Is Slingshot the most incompetent ISP in existence?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Is Slingshot the most incompetent ISP in existence?

TheMantis

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#97215 14-Feb-2012 07:33

Or is their ineptitude just a reflection of the industry in NZ?

I think it would be fair to say I've been having some issues lately regarding the provisioning of internet services.

I live within a military camp in Wellington and have had a reliable internet connection for the past five years. When Telecom ended its Go Large plan a couple of years ago I shopped around and moved to Slingshot. I was happy, until now. I should add that it can sometimes be a struggle to get ISPs to locate us within a military camp but Telecom never seem to have a problem.

Late last December Slingshot identified that another ISP (Telecom?) was attempting to use my line to complete a new connection for another (unknown) individual who had recently moved into the same accommodation area. After some discussion Slingshot assured me that they would not let that happen and would inform the other ISP to leave my connection alone. I went to Christmas happy in the knowledge that my internet connection was safe

In early January my internet stopped. I had no connection to the exchange, not even a tone on the phone. So after an excruciating wait for a Slingshot CSR I attempted to get some technical help. After painfully convincing various CSRs that my modem worked it was concluded the aforementioned ISP had taken my connection and provisioned it to someone else anyway. This took a full month.

After another two weeks of waiting for Slingshot to get Chorus into the game another plan of attack was decided. Slingshot will force a new connection. Apparently Chorus can't locate my exchange details. This was Saturday.

Last week I spoke to two Chorus installers making connections for other new customers within the camp. They confirm that Slingshot are talking out of a hole. I am getting very angry

Last night Slingshot send me an e-mail informing me that my exchange has no free ports and that I need to wait for another customer to disconnect or the exchange to be upgraded. Attempting to use another ISP will make no difference.

Could somebody please explain how another ISP can just take my connection and also how Slingshot are incompetent enough to let them. Could they also explain how Slingshot can't just explain the situation to Telecom and take back the line and re-connect me. Why should I loose my internet connection through Slingshots gross inability to conduct themselves professionally.

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#581189 14-Feb-2012 07:47

Without knowing the exact details I'd take a stab and say things are probably made more complex by the wiring within the base. There is a fairly good chance this isn't Chorus cabling, but cabling owned by the Defence Force, with Chorus simply provisioning a services to a demarc/MDF, and then jumpered across to cabling which runs to your room.

Slingshot

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#581191 14-Feb-2012 08:11

Hi TheMantis,

Sadly other ISP's can just take a service like that, They inform the wholesaler that you want to move to them and all we get is "Churn Notice" Saying that your service is being taken away from us.

In this case here it was taken away by the wholesaler by mistake and your services went to someone else.

This does happen every now and then.

The issues here is really that there is no ports to connect you to and that even tho it is not your nor Slingshots fault that your services are no longer active, no one can connect you until ports become available.

This can be an unknown length of time unfortunately but if you PM me your account details i will find out where on the waiting list you are for your exchange etc.

Thanks,
Joe.

www.slingshot.co.nz

www.twitter.com/SlingshotNZ

https://www.facebook.com/SlingshotNZ

Jaxson

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#581203 14-Feb-2012 08:32

On the face of it, someone else stealing your port doesn't really have anything to do with Slingshot. However, slingshot were made aware of it though, and let you know, so the question then becomes, did Slingshot do anything about it? It's a rough situation though, but professionally Slingshot can't just pull out cables, despite someone else appearing to have done just that. Ask around and see who just got the internet!

freitasm

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#581207 14-Feb-2012 08:46

Incredible how a mistake can not be corrected by the wholesaler. Our broadband still looks like the old far west...

TheMantis

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#581215 14-Feb-2012 09:21

Without exception the Slingshot CSRs were professional and genuinely did their best to help on an individual basis. It is just so frustrating that as an organisation it took them a month to come to the same conclusion that I reached within a day. Up until this point I had never experienced any significant issues. As far as the phone lines are physically provisioned within camp I have no idea, we get told nothing about camp infrastructure at all. Rooms are provided with a phone jack and it is up to the individual to approach an ISP or Telco for connection. I wish I could just walk from door to door and find out who (indirectly) caused the problem but there are close to 300 occupied rooms in camp. Unfortunately Slingshot are unable to identify the person either. The NZDF probably has no idea who has a connection (nor should they), they would only know how many connections there are total. I also believe it is completely separate infrastructure from our NZDF working system. The main camp exchange is directly opposite my workshop so I might go and have a poke around next time a technician is there.

There is something seriously wrong if an ISP can just take an already occupied line even when advised that the holder of that line has no intention of disconnecting or moving ISP. I acknowledge that Slingshot were not the initiator of the issue but through their inaction in arriving at a solution (which I already told them about on day one) I now have a potentially long wait to regain what should not have been removed in the first place.

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#581263 14-Feb-2012 11:48

TheMantis:
There is something seriously wrong if an ISP can just take an already occupied line even when advised that the holder of that line has no intention of disconnecting or moving ISP. I acknowledge that Slingshot were not the initiator of the issue but through their inaction in arriving at a solution (which I already told them about on day one) I now have a potentially long wait to regain what should not have been removed in the first place.

Yes sadly this is the only easy way of doing things without a external government 3rd party to deal with connections etc.....

If any ISP could stop another ISP from taking services for their customer there would be so many people around NZ absolutely stuffed without Internet becuase they have a billing dispute with their ISP and their old ISP is withholding churning of the line.

The main problem here is due to capacity not having the capacity to offer basic phone services is not 3rd world but not good for the growth of NZ telecommunications.

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#581788 15-Feb-2012 12:56

Slingshot's ineptitude is fairly well documented, its the price you pay for cheap internet.

Try another more reputable ISP, at least you might get a timely response from their support team.

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#582083 15-Feb-2012 21:58

Surely Slingshot can escalate this to their wholesaler Chorus. This sounds like a fairly cut and dry issue that should resolvable.

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TheMantis

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#582231 16-Feb-2012 10:33

I'm not sure what happened but somebody set a fire under someones bum at Slingshot - I finally have internet again. Now I need to steel myself to spend some time trying to get back my money for the six weeks of paid connection that was lost.

reindeerFlotilla

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#582236 16-Feb-2012 10:37

I had a similar issue with Slingshot 11 months ago. It took them and Chorus 4 weeks to give me a broadband connection, after I moved house by less than 1 km. 4 weeks! Totally third-world service.

Slingshot

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#582240 16-Feb-2012 10:39

Hi,

Good to hear it working!

We had to install a second line as TCNZ said there was intact service and would not let us remove it,

Sorry for the delays in getting it done,

I will have a look at the account now and credit all service charges from the time it stopped to today.

Thanks,
Joe.

www.slingshot.co.nz

www.twitter.com/SlingshotNZ

https://www.facebook.com/SlingshotNZ

RSK

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#582270 16-Feb-2012 11:15

Sorry, just wanted to add this in.... "TheMantis" you mentioned "after an excruciating wait for a Slingshot CSR ". Is slingshot ever going to have prompt customer service? or is it similar to the saying " you pay peanuts you get monkeys". My brother went flatting for the first time and i said "mate, you wanna go with slingshot, they have good deals and when you call that 0800 number for a new connection you get through straight away". at the time that was the case, but when they hadn't provided service for 4-5weeks and was billing him, i had to call on his behalf 4 times waiting around 45min-1hr... and all this was to do with the exchange and provisioning issues. I called a guy at chorus who works specifically on these jobs and he said he had received no job for a slingshot client and that if he did he'd let me know. eventually the broadband was sorted and took 2 months to get the billing right.

to cut this long story short, my brother is still with them as he got stitched up into another contract because he moved house and they charged him the move fee/reinstall fee and renewed the contract. So he said he will be changing as soon as that ends.

i would recommend going back to telecom or give telstra or vodafone a shot. i had no probs myself with vodafone.

Slingshot

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#582274 16-Feb-2012 11:23

Hi RSK,

The wait time is dependent on issues that arise and time of the day etc,

For instance, Right now, There is no outages etc and the wait time for Technical support is just over 1 minute.

Quite often there are long periods of time with no wait time at all, But when a major outage happens and everyone is trying to call us there is a much longer wait time etc,

As far as fault resolution times go, We HAVE to use Chorus or their affiliates to do the work, the SLA they have is 24 - 48 hours for resolution unless Provisioning or a Built team are required.

I myself have two lines one SS and one TCNZ and when reporting a fault on the TCNZ one recently i waited 45 mins to talk to a Tech agent who xfered me to another and then another and then finally someone who know what i was talking about so it seems the issues are present all over the NZ ISP's

Thanks,
Joe.

www.slingshot.co.nz

www.twitter.com/SlingshotNZ

https://www.facebook.com/SlingshotNZ

RSK

16 posts

Geek

#582282 16-Feb-2012 11:33

I appreciate your reply and the fact that you have been able to compare services. However, this has been an endless problem I have found with slingshot when calling on my brother's behalf regardless of known issues the wait time still sems to be extremely long (by this i mean at least 30mins) i shifted my services as i found telecom responsive and yes when there are known outages i am left waiting however it is usually around 15min mark.

I honestly think that if you guys had more staff on deck, that may reduce wait times.

Slingshot

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#582283 16-Feb-2012 11:39

Hi,

Fair enough, it?s always been luck of the draw a bit for everyone i think.

More staff would make everything faster and we are constantly added to our team, We have taken over another floor in our building to keep them all as we grow. :)

Hopefully with continued feedback from our customers we can find resolutions for all the issues that arise.

Thanks,
Joe.

www.slingshot.co.nz

www.twitter.com/SlingshotNZ

https://www.facebook.com/SlingshotNZ

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