Hi there,

Welcome to the Spark Wholesale e-newsletter

This month we have an update on two exciting new products, SIP Gateway and A2P One Messaging Service. Our Product team have also developed a very handy Quick Quote portal for our Business Internet Service.

If you recently participated in our customer survey, we sincerely appreciate your time and value your feedback. One of the themes was a request for better communication and as a result, we'll revist how, what and when we send product information to our customers.

On that note; this e-newsletter is intended to provide better visibility on wholesale products, projects we're supporting, relevant industry updates and more. We'll keep it informative and interesting, but if you'd prefer to unsubscribe you can do so at the foot of this email.

Wishing you and your family all the very best for a happy and safe festive season.

The team at Spark Wholesale

SIP Gateway launches

Our new SIP Gateway service enables cloud voice service providers to connect directly to Spark's IP voice platform via a Network-to-Network Interface (NNI). Built with the highest level of resilience, SIP Gateway ensures your customers experience high-quality voice calls consistently to and from Spark's voice network and our interconnect partners.

SIP Gateway

A2P One Messaging Service is live

Spark Wholesale's new A2P One Messaging Service offers short code A2P SMS connectivity to New Zealand's three mobile networks.

Using a 3 or 4-digit (short code) number, you can send and receive short code A2P SMS messages to any mobile phone in New Zealand via Spark's gateway.

My A2P One portal will enable customers to view comprehensive delivery performance dashboards and request new short codes.

A2P One Messaging Service

BIS Quick Quote

Our Business Internet Services (BIS) online quoting tool allows customers to obtain quotes immediately based on an address entered into the Quick Quote portal. The quote can then be turned into an order with a simple click of a button, sent directly to Spark Wholesale. For more information or access to the portal, please contact your Spark Wholesale Business Manager.

Our Internet Services

Spark IoT webinar series

Our friends at Spark IoT hold a regular series of webinars with topics ranging from water management, ground robotics, agriculture, and the way we teach and learn.

This month's topic: Where can IoT, 5G and AI play a part in Smart Cities of the future in New Zealand and what that could look like? What is currently happening in the market and the wider ecosystem, including key drivers, challenges and opportunities and the all-important why to hopefully help push things forward.

Guest speaker Jannat Maqbool explores what New Zealand’s cities and towns of the future could look like and why it matters. Jannat discusses who this is important to and the impacts it may have and where we should be looking to invest time, effort and money.

You can watch current or past webinars via the link below.

WATCH IOT WEBINARS

Spark's Christmas close-down dates

To allow our teams to take a break over the holiday period, the following reduced levels of service will apply:

Service type	Time period (inclusive)	Status	Implication
Spark network and ICT	13 December 2021 to 17 January 2022	Service brownout	Work limitations in place. Any major changes requested within our network will be reviewed and prioritised with a view to limiting change and preventing loss or degradation of service to customers. Includes configuration, build work and software loading. Please note, this work restriction does NOT affect fault fixing, restoration or individual customer configuration work.
Spark network and ICT	22 December 2021 to 10 January 2022	Service blackout	All work restricted. Only critical fault repair work undertaken.
Customer provisioning	23 December 2021 to 12 January 2022	Service blackout	All data provisioning work restricted. Only emergency data provisioning work undertaken.
MVNO	23 December 2021 to 4 January 2022	Service blackout	All work restricted. Only critical fault repair work undertaken. Self-service functions operating as normal 24/7.

Contacting our Service Team during the holiday period

Spark Wholesale (wholesalesupport@spark.co.nz) will be unavailable to respond to emails between 23 December 2021 and 4 January 2022 (inclusive).

For critical service escalation queries during this time, please call 0800 255 999, option 9. If your query isn’t urgent, please email wholesalesupport@spark.co.nz and we will respond from 5 January 2022.

All other Spark service channels will be unavailable between 23 December 2021 and 12 January 2022 (inclusive). Full service via all channels will resume as normal from 13 January 2022.

All Customer Assurance fault services will continue to operate as normal throughout the above period.

If you need further clarification on the above and how it may affect your business, please contact our Chapter Lead – Service Management, Jeff Wood, on +64 (0)27 444 1257 or jeff.wood@spark.co.nz