Category: Jump Coverage

Jump Customers changing address

I had a question today from one of our partners about the process when Jump customers move to a new address. I thought this might be a good opportunity to remind all partners.

Here it is in a nutshell:

  1. Use the address checker to confirm that the customer is moving to an address with Jump coverage.
  2. If so, ask your customer to contact the Skinny Care Team on 0800 475 4669 and inform them of the new address.
  3. The customer can then unplug their modem and take it to their new address.
  4. If customers move their modems to a new address without notifying the Skinny Care Team, they could find their modem gets blocked, as this is a breach of the conditions of use.
  5. If their new address does not have Skinny Jump coverage, then the modem should be returned to the nearest Jump partner for resetting and assigning to a new Jump family, or the customer is welcome to contact the Skinny Care Team and request a pre-paid return courier bag.
  6. What they should not do, is just walk out the door and leave their Jump modem behind for the next tenant.
  7. Transferring to another family member can also be problematic, as the modem is linked to the original user’s email and any new user would require access to this email and the password in order to top up the account and purchase new data plans. So it is much better for the modem to be returned and reset (or if it is unsuitable for reuse, it will be responsibly recycled). The family member is welcome to apply for a new modem using their own email and password (assuming of course that they meet the eligibility criteria).

Jump System Outage Resolved

4pm Wednesday 3 May 2023

Thank you everyone, for your patience, and we apologise for any inconvenience this has caused in signing up new customers for Jump.

The technical teams at Spark believe they have fixed the root cause of the Skinny Jump address checker issue. Earlier today, the Christchurch Jump team discovered that this appeared to be working again, and we have been testing addresses since then to confirm that all is well.

So, you can now return to ‘business as usual’, but please be aware that the Jump systems are still ‘settling back in, following the outage’ in the words of the Spark Jump team. They have assured us they will be continuing to monitor all the Jump systems to make sure.

And remember that if you do encounter problems with the Skinny Jump address checker, you can use the regular Skinny Broadband checker. Both use the same database for Skinny 4G coverage and availability checks.

If you do discover anything that doesn’t seem to be working as it should, please get in touch with us (jump@diaa.nz or 0800 463422) and we’ll escalate to the Spark Jump team as required.

Probably another 12 hours to fix the Skinny Jump address checker

10.00 am Wednesday 3 May 2023

Skinny technical teams have confirmed an issue with the Jump address checker, as a result of yesterday’s systems outage. Unfortunately, due to the complexity of the issue, they are estimating that it will not be fixed for at least 12 hours.

In the meantime, they have suggested the Skinny Wireless Broadband checker as an alternative workaround until the Jump address checker can be fixed.

What to do when the Skinny Jump address checker doesn’t work?

Earlier this week, we encountered a situation where the Skinny Jump address checker wasn’t working and not surprisingly this generated a number of inquiries from Jump partners.

I was probably the first to discover this, as I start processing Jump online applications first thing every morning. By 7.30am I had raised an alert with Alan in Spark’s Jump squad and hoped this might have been fixed while you were still having your breakfast.

Alan was onto this superfast and had his finger poised to do a red alert (I think they call it Priority One alert). Meanwhile many of you had finished your breakfasts and were on the job – did you know that every day Jump partners sign up around 50 Jump customers.

Thank you to everyone who contacted me on our jump@diaa.nz email – you absolutely did the right thing. I’m just sorry that you had customers before the issue was resolved.

At 2:17pm we were notified that the issue had been fixed – it had been caused by an overnight software update.

Should this ever happen again, please do what I did to keep the Jump wheels turning – I went to the Skinny main site (not Jump) and checked the address there (under Broadband tab). This does take a bit of care because almost every address that is typed into the main Skinny site gives the green light. You need to scroll down and look at what broadband services are available and sometimes you will find that a fixed line fibre solution is available, but not the 4G wireless option.

Skinny Jump relies on 4G wireless capacity, so if the main Skinny site says there is no 4G available, then you can safely deduce that Jump is not available either.

Having said all that, this might never happen again – it is some years since we have had any problems with the Jump address checker, so it is good to know there is a work-around should this ever happen again.

Skinny Jump is not a mobile service

Skinny Jump is not a mobile service. This means it can not be used in a vehicle or transferred between houses without the explicit approval of Skinny.

We have heard reports about people trying to connect their modems to the cigarette lighter outlet in their cars, but that seems like a lot of trouble to go to when mobile phones have much easier hotspot functions. We have also heard reports of people temporarily relocating their modem to an alternative address.

Both of these uses are a breach of the Skinny Jump Terms and Conditions.

Some customers are uncertain about whether they can take their modem with them when they move to a new house. The short answer is “yes, they can” provided:

(a) they have checked there is coverage at their new address; and

(b) they have contacted the Skinny Care Team (0800 475 4669) and confirmed their new address.

If service is not available at the new location, the modem must be returned to a Jump partner; the modem can then be reset (using the Modem Returns form) and reissued to another family that is in coverage.

More on Jump Waiting Lists

Many partners are now actively using the waiting list process to signal unmet demand for Jump modems, and we are continuously monitoring these lists to adjust delivery quantities for partners as well as priorities. We currently have 102 modem orders for partners in the pipeline, with total requests for over 1200 modems. This might seem like a lot, but the good news is that waiting times are trending down, and with Christmas coming, we expect this trend to continue at least until February. We have adjusted the re-supply trigger quantity down from 8 weeks to 5. This means that whenever you receive a new supply of modems, you should have enough to last 5 weeks (based on the number issued during the previous five weeks). We do factor in customers on waiting lists, so a couple of reminders about this process.

(1) When you add someone to the waitlist towards the bottom of your Jump Register please include their first and last name and the date they have applied for Jump. The most important field is the date – it must be in the following format: “22-Nov-2022”. Other date formats may not be recognised and this directly affects re-supply quantities.

(2) Do not add people living at locations that fail the Jump coverage test to your waitlists. You should complete an online application for them, so that we get ongoing data about demand that can not currently be met. We do double check coverage for every online application and send an email to applicants at locations where there is no Jump service.

(3) We have noticed some situations where applicants get the green light for Jump coverage when they initially apply, but by the time new modem supplies arrive the situation has changed. This is regrettable, but it is not something we can control. In these situations, please transfer the applicant from your waiting list to an online application.

(4) Some partners are confused about the address verification process and have reported that by the time they discover their customer’s address is not in coverage, they have already set up a Skinny account. The address coverage check MUST come first, and certainly before you start to set up a Skinny Jump account.

(5) And before you add anyone to your waitlist, we do strongly encourage you to use the 6 C’s checklist with your customer to make sure Jump is the right product for them. Failing to do this is likely to lead to further frustration when modem supplies become available and the customer only then discovering that the data cap is not going to work for their household, for example.

Modem returns from Customers who are not in JUMP coverage

I have been advised this week by partners of two instances where customers are seeking replacement modems but their addresses now fail the Skinny Jump address coverage check.

My advice in both instances has been to provide a replacement modem.

Jump coverage and tower capacity is something that is changing all the time and while we are not permitted to connect new customers at addresses that fail the coverage check, we must give priority to existing customers in replacing faulty modems.

One partner raised a concern that the customer involved could have changed addresses since they were originally connected two years ago. We (DIAA) do not hold records of customer addresses in situations where modems have been issued by partners, so we have no way of checking. The other situation involved the transfer of a modem within the family at the same address.

Our recommended approach is to remind customers that they must always check with the Skinny Care Team (0800 475 4669) before relocating their modems to a new address, but if customers advise that they are at the same address as the one they used when originally connecting to Skinny Jump, then we have to take that at face value and provide whatever assistance we can to keep their connections active.

Customers should be advised that in areas that have reached capacity, the performance of their connections might not meet the standard expected of a broadband service and if they were unhappy with the performance of the replacement modem, they should return it (with packaging) and seek an alternative service.

Confusion about when to order Jump modems online

When two or more partners ask the same question, then it is time for me to post to this blog.

The modem shortage is causing some new issues; we currently have over 900 on order, and it will take at least 3-4 weeks to catch up, by which time we expect to have another 900 on order. As a result of this delay, partners have asked if they should use the home delivery process when they run out of modems.

Our short answer is no! We prefer that you create a waiting list – one partner this week advised us that they have a waiting list of 27! The modems we use for home deliveries come from the same supply pool as that used for partners and our priority for the online pool is for customers who cannot get to a local partner to collect a modem and for replacing faulty modems.

Our guideline for home delivery orders is that partners should only use this for customers who for some reason can not go to a local Jump partner.  We much prefer that they come to a local delivery partner where you can give them help to set up their accounts and make sure they know about the Jump app. 

However, we do encourage you to lodge an online application for people who do not have coverage or are in areas where there is no Jump capacity.  We do double-check that there is in fact no service at this address, but mainly we use this to keep Skinny updated on unsatisfied demand.

So when it is just a case of modem shortages, we encourage you to keep a waiting list, and get back in touch with your customers when further stocks of modems arrive.

Jump coverage checker updates

Partners may have noticed some changes in the messages they receive when the Skinny Jump address checker returns a negative result.

There are now three different messages you may receive when checking a customer’s address for Jump availability:

(1) No coverage or low coverage: this means the customer is totally outside a Spark 4G coverage area or is on the fringes. This means that customers would receive no service or a very poor service.

(2) No capacity: this means that the cell tower serving this location is at capacity and Skinny is not legally allowed to connect further customers; if they do so, existing customers would experience a degradation in service that could lead to complaints to the Government regulator.

(3) Antenna plan only: this is not available to Jump customers as there are significant costs in installing a wireless antenna. The purpose of the antenna, which connects to some modem types, is to boost the signal to a level that ensures reliable internet speeds. This service is only available to regular Skinny customers, who may be willing to pay the extra costs.

The good news in all this is that coverage and capacity is improving all the time, so customers should continue to be encouraged to check for any changes from time to time.