Slingshot Down for the 4th Time in over a Month

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Slingshot Down for the 4th Time in over a Month

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Ragnor

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#598237 21-Mar-2012 14:39

dontsurf:

There's no excuse except the stitch-up in the wholesale market and some kind of fantasy dreamland they call UFB.

The current wholesale costs for ADSL and phone services are regulated with pricing set by the Commerce Commission.

Population density and economy of scale are significant factors in the price of wholesale network services, if we wanted to screw over rural users it's possible urban prices could be a lot lower and rural a lot higher but since they generate pretty much all of our export revenue the averaging out of price we have now is better for the country.

High wholesale costs are one factor out of many.

The wholesale costs are probably too high I agree, however both prices and sizes of data caps for retail plans have been and are still improving.

There are multiple ISP's offering un-metered plans now and larger more conservative ISP's are offering larger caps.

UFB is going to make a signifcant difference on the cost of data/size of data caps.

dontsurf:

But I digress: just because you pay less for Slingshot, that doesn't mean you should expect to be offline for extended periods, encounter inconsistent speeds or poor customer service. If you do, then you can fully expect that you'll be ripped off with everything you buy.

You have to have a special way of thinking to believe a budget ISP is going to have the same quality of service as a premium ISP.

dontsurf

22 posts

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#598428 21-Mar-2012 22:50

SteveON: Oh wow you have vast overseas experience? Is this as a consumer or as an industry insider?

The Economies of Scale just isn't in the market here in NZ: The scale of population versus network investment is not what you get in the UK.

We pay more because of our Geo Location, if you want Faster / Cheaper technology here is a start: http://www.emirates.com/nz/

Lol yes. Typical Kiwi answer: if you don't like it here, go somewhere else! Apparently 40,000 people did last year. So yeah, you can have NZ. Plenty of people are telling the rest of you that, and we will be at the end of this year, too. It's entirely up to you - you want to be second world wishing you were first and pretending it's all great, or do you want to be first world with first world services? You don't get that by making excuses for bad service and pretending that problems aren't problems, just the way it is.

Obviously either I wasn't clear or you didn't read: many people in this country have lived overseas at some point and bring back with them an expectation of a certain level of service, and nothing they see in NZ differentiates the place from similarly developed countries - except, of course, expensive and crappy levels of service across all industries. ALL industries. We had that for years with the mobile market pricing until 2degrees came along. No excuse - just plain ripped off and no-one willing to do anything about it. Ineffective regulator built on the principle that the free market will do the best for everyone when the continual experience is that the free market in NZ is anticompetitive and does no one any favours.

The location thing is brought out time and time again, and time and time again it's a failed argument because as it's repeatedly pointed out, there's plenty of overhead on SX, the data is cheap enough, and there's adequate infrastructure in place. It's no small coincidence that everyone except Slingshot has the same kinds of pricing bands for data - 60gb for $100 sound familiar? Fibre with Orcon - offering $100 for 100gb and $200 for 1TB?

Ragnor:
You have to have a special way of thinking to believe a budget ISP is going to have the same quality of service as a premium ISP.

You should be able to use it. That's the point. Otherwise it's not fit for purpose - Consumer Guarantees Act stuff. I wouldn't expect much in the way of customer service over the phone - impossible to get through half the time - but I would expect much more in the way of a provision of service...

...he says, looking at his 12Kb/s broadband speed. You're telling me peak time speeds like this are acceptable? No. They're not. An ISP isn't a TV where picture quality degrades with price - it's a service run from the same equipment as everyone else, up to a point. You get One in HD on Freeview just the same as you get it on Sky, and you don't expect Freeview to crap out half the time because you pay less. In fact, you get better service levels on Freeview and a PVR than you do on a T-Box: and you're certainly not getting the T-Box on the cheap.

We weren't asking for whistles and bells - just a service that did what was advertised. Otherwise, if we weren't entitled to be expecting that then the argument falls down to "don't expect companies to provide what's advertised".

We switched today.

SteveON

1916 posts

Uber Geek

#598452 22-Mar-2012 02:15

If you think australia is travel then you have a lot to learn. Still; Economies of scale.

b0untypure1

1426 posts

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#598481 22-Mar-2012 08:25

it was down for like 10mins, no point in kicking a fuss. If the outage was 1 day, then feel free. Unlimited data for $90 = yes please

mrdrifter

576 posts

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#598484 22-Mar-2012 08:35

b0untypure1: it was down for like 10mins, no point in kicking a fuss. If the outage was 1 day, then feel free. Unlimited data for $90 = yes please

Just to be clear, it was down for over an hour in North Wellington. 10 Min localised outages every so often I can accept, but recently they have been quite significant outages covering large portions of the country.

b0untypure1

1426 posts

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#598631 22-Mar-2012 12:48

im located in kelburn (is that north?)

Twig

5 posts

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#599173 23-Mar-2012 15:32

classiczone: Hi

I would like to advise Slingshot is now down again they have now had 4 outages in 1 month Slingshot went down at around 3:20pm Today and went over to myneighbours place and Internet was working on (Telecom) come back home and still not working. I rang slingshot and outage is affecting Places in North Island and Say its a PP issue outside of there network. well I must say I think its a cover up as they have had issues over last month Disappointing Slingshot prehaps should change to Telecom

Have had a few drops lately too, but just walk away and come back later and kick start the router and all good........ have had good service from the desk staff when I rarely need to call. No I dont work for them just been a customer a many years with only a few minor hickups. Not bad service compared to Telecom lol

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mrdrifter

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#599179 23-Mar-2012 15:50

b0untypure1: im located in kelburn (is that north?)

North, I was thinking Tawa.

Over all our experience with Slingshot has been positive, more so than previous providers. The outages haven't been enough to warrant a shift, as every provider previously has also had some form of problem.

b0untypure1

1426 posts

Uber Geek

#599497 24-Mar-2012 16:22

I was about to call in a napalm strike on slingshot. After waiting 40mins on hold, the guy said "everything is fine on our end"

long story short: One of the chorus technicians ripped our internet cabling out of the terminal and replaced it with someone else's.

today its repaired and back to normal :)

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