The 3 months free broadband offer (“the offer”) applies to your first 3 months base plan charges on your new Bigpipe account. The offer is only available to customers who do not currently purchase broadband from Bigpipe and have not had broadband with Bigpipe within the last 90 days. The offer is available to customers who sign up from 18 December 2018 to 30 June 2020.

Offer applies to new Bigpipe customers signing up to any of the following plans, on a 12 month term:

• Fast (ADSL)
• Turbo (VDSL)
• Starter (Fibre 100/20)
• Expert (Fibre 100/100)
• Pro (Fibre 200/20)
• Elite (Fibre Max)
• Elite Cantab

The offer includes a free modem, shipping and standard broadband connection for ADSL, VDSL and fibre customers. Non-standard installation charges apply.

If you leave Bigpipe before the end of your 12 month contract, an early exit fee of $199 will apply. The offer is subject to change without notice. Credit assessment applies.

The offer will be applied to your Bigpipe account as a credit for 100% of your base plan charges. The offer does not include any additional services which will be charged at full price, including during the first 3 months of your new Bigpipe plan.

This offer may not be combined with any other “new customer” promotional offers. It may only be combined with other publicly available offers on the Bigpipe website (an “other offer”), provided you are eligible for the other offer at the date you sign up, , the other offer is not a ‘new customer’ offer and the combination of the other offer and this offer is not prohibited in the terms of the other offer.

Broadband not available everywhere and speeds vary. Local Fibre Company terms apply if you have a fibre connection. Bigpipe’s Broadband Customer Terms and Conditions apply to all Bigpipe broadband plans.

Now this is a story all about how
My broadband got flipped upside down
And I’d like to take a minute so please sit tight
And tell you how I became a customer of Bigpipe!

In little ol’ New Zealand born and raised
Waiting for sites to load, took most of my days!      
Stressed out, buffering, slow speeds too
Disconnections out of the blue!

Then a couple of bros they were streaming so good!
Started popping up in my neighborhood    
They loaded websites fast and files they shared
And said ‘move on to Bigpipe their options are fair’

I whistled for support and when the chat appeared
“Just type your address, a BIG DEAL is here!”
If anything I could say that Bigpipe was rare
Unlimited, easy signup and great customer care!

I pulled up my address, the sign up was lightweight.
Received my modem, so easy to operate.
Looked at my speeds and I was finally there,
To browse in my home without any mares!

Wondering about that BIG DEAL? Get your first 3 months free when you sign-up to any Bigpipe unlimited broadband
plan on a 12-month contract term! 

T&Cs: Offer is available for new customers and ends 31^st March 2019. Includes free Bigpipe modem and connection (worth $148).

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!

It’s been a little over 2 months since we launched our super-simple, super-snazzy friend referral scheme and it’s been going really well – heaps of you have either referred your friends, or been referred to Bigpipe!

So we figured it was time we kicked things up a notch.

That’s right – the Bigpipe customer that refers the most friends over the rest of May 2016 will win a home entertainment package worth over $2000! It includes a brand new Panasonic 55″ full HD Smart TV, a 2.1 channel Panasonic soundbar, a Google Chromecast, and 6 months bonus Lightbox subscription.

We’ve also got heaps of spot prizes to give away, including 5x Google Chromecasts, video games, and random Cool Stuff! All you have to do to be eligible for a spot prize is refer your friends to Bigpipe during May. That’s it!

To enter: 
1. Login to “My Account” on bigpipe.co.nz.
2. Use the Refer A Friend widget to refer your friends to Bigpipe (see below). You get a unique link that you can post anywhere, and anyone can use to sign up to Bigpipe.

3. Friends have to sign up to Bigpipe between 5 PM, 10 May 2016 and midnight, 31 May 2016 to be eligible for the competition. (They don’t have to be connected to Bigpipe in May – they just have to sign up with us.)*
4. PROFIT! You get $20 Bigpipe credit for every friend who signs up, and they get $20 credit too!
5. WIN! (if you’re the one who refers the most friends.)

Ideas for referring your friends.

Here are a few hints and tips on how to get maximum dollars, for minimum effort. We’ve found there are a few ways people are using Refer A Friend that work really well.

Get emailing

Compose a loving email in which you tell your friends and family how ace Bigpipe is and include the link (maybe even add it to your email signature so it’s always there!)

Post your link on social media

Post your link on discussion forums, Facebook pages, Twitter, ISP review sites (alongside your glowing review of Bigpipe of course!) or other online places where other Kiwis hang out and talk about the internet.

Get social IRL

Visit your friends! Harangue your enemies! Take an iPad round to your neighbours along with some fresh baked banana cake and entice them to sign up then and there.

Get weird

Hire a sky-writer to write your link into the sky over your town! Do something remarkable enough to get on the news and then just repeat your unique code over and over! Train bees to spread your unique link far and wide!

Okay, so those last ones might be a bit much, but do make sure people see your link. Remember, the more people that see your link, the more likely it is you’ll get someone to sign up There’s no limit to how much credit you can earn – so get referring!

Also, if you need a bit more information about how to refer your friends, head over here.

Competition terms and conditions apply. Check them out here.

A few weeks ago, Bigpipe decided to give away a Mystery Prize.

The actual mystery prize was a Chromecast. It wasn’t that mysterious, actually; we said what it was in our Facebook post.

But we decided to have some fun with it. We advertised the tantalising mystery of our mystery prize competition with a picture of some mysterious things. A whale. A bee. A lobster. An escalator. These perfectly normal things were the first to come to mind when we were Google image searching. What, that doesn’t happen to you?

The competition went reasonably normally. At Bigpipe, we make a point of rewarding the best competition entries, rather than just relying on random selection. True to form, there were some excellent entries.

There was this guy, who entered a poem.

Naturally, many people expressed a preference for our ridiculous not-prizes.

Someone else wanted a whale, for reasons.

It was all going so well. Then this happened.

Challenge accepted.

Come on…

A bit of peer pressure does the job.

We’d done our research. It turns out there is a company – actually several companies – in New Zealand who will courier live crayfish to your doorstep. 

So we sent live crayfish to a grouper of our customers on porpoise. Cray-zy? We think this is of-fish-cially the first time any broadband company has done this. We think our hearts are in the right plaice, and we had a reely good time while our customers waited with baited breath, even thought they probably thought it was a red herring up until the last minute. It also gave us the chance to make a carp-load of fish puns. I mean, kahawai not? We know, we know. You’re thinking “Oh, for cod’s sake. I don’t come to your site to trawl through puns. Fin-ish already.” Well, maybe we’ll do batter next time. Haddock enough of this yet? Nah, they’re kraken you up. We’re having a whale of a time. But we’re kind of floundering now. Dolphinately can’t keep this up. Time to pike. Maybe we’ll move to Invercar-gill.

Happily, our customers snappered it right up. They liked it so much they sent photos.

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Why this (probably) shouldn’t be used to compare ISPs in NZ

We reckon these rankings are a good indication of New Zealand’s improving internet situation – and that it’s getting better all the time.

Your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!