Hi... 

So I'm currently on the red network with Vodafone, reasonably happy with the speeds I'm getting (when the exchange isn't overloaded so off-peak, I can get 1.2mb/s).

However Vodafone's plans seem to be getting increasingly crappy, and not being able to buy data blocks apart from their lame and overpriced 'double your data' thing is starting to get on my neves so I've been trying to switch to Slingshot's new The next Big thing 3 plan. (Which, im fairly sure, is resold vodafone red network wholesale but with far better prices it seems).

Well it seems that not only is that plan not actually being offered until janurary/feburary (not mentioned anywhere I can see on their website), but that we cannot even switch to slingshot's current plans from vodafone because, it seems, there is no agreement in place to switch the phone line to slingshot from vodafone (possibly only if your already on the red network).

According to Slingshot the only way I can switch my phone line from vodafone is to switch to telecom first. According to them this would be expensive because I would need to pay a $50 connection fee and one month of phone line service so $92 in total.

I was certainly not informed when switching my home phone from telecom to vodafone about 12 months ago that I would not be able to directly switch to another ISP and phone provider - and there is no such note or warning on vodafone's site: http://vodafonenz.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/vodafonenz.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5420

This seems very anti competitive to me and I can't claim to know a lot about the legal situation for the telecommunications companies but I was under the impression that it would acutally be illegal to refuse to give up home phone line and number to anyone but telecom.

Does anyone know more about this? Is there really no other way to switch to slingshot without paying $92? Is this the case for all vodafone home phone line customers, or just the ones on the red network?

Thanks,
Jordan