in sustainability and environmental management. Next time you catch up with her, ask about the UN sustainability goals and how blueberries fit in.
So what is this going to mean for the chatty, friendly voice always willing to help Jump partners and customers solve their problems? Sue and I will do our best to keep everyone happy; I’ll still be posting to this blog and responding to jump@diaa.nz inquiries and Sue will be answering our 0800 phone.
We will be juggling a few extra balls, but that’s not new to either of us. While we’ll miss having Shelley on the team, we know the world doesn’t stand still, so we just have to adapt. However, this is probably a timely reminder to all partners about our we split our Jump workload:
Sue is responsible for Jump training and communications; this includes onboarding new Jump delivery partners, training and supporting staff in Jump processes as well as managing the preparation and distribution of promotional material.
Laurence is responsible for Jump operations (not the technical stuff – Skinny has a whole call centre of people who do this); our primary role in DIAA is to manage the distribution of modems to partners and the recovery of faulty units.
Anyway, enough about us – we’ll leave the last ‘visual’ word to Shelley as she embraces new opportunities with her blueberry business. Go Shelley!
Simply because we want to make sure our records are fully up to date, so that you are comparing “apples with apples”, so to speak. We will be updating your Jump Gsheets this evening to include all the Profile Forms received today.
Now is a good time to check that you have access to your Jump GSheet so that you can check if the number of modems that you have in stock matches the number in cell E2 (Actual stock on hand). If there is a match, all you need to do is send a brief email to jump@diaa.nz, confirming the match.
If there isn’t a match, you will need to send us an email with the IMEI numbers of the modems you are holding.
I was impressed with one of our Auckland partners who did their stocktake last week, as they were planning to be on leave this week! And I’ve also been impressed with partners who have suddenly realised they don’t have access to their GSheet, often because the person who did have access no longer works there. This is easily fixed too – just drop a line to jump@diaa.nz requesting access. If this request comes from a personal email, as opposed to your work email, I may have to confirm your identity. This is just a precaution to make sure I don’t provide access to unauthorised people.
We are also using the stocktake to make other updates to our records – in particular if someone new is now the main point of contact for Jump. You can check who we have in our records – their name (or names) are in Cell A2 of your GSheet.
We would also like to recover any of the first generation of Jump modems (B315) – our records indicate there are 11 of these still being help in partner stocks – you can check this in Columns Y2:AC3 of your Gsheet (see example below). Please note the IMEI numbers of any B315 modems you are holding in your email to us and we’ll get recovery bags on their way.
When a customer returns a modem to a Jump Partner and says ‘my SIM card has been stolen or lost’, it appears partners are issuing a replacement modem. That is all good.
The problem occurs when the Modem Returns form is filled in, requesting a SIM SWAP. It is too late to do this when the modem has been returned to a Partner, especially when a replacement has already been issued. So the correct classification is that the modem is faulty and must be recovered for repair.
The SIM SWAP process only applies when the modem is still with the customer and the customer has reported this to the Skinny Care Team.
The Care Team will make a call whether the modem itself is faulty and must be recovered or whether it is just a matter of sending a replacement SIM. The process involves changing the Broadband number on the new SIM to match the customer’s existing broadband number, so it is a relatively simple process to reactivate the modem without the customer having to set up a new account.
So as a general rule, Partners should never select the “SIM SWAP” option. Once a modem has been returned to a Partner, you really only have two options:
(1) Yes, this modem is suitable for reissue, or
(2) No, this modem should be recovered for repair
Of course there is the “stolen or lost modem” option, but you may recall, we have asked that you never issue a replacement modem unless the customer returns their existing modem. Customer claiming “stolen or lost” must contact the Skinny Care Team.
This interesting question was raised during a recent Community of Practice Jump meeting with Auckland Libraries. A bit of “umming and ahhing” on my part but then I suggested a possible solution.
I then followed this up by checking with our colleagues at Spark and they concurred with my solution, so I thought I should share this with everyone.
But first of all why would someone want to do this? In the Auckland case it was simply a matter of a customer wanting to update their email, as they were no longer using the one they signed up to Jump with. Fair enough, that makes sense.
So, we think the best way to do this is to put the modem through our de-linking process, using the Modem Returns form, but indicate on the form that the replacement modem has the same IMEI and Broadband numbers and is suitable for reissue. When the modem is de-linked it will be like a new modem and the customer can set up a new account with their updated email.
But just a warning, because the customer is changing to a new email, they will not be able to transfer any residual funds on their account, so do suggest they wait until their balance is zero before actioning this.
The other slight problem is that we ask partners to always use their email address on the Modem Returns form, so that you receive notification when the modem has been delinked. In this particular situation though, you could use the customer’s email, so that they get the notification directly. Alternatively, you are welcome to continue using your own email and then alerting your customer when they can set up their new account. They will have the free start-up 35GB when their modem is de-linked, so the transfer should be seamless.
With talk of a modem stocktake, you are probably wondering why Christmas has come early this year. But with temperatures the way they are these days, that is certainly not the case.
What is the case is that our records are increasingly slipping out of sync with your on-the-ground realities.
And how do we know this, you might ask. We have the best and fastest delivery of modems that I can ever remember, but I still get requests from partners that they have run out. When I check their GSheets, I see that they have stock levels above their re-order triggers, so this means a new order has not been generated.
This generally means that some modems are slipping out the door without Profile Forms being completed. I might sound like a cracked record (I have been accused of that in the past), but please make sure all staff issuing modems are completing Profile Forms – this is the only way that we (DIAA) can tell a modem has been issued. That said, I did discover a new issue in a partner’s GSheet this week – some IMEI numbers had been entered more than once, so this of course inflated their apparent stock. Just another good reason for a mid-year sync!
So, back to the point of this post. We are planning a 30 June stocktake.
So, on 30 June there are two ways this can happen: (please don’t do this before then as we will be doing a final update of all partner GSheets on Monday 29th to make sure we have all the Profile Forms entered)
(1) Partners check the number in cell E2 (Actual stock on hand) and if that matches your actual stock, please send an email to jump@diaa.nz confirming the match, or if there is a mismatch, please send us an email with the IMEI numbers of the modems that you are actually holding.
(2) Partners who don’t respond by 6 July will receive a call from the delightful Georgia and Tori, asking you to do a live stocktake. This will also be an opportunity to let us know if there have been any staff changes and who the primary point of contact for Skinny Jump is.
From approximately 6:45am on 17-June-2026, there has been an ongoing outage affecting Spark mobile and wireless broadband services – this includes Skinny Jump.
The Spark team is trying to determine if this is isolated to the Auckland region or if other regions are also affected.
While network teams are actively investigating, customer-facing communications (e.g. support messaging and service notices) have been put in place to keep customers informed when they reach out for support – and updates will continue to be shared as more information becomes available.
I have had a few calls this week from partners who have received this message when trying to sign a new customer up using the App. In all the reported examples, this involved a modem that had recently been de-linked.
Not surprisingly then, partners thought this might be a back-end problem with the de-linking process.
But no, this doesn’t seem to be the case. We have received confirmation that the modems in question have been correctly de-linked and are ready for issue – the problem appears to be with the App.
The Skinny Jump team has raised an incident report with the App developers, so hopefully this will be resolved quickly.
In the meantime, if you encounter this message please sign-up using a web browser, either on desktop computer or a browser on your customer’s mobile device.
With just 5 places left, we are expecting the Ciena target for 2026 of 350 places to be reached today. So, from tomorrow (Thursday 4 June), I’m afraid its time to put the brakes on and stop offering this option to your Skinny Jump customers.
A magnificent effort by the 67 Skinny Jump partners who signed up a new family for Ciena this year. Here’s the top 25:
We have nearly reached our target of 350 new families signed up to the Ciena plan, but just a word of advice for partners signing up the last few.
Yesterday, a customer signed up for Jump and the helpful library staff explained about the CIENA plan, so she signed up. But oh, oh! When she got home and plugged her modem in, she discovered that she only had 35GB instead of the promised 210GB. So thinking that the library team had given her the wrong modem, she promptly reported this to a Skinny Care agent who determined her modem was faulty and asked for a CIENA replacement to be sent.
Fortunately she had a distinctive second name and this rang alarm bells in our office when the faulty request arrived.
So, a quick email to explain to the customer that all Jump modems are provisioned for standard Jump, so everyone receives a free 35GB start-up package. This hopefully keeps them going until the CIENA provisioning request makes its way to the Skinny team and the customer’s account is updated to CIENA (normally within 24-48 hours) – this is carried out remotely and has nothing to do with the physical modem. When it is provisioned, hey presto, customers discover 210GB data on their account, which is renewed on the 1st day of every calendar month. There is no need to replace the modem.
So hopefully, all’s well that ends well.
Just a reminder to everyone signing families up for CIENA, please tell them it might take 1-2 days before the CIENA provisioning is in place.
Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa 