{"id":763,"date":"2018-11-01T21:40:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T09:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wispa.nz\/?p=763"},"modified":"2019-07-07T20:42:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T08:42:28","slug":"netspeed-a-wisp-in-a-suit-with-a-sedan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wispa.nz\/?p=763","title":{"rendered":"A Wisp In A Suit With A Sedan"},"content":{"rendered":"

NetSpeed<\/a> \u2013 a WISP Profile by Ernie Newman<\/p>\n

\"Stan
Stan (founder), Heather (director) and Trixie (security) Rivett of Netspeed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No disrespect \u2013 but sartorial elegance is not usually a defining characteristic of the rugged rural blokes who typify the WISP community. But then, Stan and Heather Rivett aren\u2019t your typical WISP stereotypes.<\/p>\n

Stan (founder), wife Heather (recently recruited director) and dog Trixie greet me in their offices in Ocean View on the Otago Coast \u00a0looking like city business people. No sign of the High-Viz and steel capped boots favoured by most WISP owners. Nor the standard 4WD \u2013 just a sedan, albeit a high performance one as Stan is a serious petrolhead. It\u2019s a Friday and I\u2019m on holiday so I feel a bit underdressed.<\/p>\n

But I soon discover one crucial difference between Netspeed and the more conventional WISPs. Netspeed is a franchise operation. The Rivetts and their team run the office and customer service centre, the field work is done by the franchisees.<\/p>\n

Stan started Netspeed in 2003 \u2013 \u201cI was bullied into it by friends,\u201d says Stan. In those days he was running a retail car stereo business in Dunedin, importing the equipment and selling it on TradeMe. So he advertised and quickly sold three franchises, in Christchurch, Wanaka and Oamaru. \u201cIt was a good proposition,\u201d he says \u2013 \u201cwe signed our three franchise holders before servicing a single customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The customers came thick and fast. It\u2019s a familiar story \u2013 serious regional businesses trying desperately to get by on ADSL, Jetstream and dial-up. So a 10Mbps offering over wireless was a great attraction.<\/p>\n

The early services were over a frame relay, and two years in Stan still had dial-up in his own office. But then a migration to WISP Wireless sent the business down a more conventional track. With a serious competitive advantage for rural customers.<\/p>\n

The franchise arrangement works very well according to Stan. \u201cWe have local people to run the business in their local area while we provide the customer service, help desk, operations, technical support, accounting and marketing. We\u2019ve built our own cloud-based accounting system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heather joined the business as co-Director three years ago, following a corporate career. \u201cI enjoy our customers and sales. I also work with Tania on the accounts and marketing as well as pulling the systems into shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Happy\"Happy<\/p>\n

The Rivetts have an enthusiastic office team around them. Matt is the longest serving \u2013 he is Support Team Leader doubling as chief Coder and sometime hacker. Nick, who does marketing and promotions, has been there 2 years. Elliott, in charge of support calls and sales, is more recent. Among them all they handle functions as diverse as graphic design, social media, and technical support for all the franchises. It\u2019s a tight, energised workplace.<\/p>\n

Irene Walton is an enthusiastic customer of Netspeed. I visit her in the Karitane home she has just moved to and is renovating. Karitane is her 4th Netspeed connection having earlier connected to them while living and working in Wanaka, Hawea Flat, and Owaka where she and her husband owned a restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir service was absolutely 100% in all four locations,\u201d Irene told me.<\/p>\n

\"Customer
Customer Irene Walton decorates her new house, in the 4th town where she has been a happy Netspeed customer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re exceptionally helpful \u2013 whenever there\u2019s been an issue they\u2019re right onto it \u2013 even if its something like a PC issue that\u2019s nothing to do with them. They talk me through it. They\u2019re patient and never pass the buck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we arrived here in Karitane we needed a new chip. Nick arrived with it on a Sunday afternoon \u2013 he\u2019d gone out for a Sunday drive and brought it. By comparison with Xtra in the early days, we could never even get hold of them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Canterbury Dimension<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s a major hike to the Rakaia Gorge in inland Canterbury but next morning I turn up to meet Netspeed Canterbury franchisee David Gabites at the quaintly named Windwhistle Garage. His network runs 125km from Christchurch to Lake Coleridge and provides connectivity to most of the farms in the Rakaia Valley, and more recently to Upper Glenthorne. At the extreme its 190km from Christchurch across 12 radio hops. Customers include a dozen high country stations with about 35 users including farm workers \u2013 in some cases the workers\u2019 cottages are part of the main farm account and in others they are billed separately. There\u2019s no cellular coverage in most of these areas.<\/p>\n

\"Canterbury
Canterbury franchisee David Gabites at the Coleridge site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis place is called Windwhistle for a reason,\u201d David tells me. Not the case on this sunny spring day, but David should know \u2013 his father was an accountant in Ashburton and had many clients in the high country including the famous Erewhon Station. The high winds have a major effect on the design of Netspeed\u2019s sites which are engineered to withstand quite exceptional gusts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a retailer in an earlier life,\u201d he tells me. \u201cOne day Telecom sent me a letter out of the blue apologising for the quality of my Internet in suburban Christchurch and saying there was nothing they could do about it \u2013 I hadn\u2019t complained so I don\u2019t know why they wrote. But it caused me to contact Stan Rivett to see what could be done and suddenly I found myself with a franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen came the quakes and the GFC \u2013 but we got through all that and moved ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The franchisor\/franchisee relationship seems clear and workable. Stan is responsible for monthly invoicing, marketing, the service centre, and the main Christchurch transmission site. David does installation including billing for installs, building and maintaining sites, monitoring, trouble shooting, and the 0800 service calls.<\/p>\n

We arrive we up in the hills at Netspeed\u2019s Coleridge site. Coleridge Village is visible just below the ridge. The site services a diversity of customers \u2013 big stations, smaller farms, the Mount Olympus ski field, and a hunting lodge. The view is stunning. \u201cOn a fine day,\u201d David concedes, \u201cits tempting to come up here and fix something that really doesn\u2019t need fixing.\u201d It sure beats his earlier life as a furniture marketer and salesman, allowing him to exploit his fascination with our high-country farms.<\/p>\n

Netspeed is part of a crowded space for Canterbury WISPs with Ultimate and Amuri. But they\u2019re friendly competitors who don\u2019t tend to overbuild each other on the same sites, he says. There\u2019s plenty of scope for all. And although the foundation of the business is rural, Netspeed has a significant number of customers in suburban Christchurch who choose its wireless option because of superior customer service.<\/p>\n

On the way back to Windwhistle we stop at a cattle yard to meet happy customer William Innes. William\u2019s been with Netspeed for 9 years. \u201cThe previous satellite service was awful and bloody slow,\u201d he says. \u201cAlso very expensive with lots of maintenance issues.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re really happy with Netspeed \u2013 you get the odd service glitch such as during the Port Hills fire, but they\u2019re quick to fix these. And its great that my young kids (8, 7 and 5) can do their homework on line the same as the city students. The schools more and more just assume that all students have home Internet and fast speeds.”<\/p>\n

\"William
William Innes at the farm cattle yard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEverything on the farm is now done on line \u2013 environmental reporting, fertiliser, farm management data, and the whole works. And the Internet makes it far easier to recruit farm workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Driving back to Windwhistle I feel a long way from Stan and Heather in their Ocean View office. But this team effort with franchisor and franchisee seems to work brilliantly with everyone playing to their strengths and relishing their work. Most important, the high-country residents are very satisfied and happy.<\/p>\n

NetSpeed.net.nz<\/a><\/h3>\n
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NetSpeed \u2013 a WISP Profile by Ernie Newman No disrespect \u2013 but sartorial elegance is not usually a defining characteristic of the rugged rural blokes who typify the WISP community. But then, Stan and Heather Rivett aren\u2019t your typical WISP stereotypes. Stan (founder), wife Heather (recently recruited director) and dog Trixie greet me in their … <\/p>\n

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