“Netspeed is a team of local operators throughout New Zealand who are dedicated to providing professional, personalised broadband and internet services”

Netspeed Data Ltd

Established: 2003

Location: Dunedin

Website: www.netspeed.net.nz

Business mission: “Our aim was to provide quality internet to the provinces and rural locations outside of the large metropolitan areas that were being ignored by the big companies, left to struggle with dial-up speeds to handle the ever-increasing level of data flowing over the internet. The initial dream to bring quality internet to all New Zealanders still burns bright, and this has been the guiding light for how Netspeed have evolved and will continue to shape our future growth.“

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Netspeed do not sell generic broadband. Every customer has different needs and uses for the internet and the Rural Broadband market is a core part of our commitment to providing quality internet anywhere in New Zealand. These are often the households and businesses who have struggled with connectivity, who have specific uses for the internet and need a solution. Key to being different is our high customer service model. Netspeed is a full-service internet provider. If you ask us a question, even one that may not be internet, if we know, we will help, if we don’t know, we’ll help you locate the right service for you.

We have entered the Broadband Compare “Best Rural Provider” awards. Will we win?

Stan has been self-employed since 1990. Those of you around then will know that through the late ’80’s business failed everywhere leaving good people jobless. This experience of being the best that you can be in your field but at the mercy of others, initially led to consideration of self employment, then it was finding the right opportunity. The ISP track came from having terrible internet at home and realising if we could solve our problem we could solve other peoples as well.

Internet was a new market when we started, there was a lot to learn and not that many ways to learn it. Seeking out and forming relationships with clever ‘geeks’ and applying a business, real world operation to the tech, was one of the very first challenges. An integrated system to allocate and invoice for connections didn’t exist and needed to be built. This back room functionality connected to service delivery is now taken for granted, but when Netspeed started no-one had an operational system.

Our challenges are not changing a lot. It’s a very competitive market. Customers want more, higher quality and to pay less. Multi-nationals are prepared to undercut small providers and make it a race to the bottom for price. Once we are all gone they will monopolise the market. The ongoing challenge for us to is to get noticed and to be a LOT better at service than our competitors

I’ve already mentioned the learning curve and the enormous competition we combat. Our commitment to reliability was highlighted by two recent events. The Christchurch Port Hills Fires in November 2017. One of our transmitters was knocked out the first night of the fire; through negotiation with the fire service, we were able re-establish the network first thing in the morning and maintain it, by hiking up to refuel the generator three times a day for two weeks until the solar generation system could be rebuilt. The major transmission site for Wanaka, is on Mount Roy. It is used by many and owned by the community. Its mains power supply had been unreliable, affected by fire and lightning strikes over several years. In February 2018 a lightning strike finished it off for good. The establishment of power was a priority; Netspeed took the lead in flying in a generator and helicopter refuelling to maintain services for everyone, whilst supporting the redesign and funding applications to get this important community resource underway. Our installer supported all the meetings and contributed to the new build. Our customers had minimal disruption given the size of the problem.

We have grown the business – sometimes we forget how much. In 2016 we were thrilled to be a $M1 business, now we are in excess of $M3. We have a team of amazing people helping us in our success, we think our staff recruitment has been essential to that success

We are a credible business with national weight. When we started we were local and thinking small, now we are national and a force in the small ISP market. We have introduced several innovations which have been copied by other, soft data caps, no contracts, be mobile, are three most copied.

We have 2 full time directors, 3 full time support staff, 1 part time accounts person and 12 part-time contractors

We have contracted an installation company. they install antenna, solar sites and do maintenance as required

This year we have employed a sales coach. This has really boosted the team’s confidence talking about the product on the phone. We have weekly training about issues that arose, how best to deal with them, what is coming up on the sales horizon. All our team have a computer diploma or degree, all different they are constantly learning off each other. The team senior is currently at a supplier training course so that we can do some new and innovative things

We have many – here are some Our motorhome renters are really happy with the internet on board! A lot of renters from others companies are very jealous! Email – BOI Campervans

Thank you so much for your help!  A revelation to deal with a person/company that is sensible, not tied up in red tape and is able to be flexible and responsive!! Email – Christina D

I have been searching for a new internet provider for a few days and must say that of the variety of companies approached, you were the most efficient and on the ball. That’s why I did not hesitate to go with Netspeed. Email – Dirk S

Netspeed is easily the best service and most efficient of any utility provider that I’ve ever come across!!! Email – Don E

Thanks again for the consistently helpful and thinking outside the box advice. We’ve been using Netspeed for years and recommend them to all our friends. Their service is outstanding and the product perfect for our requirements. Thanks again! Facebook – Judy K

Along came Netspeed, first a trickle of information with a very good recommendation and then an avalanche of delighted customers. Instant, continuous, fast and cheap mobile broadband! Oh the joy, we are finally free from the shackles of expensive mobile data. Netflix here we come! Blog- Tikitouringnz

Long hours and worries …yes but so much more. Immense satisfaction and pride seeing this idea we had grown into a respected company. The ability to decide the direction of flow. We could become a VERY low cost operator with poor service levels or we could stick with what we do now and do it even better – we get to decide.

We sponsor local organisations that are important to the people that work with us, so we have a plunket groups, a yacht club, a surf club, a young farmers club all receiving free internet. We will be subsidising flu shots for the neighbours of our head office next year. It is in the plan to get a strategy, although the debate is that at the moment we support organisations that are important to our people, which gives our people ‘mana’ in their community – so the benefit is for our people rather than us as a company. We haven’t yet decided if we should change that

We provide internet in hard to reach places. We do it at a reasonable cost. so communities and families are often embarrassingly grateful for being able to connect with each other their wider family and access information for a management sum of money. Example: We recently set up a repeater station at the cost of $600, enabling a farm and their workers cottages to access the internet for less than $500 a month – they were paying 925 a month for 5% of the data that only worked if the wind blew in the right direction. In other words everything we do supports families and communities and that’s what we like!

Netspeed have five guiding principles to the way we work that underpin our commitment to our customers:

LOYALTY

To achieve our goal, we have to work together. We care.

INTEGRITY

We do what we say.

KNOWLEDGE

We are interested, we listen, contribute, and learn.

ENTHUSIASM

We brighten someone’s day every time we communicate.

SERVICE

We care for the customer, all of them, every time.

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