Get started with Skinny

So you want to join Skinny? Righteous. Like everything else, we’ve kept things simple.

Get a phone

Every new Skinny phone comes with a free SIM preloaded and ready to go, so going shopping is the easiest way to get on board.

Get into your nearest friendly Skinny store and take a look at our range for yourself. You can also check out our handsets online, but for now you'll need to go to a store to buy.

Grab a SIM

If you already have a compatible phone, drop us a line and we'll send you a free SIM so you can live Skinny right away.

You can check if your phone is compatible with our network in 3 easy steps

1. Get your phones IMEI number - look on the box, or dial *#06# and your phone will tell you its IMEI number all by itself.

2. Chuck the details into this little app. (In typical Skinny fashion rather than spending heaps of cash on our own, because we use the XT network, we decided to bludge Telecom's instead).

3. If your phone is compatible, go grab your free SIM here.

Once you've sorted a phone or SIM:

1. If you got a SIM, Pop it in your phone. It's not much use in the glovebox, or on the floor.

2. Switch your phone on and call 456 to activate it. Follow the prompts.

3. Call 789 set up your voicemail. Your default PIN is 1234 - you should change it straight away. You cant access voicemail while roaming or from other phones unless you change the PIN. You can turn voicemail off by choosing to use the answer service instead if you prefer.

4. Boom – you’re sorted.

5. To Top-up, use the Skinny Mobile Menu (just dial *888# and hit call, and follow the on screen options) or pop into that friendly local store again.

Using an old phone from another network?

If you've got a phone from another network you may need to tweak a few settings so you can get it working on Skinny for mobile internet and email.

First you need to buy a Skinny SIM. Sounds obvious doesn't it, but you'd be surprised.....Once that's clear and you've been shopping, we can move on.

1. Go to your phone’s settings type thing

2. Find the Mobile data / cellular data settings bit

3. Enter these settings:

APN: wapaccess.co.nz

Username & password: Leave blank

4. Annnd, you're good. Hopefully ;-)

Tweaking your plan

Every Skinny SIM comes with a $4 Loose Lips combo preloaded. That means you get a bunch of free calling, texts and data to use within the first week on us. You can choose to deactivate this plan at the end of the first week if you prefer.

If you are more of a texter, you might want to go onto our Busy Fingers plan instead - Just call us on 204 from your Skinny Phone, or 0800 4 SKINNY (0800 475 4669). Busy Fingers will become your default plan, and the free week of out Loose Lips plan will disappear at the end of the week. Until the end of the first week you still have the Loose Lips minutes, texts and data though, so don't forget to use them!

If you just want to use our standard rates, that's cool too. Give us a call and we'll deactivate Loose Lips, and you can just call on our standard rates.

Please note that you cannot exchange the value of the free 1st week on our Loose Lips plan for credit and use this to pay for changing to our Busy Fingers plan, or for using Skinny services at our standard rates. Check this page out for more info on changing plans.

If you do nothing, at the end of the first week and every week after that your chosen weekly combo will auto renew and you'll be charged $4 from your account, unless you call us to change it or you don't have enough credit in your account.

Mobile data settings

If you've got a Skinny phone, it should be set up straight from the box.

You can see the data settings and other instrucitons on our help page.

If you still need a little hand holding, as some of us do with techy stuff, the best thing to do is to call us on 204 from your Skinny phone, or 0800 SKINNY (0800 475 4669) and let one of the team help you out.

Use your iPhone on Skinny

Your iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4, or 4S will work just fine on Skinny. iPads and other tablets and data only micro SIM devices will have to wait a little while while we tweak some stuff at our end - we'll let you know.

To get started, grab a Skinny SIM (for 3G / 3GS) or a MicroSIM (for iphone 4 / 4S) for free here.

Show your support

So you've joined Skinny, and now you fancy showing your support by scoring some sweet free stuff. Sounds perfectly reasonable to us. Go forth and claim your booty.