What is quite apparent though is that people with Xnet connections are having bandwidth problems with overseas hosts, while people with other connections such as Orcon, Slingshot, Xtra etc are not.

If it was a 'overseas' problem, generally speaking, it has the possibility to affect all users of that backbone provider. Other providers are not having the same issue so it suggests that either there is a problem with this internet provider, or, there is a problem with its configuation with overseas providers. Keep in mind that while speeds are a best effect service, the onus for making things work smoothly and within acceptable levels is on the ISP selling the service to the customer. Trying to dodge blame by blaming contracted service providers is just avoiding ownership of issues.

Every provider has issues time to time - it happens, no amount of fanboyism will change that. The questions that can be raised are 'Why did this happen', 'What was the fallback plan', 'Why is it taking so long to resolve this issue' etc.

I agree that speedtests are quite meaningless, however given the number of people complaining about it (on a few other forums from memory too) - there is an issue as its obviously affecting more than speedtest results. What is quite interesting is that it hasn't been given the same media attention as Go Large did (though I do notice that the media does turn a blind eye to non Vodafone/Telecom provider issues).