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.
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.
More good news for 2026! First, there was the announcement that Ciena has extended their sponsorship for another 350 families and now CEVA, the supplier of Jump modems, is shipping modems within days of our orders being placed. This is a fantastic improvement compared to last year, when modem shipments were often lagging by 6-8 weeks.
As the delivery lag reduces, we change the trigger level for new orders; towards the end of 2025, this was set to the number of modems issued by each partner during the previous 30 days. The goal was to ensure that partners had sufficient stock for at least 30 days.
But, like the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate (OCR), we can adjust the trigger level to reflect changes in the Jump economy. So thanks to Marian Hector at Glen Eden Library, who noticed the impact of the 30 day rule meant her Jump modem stock levels are now persistently much higher. Not that she was complaining, but some partners might find this puts more pressure on their storage spaces.
So, like the Reserve Bank Governor does with the OCR, I am please to announce that as from today, the OJR (Official Jump Rate) has been reduced to 14 days.
“Great news from Ciena! We’re thrilled to announce that the Ciena Jump for Students Fund has been extended for another 12 months.“
But reading on, you would have discovered that at this stage the extension is only for customers signing up before 31 December 2025. We hope that Ciena might extend their support for more new families in 2026, but we don’t know this yet.
The good news for 2025 is that we met our target of 600 new families – thank you to partners who pulled out the stops in December to sign up the remaining 50 or so families; they, along with the 550 who signed up earlier in the year will now all receive another full 12-months of the sponsored CIENA plan.
Until we know for sure whether the Ciena sponsorship is available for new families, please do not offer this option. You are welcome to keep a local register of interest from any Jump customers who inquire.
Unlike the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland you are not too late to sign families up for Ciena Jump.
A number of partners are starting to ask whether it is too late to sign up families with school-aged children for Ciena Jump, but it is never too late! OK, I understand that families signing up in November will only get two months of support under the Ciena plan, but that’s still a saving of $60!
But the best news is that if Ciena extends their sponsorship to 2026, existing Ciena families will automatically receive a fully subsidised Jump connection for 2026 – that’s a saving of $360!
If the Ciena programme is not extended in 2026, anyone on the Ciena Plan will revert to standard Skinny Jump, which is still the most affordable internet connection available in New Zealand.
We are on track to sign up 600 new Ciena families in 2025 – we have 63 places left! 300 families with school-aged children sign up for Jump every month, so that’s 600 over the next two months. So go for it – ask every family signing up for Jump if they have school-aged children and if they do, offer them the free Ciena option. This will save them $60 this year and guarantee them a front-row seat if the programme is extended in 2026.
And one last thing – if you missed Sue’s email inviting you to complete our short Ciena survey – it’s not too late! Here is the link to the survey.
Ashburton Library, with their stunning Ciena display! I understand some goodies will be winging your way soon.
A reminder to all our Jump partners – you too can be a winner and sign up families with school-aged children in your community for the Ciena plan – free internet for the rest of the year.
All Jump partners can be Ciena partners; you just need to register with Sue (sue@diaa.nz) or Shelley (shelley@diaa.nz) and they will explain the process.
216 new families have already joined the Ciena family this year, but we still have room for another 384! 45 partners have already signed a family up so far this year – the leaders are in the table below. Over 25% of all the signups are in just one city – it probably isn’t too hard for you to work out which one this is! And I am sure they won’t mind me sharing their secret weapon – everyone signing up for Skinny Jump is asked if they have school-aged children and if so, would they like the Ciena plan (210GB free data every month).
In fact, some of you didn’t wait for the starting gun. Zoe Pascoe from Linwood Library took the honours with the first CIENA signup on 20 December, closely followed by Lisa Dam from Glenfield Library with sign ups on 22 and 30 December.
There are advantages in being first off the block – it helps us identify gaps in our processes so we can fix these before the floodgates open.
New CIENA Referral form
The CIENA Referral form has been updated and can be downloaded from the Stepping UP website:
Please do not use the old printed forms as these refer to the programme terminating on 31 December 2024.
Jump Profile Form
This has now been updated with some new options:
Note there are now two CIENA options, one we have called CIENA Standard and the other CIENA Hono Mai. Most partners will be choosing the CIENA Standard option. Hono Mai is a special programme being managed by the Greater Christchurch Schools Network (GCSN). This is only for families with children at Christchurch schools who have been referred by GCSN to a nearby Jump partner to collect their modems.
Email Confirmation
When families sign up for the CIENA Plan, their Jump account will initially be a standard Jump one (with the start-up 35GB data). When the Profile form is completed together with a signed Referral Form, their account will be changed to the CIENA plan with the first monthly allocation of 210GB. They will receive an email notification when their account has been re-provisioned from Standard Skinny Jump to CIENA; this will normally take a few days, hopefully before families have used their first 35GB. Please make sure that you use the parent’s email on both the Jump Profile form and the Referral Form, so that they receive this notification and any future communications about the CIENA programme.
Good news stories
Partners frequently report how appreciative families are to receive this free internet service. We would like to share these good news stories with the Skinny Jump team and CIENA, the programme sponsor. Please let Sue Kini know if you any special stories about what difference the support from CIENA is making (sue@diaa.nz).
Families who change their minds
From time to time, families on the CIENA Plan ask to switch back to Standard Jump. The main reason appears to be that parents lose some of the control over family internet usage. With a monthly top-up of 210GB on the first day of each calendar month some families can reach this data cap before the end of the month and then they lose their internet connection until the start of the following month. While the data allowance is similar to Standard Jump (6 top-ups of 35GB = 210GB),some families prefer to ration this by only topping up when a parent approves this. We ask CIENA partners to alert families to this situation when signing them up, but reassure them that they can switch back to Standard Jump if necessary. The only downside in doing this is that they will not be able to change their minds again and re-sign for CIENA in the future.
A partner has raised a question about whether a Ciena customer can continue on the programme if their modem becomes faulty.
The short answer is, YES.
There is a provision on the Modem Return form to indicate if the customer reporting the faulty modem is on a sponsored plan, such as Ciena or OCHT. Partners should make sure this option is selected and this will trigger an action to get the replacement modem re-provisioned for Ciena or OCHT.
As indicated in my earlier post, it is time to start applying the brakes for new applicants to the Ciena plan. We have nearly reached our target number of new sign-ups since the extended sponsorship was announced in December 2023.
The Skinny Jump team has agreed to continue supporting any applications received until 31 May 2024, when the Ciena Plan will be removed as an option in the Jump Profile form.
Please make sure that all staff involved in Skinny Jump sign-ups are aware of this, so they don’t inadvertently offer this option to a new familyafter 31 May 2024.
Please withdraw all the Ciena Jump for Students Fund referral forms and any Ciena Jump signage so that frontline staff do not offer this by mistake. You may wish to store these securely, in case the Skinny Jump team is able to secure any further sponsorship.
Just to confirm, the offer of a free internet connection continues until the end of 2024 for all families signed up to Ciena before 1 June 2024. At this stage we have no indication whether the scheme will be continued in 2025; the default is that all customers on the Ciena Plan will revert to standard Skinny Jump on 1 January 2025, unless advised otherwise.
What an amazing effort – you have signed up 451 new families to the Ciena plan since the start of the year. So, we are now on the countdown to our target of 600 for 2024. At the current rate, we’ll reach our target in about 4 weeks.
And who are our Ciena Partner champions? 68 partners have signed up a family to Ciena; the total number of issues since the start of 2023 is 1296. Here are the top 30%.
Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa 