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.
Pip: Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa — where the internet access gap meets the people trying to close it, one modem sleeve at a time.
Mara: This episode covers posts from Laurence Zwimpfer, and the territory spans three areas: troubleshooting the physical and procedural side of Jump, who the service can and cannot serve, and a significant new fibre product aimed at low-income households.
Pip: Let's start with the surprisingly physical problem of getting a modem out of its box.
Tight covers and outdated guides
Mara: The practical reality of running a modem lending programme is that the hardware itself can become a barrier — and Grey District Library found that out firsthand with the Futura modems.
Pip: The post "Those tight covers!!" puts it plainly. "The newest modem boxes have very tight orange covers, which take two staff members to remove. One to hold the cover and one to pull the box out, and even then, it's still not easy. We have had staff members accidentally rip the modem box when trying to get it out."
Mara: So the upshot is that a packaging decision is creating real friction at the point of service — staff time, torn equipment, and patrons waiting. The fix turned out to be a short YouTube clip produced by the Jump operations team over a weekend.
Pip: Meanwhile, "Hoisted by my own petard!" tackles a different kind of operational hazard: a partner found a 2020 blog post describing a procedure that no longer exists. The correct process — completing a Modem Returns form — is in the November 2024 Partner Guide, page 21. Old posts, it turns out, age badly.
Mara: The practical guidance is clear: for anything about modem distribution and recovery, contact jump@diaa.nz. For Skinny Jump service issues, the Care Team is on 0800 475 4669. Treat older posts about operational procedures with caution.
Pip: From packaging to eligibility — the hardware challenge is one thing, but who the service actually fits is another question entirely.
When Jump isn't quite the right fit
Mara: "Getting older — is Jump right for you?" works through two real cases where partners tried to connect older people with limited digital capacity to Jump, and hit structural limits of the prepay model.
Pip: The core tension is the "set and forget" problem. Jump does not support auto plan renewals, so someone who cannot manage a login and plan selection every month is going to struggle — unless a family member or support worker takes on account management, sometimes from another country.
Mara: The post also flags a technical mismatch in one case: a phone designed for voice calls via big buttons and family photos requires a fixed-line connection, not a mobile data service. Skinny Jump simply does not support standard voice calls.
Pip: Three other posts round out this territory. "The clock is ticking for Ciena signups" notes 271 families signed up toward a 2026 target of 350 — and that the Ciena plan means free internet for the rest of the school year, saving eligible families up to $240.
Mara: "Never say never" makes the case for encouraging declined applicants to keep checking — Pātea had no broadband capacity on its cell tower for years, and then it did. The address checker updates nightly. And "Coverage review finds 18 more families who can now get Jump" shows that re-checking past declined applications found 21 out of 42 now had coverage, with 18 contacted directly.
Pip: Coverage and eligibility keep shifting — which makes the new fibre product worth understanding carefully.
Equity Fibre and the school index
Mara: Chorus has launched a wholesale product called Equity Fibre 100, and the post explaining it is careful to distinguish Chorus from retail providers. Chorus builds and owns the infrastructure — about 70 percent of New Zealand's ultra-fast broadband network — and sells wholesale to retailers like Skinny or Spark.
Pip: The product is retail-capped at thirty dollars a month for 100/20 Mbps unlimited fibre. But the eligibility criteria are layered: households must be in public or community housing or near a lower-decile school, have an inactive fibre connection already installed, and hold a Community Services Card or MSD benefit letter.
Mara: The post is direct about where Jump falls short and where Equity Fibre could help: "We recognise that Jump doesn't suit every household, e.g. large households with many internet users, where the Jump data cap of 225GB simply isn't enough, and of course for families in high density housing areas where the 4G cell towers are at capacity."
Pip: That last point lands hard — over 130 customers turned away in four months because of cell tower capacity. A social housing complex with 200 apartments where 120 are on Jump because fibre was never affordable is exactly the gap this product targets.
Mara: The school equity index — the 490-plus threshold that determines eligibility — was clarified in a follow-up post, "Demystifying the school equity index." A community supporter named Steven Price built a public Google Map showing New Zealand schools with their equity index scores, with schools meeting the Chorus criteria marked in green.
Pip: So the bureaucratic threshold that might have caused eyes to roll now has a map. That is genuinely useful.
Mara: Partners are not expected to handle sign-up — the role is to help customers navigate eligibility and refer them to one of the four retail providers currently offering the product. A Stepping UP information module is coming.
Pip: Coverage that appears overnight, packaging that needs two people, fibre that was always there but never affordable — the gap keeps shifting shape.
Mara: Next time, more on how partners and the people they serve are navigating all of it.
I have to take my hat off to one of our Jump delivery partners who diligently searched my blog posts for the answer to a jump problem she was experiencing. She discovered the answer in one of my posts way back in 2020, but the problem was that this post no longer reflected current procedures.
The advice in the post asked her to email the Skinny Support team to get a modem de-linked. This was the procedure in 2020, but was subsequently changed to align with the “Returns and faulty modems” procedures on page 21 of the November 2024 edition of the Partner how-to Guide, i.e. complete a Modem Returns form.
So I guess this is even worse than institutional memory – my blog post remains in black and white forever!
Needless to say, it took all of 30 seconds to bin the old blog post. But of course the bigger issue is what other outdated advice is lurking in my blog? The safe thing might be to bin all posts whenever a new edition of the Partner Guide is published.
But perhaps, until I get over my “never throw anything away — might come in handy one day” syndrome, perhaps you can just be a tiny bit cautious about any old posts, especially those discussing operational procedures. A good guideline is that anything to do with modem distribution and recovery is a DIAA issue (jump@diaa.nz). Anything to do with the Skinny Jump service is a Care Team responsibility (0800 475 4669).
PS: The story with the partner discovering this problem ended well. She was politely referred to me by the Skinny team.
Thanks to the team from Grey District Library who have raised an issue that challenged me for some time until I asked someone else. How to remove those jolly orange sleeves on the Futura modems without destroying the sleeves in the process?
“The newest modem boxes have very tight orange covers, which take two staff members to remove. One to hold the cover and one to pull the box out, and even then, it’s still not easy. We have had staff members accidentally rip the modem box when trying to get it out, and we have had a staff member have to cut the cover off because there weren’t any other staff members available to help remove the cover, and the patron they were signing up was elderly, so they couldn’t help.”
Well, there is a solution. You might have met Georgia and Tori, (or G&T as we know them, not to be confused with the tonic version!). They spend some hours every weekend keeping the engine room of Jump modem distribution ticking over. You might have met them at our Jump annual stocktake time, when they are making sure our records align with your reality.
Anyway, I digress. I asked them to explain how they get the sleeves off the Futura modems and in less time than it is taking me to write this post, they had produced a YouTube clip. Starring Georgia, with Tori recording on her smartphone.
I look forward to seeing a video clip from the Grey District Library about how this has transformed their Jump lives!
PS. Maybe I could use more G&T media* to reduce my sometimes verbose posts!
*Not to be confused of course with G&T Productions, a New Zealand theatre production company that specialises in bringing large-scale international musical theatre productions to audiences across Aotearoa.
Two partners have raised really interesting questions this week about how to deploy Jump for older people who would have difficulty managing a pre-pay account. Both have been attracted by the low cost pricing structure for Jump and they definitely qualify.
What the people caring for both these older people want is a “set and forget” option in terms of managing ongoing payments and plan renewals. Personally, I think these two older people represent the tip of a growing iceberg – the big D or dementia iceberg.
Case 1: Social worker working with an older woman to try and get her a phone she can use. This enterprising social worker had discovered a phone (in Australia) that she thought would do the trick – AUS$110.
Big buttons, even family pictures with auto dial. So she was then wondering how to organise some automatic billing for a Jump connection.
Alarm bells starting ring!
Skinny Jump does not support normal voice calls; the device she has in mind would need a fibre or copper fixed line connection. She could of course make voice or video calls using WhatsApp or other internet-based services, like Facetime on Apple devices. But this makes things much more complicated than a device where you just push a button to call family or friends.
The next alarm bell comes with the need for a ‘set and forget’ prepay billing arrangement. She could use an auto top-up option to add funds to her Skinny account when the balance gets low, but Jump does not support ‘auto plan renewals’ or ‘set and forget’ options. So she would still be faced with have to login to her account and select a new plan when she needed her next 35GB.
Case 2: Request from a support worker from a supported living organisation for a resident who could not manage the top-up / plan renewal process
The downside of pre-pay services like Skinny Jump for people in this sort of situation is that it is not a ‘set and forget’ service (unless it is someone with a very low data usage, who can live on the free 15GB a month). We have encountered situations where a family member takes responsibility for setting up the account and managing the top-ups and plan renewals – even when they live in another country! But I am not sure a support worker would want to do this.
The solution here is to identify who is going to be responsible for top-ups; they need to take responsibility for setting up the account and linking to the modem with their email. All the person using the service needs to do then is plug the modem in and connect their device to wifi, which I am sure is something support workers could help with.
So thank you to the two partners who raised these issues and for going the extra mile in trying to help. I’d love to hear how things develop with your two customers and their social/support workers.
I received a comment from Steven Price at Community Support Waitakere on my recent post about the Chorus Equity Fibre product that is so cool I felt I had to share this.
I wonder how many rolled their eyes when I started talking about schools with an equity index of 490+. Whatever happened to the decile rankings for schools – most of us could understand rankings on a 1-10 scale, but that’s progress I guess – a more refined way for the Ministry of Education to allocate funding to schools.
But Steven has completely demystified this for me, and for you I hope.
Using publicly available information, he has created and shared a Google Map that displays NZ Schools, including their EQI and other details. Here’s a sample, where the ‘greens’ represent schools that meet Chorus’ Equity Fibre criteria.
Some Jump partners have been approached by parties involved in the delivery of the new Chorus-supported service and are wondering how this impacts the delivery of Jump.
We know this been in the works for some time and we welcome any internet service provider able to provide ‘affordable’ internet. Affordable internet is defined as broadband services that cost consumers no more that $30 a month.
Jump has been delivering affordable internet for 10 years (yes it is Jump’s 10th birthday this year!). But I digress – let me tell you what I know about the new Chorus product. Natalie Lawson is the Social Impact Lead for Chorus, and she been very helpful explaining this new service to us.
But first, just a word about Chorus and how they differ from Skinny, for example. Chorus is the largest Local Fibre Company (LFC) in New Zealand, providing about 70% of the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) network infrastructure. LFCs operate as open-access network owners, meaning they build the physical infrastructure and sell wholesale services to retail internet providers (like Skinny or Spark), rather than directly to consumers.
Chorus’ wholesale product ‘Equity Fibre 100’ is retail capped at $30 a month, delivering fibre broadband at 100/20 Mbps. The product is designed to support low-income households in public or community housing or lower-decile school communities who have an inactive fibre connection, and who can show eligibility through a Community Services Card or MSD benefit letter.
The really good news about this product is that it is ‘unlimited’, i.e. there is no data cap. However, the product is focused on households that have inactive fibre connections – these are ones where fibre infrastructure has been installed but where families can’t afford a commercial fibre plan.
The product is delivered by retail service providers (RSPs) – currently there are 4 RSPs offering this new product (see image below from Chorus’ website), but Chorus says they have more in the wings.
So how will this product fit in with Skinny Jump?
We recognise that Jump doesn’t suit every household, e.g. large households with many internet users, where the Jump data cap of 225GB simply isn’t enough, and of course for families in high density housing areas where the 4G cell towers are at capacity. In the 4 months to date this year, we have had to turn away over 130 customers because of no cell tower capacity.
I am particularly excited about how the Chorus service could impact social housing tenants. Many social housing complexes have been ‘fibred-up’, but few tenants have been able to afford a fibre connection. We know of one social housing complex with 200 apartments where over 120 have a Jump connection – purely because this has been the only affordable service. My telecommunications engineering background makes me cringe to think of this – when fixed infrastructure like fibre makes so much more technical sense.
What do we expect from Jump Delivery partners?
The launch of this fibre product could not only help to plug some gaps where Jump is not available or suitable, but also gives partners some more choice when discussing what is most suitable for your customers. So our goal is to help you understand this product and assist your customers make good decisions.
At this stage there are quite a few eligibility barriers that customers will face and they will need your help to navigate these – Chorus explains these on their website:
Fortunately some of the retail providers have good online tools that you can use with your customers to navigate these criteria. Check out this one on Vetta.
And how can you find out whether the schools that your customers’ children go to has an equity index of 490+? You can check it out here.
We are producing an information module for all our Stepping UP partners to help you explain this to your customers, so watch this space. But the important takeaway is that unlike for Jump where you help customers actually connect to the service, all we are hoping that Stepping UP partners can do is where appropriate help customers work through the eligibility criteria for Equity Fibre 100 and then refer them to one of the participating RSPs – they will handle the sign up and service delivery.
Thank you to partners who make the extra effort to complete a Profile Form for customers who are unable to get Jump because of limited coverage or capacity on their cell tower.
We have just re-checked coverage for applications received in recent months and discovered 21 out of 42 now have coverage. 3 of these asked us to cancel their application if they were not in coverage, while 18 gave us approval to contact them should things change.
So that is what we have done this morning – sent 18 emails to these customers. Two bounced because of bad email addresses, but nothing much we can do about that.
This is the content of the email template that we used to send these messages:
Kia ora {{ First Name }} Good news! Your address now has Jump coverage. If you are still interested in this service, please contact your nearest Jump Delivery Partner – you can find nearby partners by typing your address into the Skinny Jump Address Checker. The details we have for your application on {{ Timestamp }} are:{{ First Name }} {{ Last Name }}{{ Street address (where Jump service is required) }}{{ Suburb }}{{ City or Town }} {{ Post Code }}E: {{ Email Address }}M: {{ Contact phone number }} Best wishes DIAA Jump Operations
So if someone turns up saying ‘Hey, I am now in coverage’, please sign them up. The partners involved with this mailout are listed below. When I work out how to include a cc copy in Mail Meteor, I’ll include relevant partners in future mailouts.
As at the start of May we have reached 271 new families signed up for the Ciena plan since the start of the year. So the clock is ticking for our 2026 target of 350.
The good news of course is that it’s not too late to sign families up for this amazing sponsored plan – free internet for the rest of the school year!
There’s a lot of talk about ‘affordable’ internet and research has revealed that $30 a month is the limit for many households. This is not news to the Skinny team, who set this cap 10 years ago (6 plan renewals x $5 = $30, for those who skipped maths at school).
But if $30 is affordable, what is $0? With 8 months left of 2026, the Ciena package can save families up to $240! (8 x $30 = $240). Now I am sure there are a lot of things families could do with an extra $240 in their pockets.
So roll on up – keep those Ciena referrals flowing.
Pātea is famous for two things. One is world famous and the other, well, perhaps less famous outside Pātea.
Let’s start with the most famous thing – Poi E!—a groundbreaking Māori-language hit created in the early 1980s by the Pātea Māori Club. Written by Dalvanius Prime and performed by local community members, the song fused traditional Māori culture with contemporary pop and hip-hop influences at a time when te reo Māori was rarely heard in mainstream music. Its national success—topping the charts in 1984—helped revitalise pride in Māori language and identity, while also putting the small Taranaki town of Pātea firmly on the cultural map. Today, Poi E! remains an iconic symbol of grassroots creativity and cultural resurgence, and Pātea is closely associated with its enduring legacy.
Well that’s what everyone knows! What you might not know unless you live in Pātea is that for many years there has been no broadband capacity on the local cell tower. So much so that this has been Sue Kini’s reliable ‘go to’ place when explaining the ‘no coverage’ message that partners sometimes see when checking coverage for a Skinny Jump customer.
But last week this all changed and for the first time in many years the coverage checker returned this message for a Pātea address:
So of course the moral of this story is “never say never” when you have to say no to a potential Jump customer. Encourage them to check their address from time to time for coverage and they might receive a nice surprise. The address checker is updated every night, so things can change overnight, or as we have seen in Pātea, this can take some time.
PS for the Pātea LibraryPlus team: Can you remember the people you have had to turn down; perhaps let them know it might be worth checking their address again before the internet in Pātea becomes as popular as Poi e!
I am sure you are all wondering who won the Ciena competition. Earlier this week Mel and Sareen from the Skinny Jump team at Spark paid a visit to Albany Village Library to deliver some Jump goody bags.
Albany Village Library is one of the 58 Jump Delivery Partners who have signed up one or more families for the Ciena programme since the beginning of the year. Together, these Jump partners have supported a total of 255 new families to date. Ciena has agreed to sponsor 350 new families in 2026, so there still room for more.
You might be wondering how Albany Village Library was picked. Well this was a totally random process – as at 31 March, 216 new families had signed up, so we used a random number generator to select a number between 1 and 216 and the partner who signed up this family was the winner.
Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa 