Switching to a reasonably fast ISP - Not Slingshot, which to go for?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Switching to a reasonably fast ISP - Not Slingshot, which to go for?

ajross

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#81272 10-Apr-2011 17:54

Hi,

I'm presently a Slingshot customer locked into their 12 month contract which ends in July. I am lucky if I get 0.8mbps downstream. Luxury of watching YouTube and TVNZ OD is not one I've been able to partake in. I've made definite it's not my termination equipment that's at fault (3 different routers), no microfilters (nothing else on the line - naked DSL) and many other tests show that it's Slimgshot that are the problem.

Chorus can connect to the exchange up to 16mbps, and my router gets connected to the DSL circuit around 7mbps. It just appears that Slingshot's network can't cope (or at least if I trust what the Chorus guys says anyway - my DSLAM box was upgraded to 2+ fairly recently, no difference in speed at all).

Anyway, I'm going to leave slingshot regardless because their customer service is atrocious. I pay $82 a month for their Naked DSL product and would look to have something similar in product (eg, naked dsl, around 25gb download/month) for my money.

I've had a good look around and Orcon seem reasonable but I'd rather pay a few bucks more for an internet connection that will 'just work'. By this I mean I would like to watch YouTube without any problems and TVNZ OD likewise. I don't do tons of downloading or anything like that so let me know what you think, what is NZ's best ISP in terms of speed, reliability and customer service? Price is not the main consideration.

[Moderator edit (MF): changed company names. User warned this is not acceptable]

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4336 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2072

#457273 10-Apr-2011 18:26

i would go for Snap, $89.00 for 30gb and tvnz ondemand is not counted towards your cap, plus You tube always works with no buffering 24/7.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

lostangel

163 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#457353 11-Apr-2011 07:29

If you still connect at less than 8 mbps while another moden/router connects at around 16 mbps this indicates your router either not being configured to support adsl2+ or simply not supporting it at all.

The initial adsl rollout supported up to 8mbps, and it seems that's what you're almost getting.

I find it strange you can't stream from NZonDemand. I'm on Slingshot's all you can eat and have no problems with that site. Even on the highest bitrate.

I do have the problems with YouTube though(and their poor service for that matter), some work fine(at low bitrate) and others(especially 480p and higher) are simply unwatchable.

I recommend going with Maxnet's pure dsl with 20GB for $84 or 30GB for $90.

I always had good speeds when I used them previously.

ajross

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#457897 12-Apr-2011 15:53

All of my routers are ADSL 2+ routers, what I was trying to describe in my post was that whilst they show initial connect speeds of 7mbps this is to the DSLAM, the actual throughput is far less than 7mbps, more like 0.8mbps average. Three different brands of adsl2+ routers, all doing the same thing can't be a coincedence.

webwat

2036 posts

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+1 received by user: 145

Trusted

#458523 14-Apr-2011 01:23

What throughput do you get on a NZ based speed test?

If your connection is unbundled, you could try changing to PPPoE and see if it improves.

Time to find a new industry!

ajross

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#458551 14-Apr-2011 09:16

I'll give that a shot, thanks - not sure if it's unbundled but would assume so.

psk20

155 posts

Master Geek

#468234 12-May-2011 11:51

I've got similar issues with Slingshot. When I do a speedtest it normally gives me about 98 ms, and about 0.8-1.1Mbps to Auckland (from CHCH). Occasionally it will give something ridiculous such as 1500ms / 0.1Mbps. In terms of responsiveness, it feels like most of the time it is performing at or below dial-up speeds. It is virtually impossible to game - e.g. World of Warcraft was designed to be (just) playable on dial-up-speeds, but even so it's unplayable with my connection. As soon as things in the game get busy, my ping surges to 1000-4000 ms or so.

It's been going on for several weeks now - I'm not sure if it's earthquake related, but I'm in Fendalton (a relatively unaffected suburb in CHCH) and it was less bad than this immediately following the earthquake. Though it has by no means ever been very good.

I've put in a few requests for assistance through Slingshot's website, and rung them a few times, but the problem hasn't been fixed yet. They thought they'd solved the problem but it hasn't gotten any better.

What are my rights when I'm on a 12 month contract? They should be refunding me and THEN SOME. Being stuck with a dud ISP is worse than having no connection at all. If I had no connection at all I'd be free to sign up with another ISP at least. Do I have to suck up the disconnection fee? ATM I'm paying for something I'm not getting.

New World

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NZCrusader

646 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 230

#468257 12-May-2011 13:01

If you want data. Slingshot.

If you want speed. Telecom NZ. ( or perhaps Xnet fiber or Telstra Cable - where applicable )

NZ / AU Battlefield 4 Gaming Community
http://www.sonsofvalour.net/forums/forum.php

l43a2

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#468314 12-May-2011 14:31

snaps new plans are pretty good :)

RedJalapeno

65 posts

Master Geek

#468351 12-May-2011 15:39

vexxxboy: i would go for Snap, $89.00 for 30gb and tvnz ondemand is not counted towards your cap, plus You tube always works with no buffering 24/7.

Its now $80 for 30GB ($55 for 5GB +25GB addon), which makes me slightly worried, if snap are offering adsl cheaper than slingshot with more bandwidth, will their performance drop to slingshot levels?

ajross

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#470280 17-May-2011 21:37

So just for the interested on this thread, after five months, two formal complaints, 16 fault reports and over 16 hours of being on to my ISP's tech support they have basically admitted that they are oversubscribed on their international Internet pipe. They have, however, resolved the connection speed issues through a number of elements involving Chorus and sending me a fourth, but different, piece of termination equipment. I now get connected at around 14mbps and most national traffic is a dream. International traffic is really dependent upon time of day. If I try youtube for example at around 6-10pm, forget it. Outside those hours, mileage varies but usually not more than is sufficient to stream faster than 240kbps. Youtube is a classic example because it represents uncached (streaming) traffic. My ISP wrote to me to say that they believe that they satisfy their International requirements through cacheing, but in this day and age of dynamic web content, we know that this is not true. Most large internet users (by this I mean corporates etc) only see between 20-30% cache hit rate on web traffic.

I can post the emails from my ISP here if this a) doesn't break the weird rules on this forum and b) is of interest to anyone.

In closing, my ISP still acknowledge the speed issue and their senior support staff still have the ticket open even though they will know that this does not appear to be an easy fix solution. Although I have had a lot of grievance with the way that this particular ISP have dealt with me as a customer up until now, I am at least satisfied that in the end they seem to have taken me seriously and have acknowledged they have a problem. I'm sure my ticket is one of many on the big fat to-do pile but this is really all I asked. Honesty is the best policy. I'll still be switching ISP. Not sure which yet though.

LAC

108 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#470894 19-May-2011 01:23

What do you think about Orcon?

Lenovo

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psk20

155 posts

Master Geek

#470928 19-May-2011 08:25

I'd like to see the emails, personally.

ajross

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#471022 19-May-2011 11:53

Emails:

From: [names removed]
Sent: Tuesday, 10 May 2011 8:05 p.m.
To: [names removed]
Subject: Re:

Hi [Slingshot CSR],

Speed results are the same today - around 14mbps downstream however I note that all International web traffic is poor: YouTube still won't stream on most videos (forget a 360k rate video). TVNZ now appears to stream on up to the 700k rate, so national traffic seems ok.

Can I ask a direct question? Has slingshot oversubscribed their international pipe? I note that performance varies during different times of day and International web traffic does get slightly better during odd hours.

Regards,

Customer

----

Hi [slingshot customer],

I asked our technical team about your question and this is the response

‘It is difficult to answer that question without some history or context for the particular issue. However as a global answer, No, Slingshot’s international data pipe is not currently oversubscribed. We carefully manage our international data use through the application and use of Google Cache Servers, Akamai Cache Servers, and Bluecoat Cache servers among other measures, which provide huge amounts of our customers data needs off local caching rather than international. This frees up large amounts of our international pipe to keep it available for when customers need it.’

I hope this assists.

[Slingshot name removed]

From: X
Sent: Wednesday, 11 May 2011 3:50 p.m.
To: X
Subject: Re:

Caching doesn't fix streaming data like YouTube, so it certainly feels like your international pipe is oversubscribed.

Regardless, the issue, whilst not resolved to my satisfaction, I doubt will ever be unless an investment is made in your international pipe is made. In terms of my local connection to your point of presence I now get a sustained higher data rate of up to 14mbps which is more than satisfactory for national traffic so in terms of whether you can close this ticket, I guess you can.

Thanks for your assistance,

[removed]

-----

Hi Customer,

There is still a speed ticket lodged. If anything happens you’ll get an email regarding it. So I will leave it open for you.

Thanks,

[removed]

DjShadow

4222 posts

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Subscriber

#471038 19-May-2011 12:15

Telecom if you want speed (I've been able to max my 21mb adsl2+ connection)

BlakJak

1330 posts

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#471042 19-May-2011 12:17

For the record, "Caching doesn't fix streaming data like YouTube" is an oversimplification.

The content caches may actually refer to a type of CDN; so a Youtube video once viewed for the first time will wind up on a 'local mirror' and be faster for subsequent views.

If a pipe is truly oversubscribed (and no other rate limit measures are in place) the symptoms will usually be seen as Packet Loss. If you're just slow, but there's no packet loss, then it's unlikely to be plain old oversubscription of a link.

No signature to see here, move along...

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