Welcome back to our next exciting Blogpipe post!

This month we’re going back to the basics and giving everyone the tools you need to get up and running.

We’ve got more exciting and in-depth content coming with Part Two of Back 2 the Basics because all great things come in the form of Sequels

Let’s get into this!

So you’ve emerged from the search filled with different ISP’s, and you’re now set on the legendary path with us here at Bigpipe.

You’ve got your email confirming your internet is running!  But nothing is working yet, why is this?! Before you panic we’ll take you on an adventure to find The Internet…

Like all ourneys, the path can be difficult and long or it can be quick and easy! Here at Bigpipe we’re all about making it as easy and painless as possible.

So what’s important about finding WAN on your modem?

Before we get to that it’s important to establish what tools you  need before we begin and the Path you are going to take.

Tools you need for our Basic/Fast and Turbo plans:

• Bigpipe’s Huawei HG659 Modem, Or your own Modem. (You’re the Grandmaster here)
• The grey DSL cable, Black VDSL-ready cable and a DSL filter
• 2x Ethernet cables (The more you have the better!)

If you’ve got all this already, awesome! Let’s start the hunt! But wait what’s this WAN we’re hunting for?

WAN is short for Wide Area Network, Also known as DSL (His parent’s weren’t good at choosing names. WAN grants you the lifeline of the internet. It’s easily the most important thing and without it the journey can get harder.

The Path begins within your home, the plan you choose decides the route you will take.

Let’s start with Basic/Fast or Turbo:

Start by plugging into your jackpoints within your home, some newer homes mark phonejacks with VDSL (If you chose the Turbo plan you’ll want this phonejack).

As you plug in you’ll see the Modem start to flash with lights, it’s here your moment of truth will occur.

If you have the right phonejack you’ll see your modem light up with the following lights, depending on the modem you might want take some time familiarising them:

Power, DSL/WAN/Broadband, WLAN and LAN.

This 4 star line up is perfect! (Note Internet and WLAN are allowed to flash)

If you see the WAN light now on, congrats you found WAN.

Now what?

Well like all good things in life, you just need your modem to give you the thing you really want! Internet!

At this stage you’ll need to configure your modem (More on this in-depth in future). Some modems will do this all for you (like our one), others need a little more input (Pun intended) by you.

Whether you have our Modem or one of our suggested ones we have you covered:

From here you should have no worries getting to the wonderful land of the internet, filled with cats, memes and dank-tomfoolery.

But Bigpipe, I couldn’t find the WAN though? Don’t stress, when in doubt check off everything:

• Are your phonejacks working okay? Testing as many as you have helps
• Is the Modem working correctly? (Some modems don’t show WAN, if your modem doesn’t another definitely will)
• If testing multiple modem’s fails, either your phonejacks need checking or we need to have a tech step in.

When in doubt take your modem to a friend’s house and see if it works there, this will be your greatest ally.

If you can’t find any WAN, pop over to our Support team and we’ll look after you.

The Fast-Fibre Portal:

Making the Leap to Ultra-Fast Broadband? We got you covered here too!

If you chose UFB you’re well on your way. Luckily finding WAN will be a lot simpler, but if it’s your first time we’ll keep it easy. You only have one place to look.

Tools you need for any of the UFB plans:

• Bigpipe’s Huawei HG659 Modem, Or your own Modem
• Your Installed ONT
• An Ethernet cable (The more you have the better though!)

For this setup all you need to do is plug your Modem from the WAN port to the correct ONT Port. If in doubt ask us, we’ll be able to let you know which one. (Often it’s LAN1/GE01).

If Chorus installed your ONT, this is how it should look when connected.

If Enable or UFF Installed your ONT, it will look like this when connected.

Most WAN ports look Blue, others require you to configure them. When in doubt refer to your setup guide.

Now some modem’s have different ways of setting up their WAN port but so long as your Modem shows a WAN light you know you’re good to go.

This light is key!

All that needs to happen here is simply Configure your modem per our settings (UFB) and the Modem will do the rest.

Whether you have our Modem or one of our suggested ones we have you covered:

http://pages.bigpipe.co.nz/modem-router-setup-guides/

If you don’t have one of the one’s in the link you can search it up online or let us know what kind it is. We’ll be able to set you on the right path.

If all works out, you are now online on the internet superhighway.

Welcome, and enjoy your newfound speedy internet!

Hi Everyone! Sorry we’ve been away for so long but we promise we have some exciting details for you we can’t wait to share. Like all great things, we hope to bring you back here quite often as we bring some handy new updates the likes of which will help give you the information (and tools) you need to make your Internet better. (Yes, contrary to the internet there are ways you can improve it)

But first we have some super important details to fill you in on regarding Fibre, much of which will be music to the ears of those who are thinking of upgrading.

The Land access reform, or, how your fibre install is going to get SO much easier

If you’re trying to get fibre, and you live in a shared driveway, cross lease, or an multi-dwelling unit, you’ll find one of the hardest things is getting consent. You’d need everyone who shares your land to sign a consent form before you can get fibre, and people sometimes forget, or their landlord is overseas, or your neighbours just don’t like you that much (Awkward…), and things can get a bit messy. Or at least they use to be….

The good news is that the government has implemented a new scheme to make things much easier. Chorus is the first company to sign up.

This scheme will apply to fibre orders submitted on or after 2 October 2017.^[1]

After you order fibre, the local fibre company will send out technicians to check what kind of installation is needed. Your install will then be allocated into three categories: low, medium or high depending on the impact to the land.

Category 1: Low impact

If the fibre installation would only cause a low impact, you can skip the consents process entirely! Your fibre company just needs to send a letter to all affected neighbours, and they can begin work after 10 working days. It’s estimated 36% of installs fall under this category.^[2]

Low impact installation methods include:^[3]

• Aerial installation
• Installation using existing conduit
• Digging grass/soil/sand
• Installing fibre beneath paving stones
• Attaching fibre to a fence, while not damaging the fence and minimising the visual prominence of the fibre

Note: Category 1 only applies to properties without a body corp. For properties with a body corp the install will be upgraded to category 2.

Category 2: Medium impact

If the fibre installation would cause a medium impact, your fibre company will send a letter to your neighbours. If they don’t say no within 20 days then your fibre company can assume they have agreed and can begin works. (This part speeds up the process) There’s a narrow range of valid objections, so your neighbours can’t say no just because they don’t like you.^[4] 52% of installs are in this category.^[5]

Medium impact installation methods include:

• Fence installs that do not meet the low impact criteria
• Microtrenching less than 15mm wide
• Digging up hard surface smaller than 4m² per dwellings on the property
• Installing or attaching fibre or supporting equipment to a building

Category 3: High impact 

All installs that are not category 1 or 2 will be high impact. Standard consents process will continue to apply.

Chorus estimates that 70%^[6] of previously declined consents will now be able to proceed. So if you tried to get fibre before and couldn’t, or your fibre order is stuck in consents, please get in touch with us and we’ll see if this new procedure can help!

More Importantly if you aren’t sure if you can get Fibre, or if the modem you have can support UFB have a look over here. You’ll be able to find both here, just enter your address first.

If you’re already with Bigpipe and want to upgrade to one of our awesome fibre plans, just log in to our website and request a plan change here.

^[1] https://blog.chorus.co.nz/landaccess/

^[2]http://www.mbie.govt.nz/publications-research/publications/telecommunications/ris-land-access-for-telecommunications-to-support-deployment-of-ufb.pdf p.21

^[3] http://legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2017/0082/9.0/whole.html#DLM7233542

^[4] http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2001/0103/latest/DLM7314737.html

^[5] MBIE, p.22

^[6] https://sp.chorus.co.nz/product-update/simplifying-consents-land-access-reforms

Good news everyone!

Specifically, good news everyone who lives in Rotorua, Taupo, Tauranga, Whakatane, Hamilton, Tokoroa, New Plymouth, Nelson, Blenheim, Ashburton, Christchurch, Greymouth, or Timaru.

That’s right – Bigpipe has just expanded the bigness of its pipes. We can now provide fibre connections in many areas in the towns and greater urban areas listed. Over 100,000 more people can now get fibre with Bigpipe.

If you’re a Bigpipe customer in one of these places and you’ve been hanging out for Bigpipe fibre goodness, head to bigpipe.co.nz/login, hop in to your dashboard, and use our nifty new Change Plan tool to see if you can get fibre with us. If your address doesn’t look like it’s listed, but you’re sure fibre is available where you are, feel free to chat live with our team. Hopefully we can get some spiffy new fibre piping straight into your place.

And if you’ve got fibre with a different company already? We’ve extended our wildly popular UFBSWITCH promotion, so if you’ve already got fibre installed, switch to us by signing up with the promo code UFBSWITCH and you’ll get 2 months of fibre on us, on any Bigpipe fibre plan!

If you’re sure fibre is available but it doesn’t show on our address checker, feel free to open a live chat with our care team so they can double-check for you. Also, some customers will be in areas where there’s an overlap between Chorus customers and other Local Fibre Companies, like UFF or Enable. When this is the case, we’ll hook you up with whoever it’s faster to get your fibre with. If you’ve got fibre installed with someone already, we’ll use that, rather than doing a whole new fibre order.

We’d love to try to hook you up with our fast internet, so give it a go 🙂

We’d love to get you all hooked up with fibre, so give it a go 🙂

Good news everyone!

The Bigpipe Code-Elves have been busy, slaving away in their dank sub-basement coming up with fantastically useful improvements for all you wonderful Bigpipe customers. Spare a thought for them; dab their sweating brows with a metaphorical moist towelette, as we reveal…

Moving house & changing plans made easy!

People love to move house and/or change their Bigpipe plan. We know this because our customers tell us when they do. In the past, it’s not been the easiest thing in the world, and that’s no good. When you’re moving house, the last thing you need is the hassle of figuring out your broadband connection.

So we’ve made it nice and easy and super-quick for you. Here’s how to do it!

If you log into your Bigpipe account dashboard, you’ll now see this spiffy-looking widget (without all the red bits, obvs, that’s us)

Aw yeah, look at that! All you gotta do, if you want to change address (or change your Bigpipe plan at your current address) is click one of those handy green buttons.

Changing plan

Changing plan is as easy as clicking “CHANGE PLAN” and selecting from the available plans at your address. We recommend giving this a go, right now, to see what plans are available at your place – we find a lot of people have a fibre upgrade available, and don’t even know it! Have a crack, because changing Bigpipe plans is free, and you might be able to get a vastly better fibre connection for the same price as our Fast plan – only $79 a month.

Changing address

Just fill out the address where you’ll be moving to (you’ll have to pick an address from the list of options that appears when you start typing), and whether you’ve already shifted. Or you can add a preferred connection date.

Now you’ll get to select the Bigpipe plan for your new address. Your current plan will be highlighted. Any Bigpipe plans not available at your new address will be greyed out. In this example, all our plans are available at the new address! Sweet!

Let’s select the fastest plan we’ve got, Bigpipe’s Elite.

It’ll ask you to confirm the details you’ve entered (make sure they’re all correct!)

Once you’ve clicked the green CONFIRM button, you’ll see the below screen:

And if you check back at the Bigpipe dashboard, you’ll see that your move of address is being processed!

And that’s it! Next time you’re moving house, or if you want to try a different Bigpipe plan, do it the easy way – just log in and choose your new plan or move.

WHAT: scheduled maintenance is taking place between 1 AM and 6 AM on Friday 9 December

WHO: A majority of Bigpipe customer connections will be affected.

WHY: Bigpipe is upgrading network hardware at a number of locations.

IMPACT: You will lose connection to the internet for a time from 10 – 30 minutes between 1 AM and 5 AM.

If your connection doesn’t come back automatically, please restart your modem/router. If you’re a fibre customer, restart your ONT as well.

If your connection is still down after restarting your equipment, check out our network status page. If there is no widespread or ongoing outage, use our support resources at bigpipe.co.nz/support-centre. 

Some customers may experience lower speeds for a limited time after the scheduled maintenance. This shouldn’t last long. If your connection is still slower than normal 24 hours after the scheduled maintenance, please check out our Big Guide To Improving Your Broadband or visit bigpipe.co.nz/support-centre.