slingshot users

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don18

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Wannabe Geek

Topic # 12840 9-Apr-2007 02:07

hey guys, can people on slingshot give me some details on how it is? i'm thinking of changing isp from ihug.

narrowed down to slingshot and that's pretty much it. only because it has the lowest cost for the kind of speed and limit i'm after. (2mbps/6gb). and the data blocks.

xnet was actually way more attractive in cost and reputation, but got put off after reading about them sending out warning letters or suspending accounts for downloading (and i am a p2p user, not heavily but that doesn't seem to make a huge difference).

got some questions re:slingshot that hopefully can be answered here, thanks

1) how is p2p - speeds (2mbps plan), any throttling?

2) any hassles with downloading "copyrighted material" like warning letters or account suspension?

3) speedtests for 2mbps plan?

4) i do realise slingshot has poor customer service. i'm hoping i wouldn't have to use it at all - so how reliable is the connection?

tonyhughes

Hawkes Bay
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Reply # 66624 9-Apr-2007 08:08

don18: 2) any hassles with downloading "copyrighted material" like warning letters or account suspension?

Main hassle is that its illegal!! If you get caught, ANY ISP will warn you, shut you down, and/or pass your details to the authorities if directed to do so via court order. I bet WxC is not the only ISP in NZ that has ever done this, so I dont feel that thats a valid argument against using them really...

4) i do realise slingshot has poor customer service. i'm hoping i wouldn't have to use it at all - so how reliable is the connection?

Its different everywhere. All areas and DSLAMs are different, and even if a user on your DSLAM at the same distance as you gave you a recommendation, then your equipment differences would still invalidate this approach.

ALWAYS count on using customer service...

freitasm

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Reply # 66628 9-Apr-2007 09:21

Welcome to Geekzone... I think you will find this piece of text touching the issue of copyrighted material in their Terms and Conditions:

You must not use our services in a way which:
breaks any laws;
infringes anyone’s rights; or
is malicious, obscene or offensive.

There's no such a thing as complacency regarding copyrighted material. Just because you read Xnet saying that yes they will contact you if you download someone else's material it doesn't mean others ISPs don't. They simply didn't come forward with that information.

I am sure you will find out sometime later that any ISP will cut your connection if the copyright holder of any download complains about your usage...

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raytaylor

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Reply # 67113 14-Apr-2007 19:22

I am a slingshot fanboy because of the price.
I use about 50-150gb a month because of the cheap data blocks.

In about 18 months with them, I have not had any problems with p2p network speeds. For torrents I usually get around 70kBps in peak times for international traffic. I am on the full speed / full speed 3gb plan. They have not sent me any letters and about 90% of my traffic is torrent traffic.

The customer service is crap - I think your phone call goes over at least 3 voip lines to the service centre because when your talking to them, it sounds like your on a bad cellphone with the voice compression, even though you are calling from a land line.
I have had 2 major gripes with slingshot.
When I signed up, it was through a telemarketer who pointed out that slingshot was able to beat our orcon price at the time -
(256k/128k 10gb) but the real point of slingshot was the fact that he said we get a static ip address - which i jumped at. I asked the guy twice (he was of indian accent) to make sure i was understanding him right because orcon was unable to give us one.
So i signed up, but later found out after switching that I wouldnt get a static ip.

The other problem I had was a few months ago, when I switched to fs/fs and my data went from 10gb up to 100gb was that their billing system was unable to keep up and it would take 3 days for data usage to appear on my bill. This was a problem because on the first day of my billing cycle each month I would be downgraded to 64k automatically as the data from 3 days before was counted and I had not had a chance to top up my 3gb of data allowance. This was resolved with an average of 5 calls to the customer service desk and a free 15gb credit from them each month - but rather annoying.
They seem to have fixed this now.

Other than that, they are the best in price for large data users, speed is all-right (happily get international data at 70kBps during peak times) and I hear they recently added an extra upstream supplier in the last couple of months so that could be why - used to be really really bad. At one stage you wouldnt be able to use youtube during 4-11pm.

As I write this (7.16pm on a sat night) I get these speedtest.net results:
Auckland 1700 / 719kbps
Los Angeles 1555 / 714kbps
London 1892 / 662kbps
I rekon that is pretty good for a sat night. For me it peaks at about 2.9mbps.

Ray Taylor
Taylor Broadband (rural hawkes bay)
www.ruralkiwi.com

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Shelbflaco

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Reply # 68070 22-Apr-2007 16:52

Worst Customer service ever. I mean ever! They have got a bunch of MUPPETS working in the call center. They are fine until you have a problem, then they don't want to know you, they can't fix the problem + don't want to even try to fix problem, they even suggest you change I.S.P. I have that on tape as well.

Oh i forgot I live in Napier. I cant play BF2 on and NZ server's my pings 400+

Way to go Slingshot!!!!!

Slingshot = Muppets

g7viz

48 posts

Geek

Reply # 68075 22-Apr-2007 18:56

8 months ago I was a Slingshot customer. Slingshot's customer support was non-existent. The international traffic packet loss was a scandal - I experienced 55% packet loss when routed over AsiaNet. I ditched them in favour of NZ Telecom because I wanted to use VOIP. I found italk quite good for NZ calls. In my opinion Telecom are bad but they are not as bad as Slingshot!

raytaylor

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Reply # 68087 22-Apr-2007 21:20

g7viz:
8 months ago I was a Slingshot customer. Slingshot's customer support was non-existent. The international traffic packet loss was a scandal - I experienced 55% packet loss when routed over AsiaNet. I ditched them in favour of NZ Telecom because I wated to use VOIP. I found italk quite good for NZ calls. In my opinion Telecom are bad but they are not as bad as Slingshot!

I was speaking to one of their techies and apparantly they have added another upstream provider so the packet loss problems have gone away - for me at least. A few months ago, it was impossible to use any international websites during peak times, but they have fixed it now. Usually I get about 1.4-2mb (speedtest.net) during peak times to most international sites now.

Ray Taylor
Taylor Broadband (rural hawkes bay)
www.ruralkiwi.com

There is no place like localhost
For my general guide to extending your wireless network Click Here

g7viz

48 posts

Geek

Reply # 68091 22-Apr-2007 22:07

raytaylor:
g7viz:
8 months ago I was a Slingshot customer. Slingshot's customer support was non-existent. The international traffic packet loss was a scandal - I experienced 55% packet loss when routed over AsiaNet. I ditched them in favour of NZ Telecom because I wated to use VOIP. I found italk quite good for NZ calls. In my opinion Telecom are bad but they are not as bad as Slingshot!

I was speaking to one of their techies and apparantly they have added another upstream provider so the packet loss problems have gone away - for me at least. A few months ago, it was impossible to use any international websites during peak times, but they have fixed it now. Usually I get about 1.4-2mb (speedtest.net) during peak times to most international sites now.

If you are now getting those kind of speeds then that is a huge and welcome improvement. I dont get anything like that with Telecom but my voip does now actually work!