So Slingshot do filter/throttle/block/censor content

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › So Slingshot do filter/throttle/block/censor content

uncmil

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#18987 31-Jan-2008 22:14

Long time no see GZers, I've just not been on for ages (been pursuing other interests, not to mention preparing for school going back).

That's not my point though. The title of this thread is my point. I know that it's been tossed about a lot about Slingshot's supposed filtering of content - throttling/censoring/filtering/blocking whatever you want to call it - in that they restrict access in some way shape or form to content on the internet.

I know that people like hellonearthisman and probably ops will leap on me on seconds and come to Slingshot's defence regarding this issue, but I honestly don't care. They can go on spouting SS's corporate BS for as long as they like, but it will remain exactly that - BS.

Ops regularly states on the Slingshot forum that Slingshot doesn't partake in anything of the sort, but that's something that's been proven wrong by several Slingshot users. I'm going to pull from my own experience as a Slingshot customer for ~1.5 years:

Recently, I had an issue where my I found my internet access was restricted. There were certain websites that I couldn't get to at all, and the few that I could (slingshot.co.nz, trademe.co.nz and perhaps geekzone.co.nz) ran extremely slowly. After three calls to the help desk, I got one particularly helpful person who stated that the issue could be resolved by purchasing a data block. I did so, and sure enough the issue disappeared.

The conclusion I drew from that experience was that users who had gone over their data caps for the month were restricted in what they could do using the internet, rather than just having their speed slowed (I object to that as well, but I'll let it slide).

Other users have similar stories, and there was an article about similar things in Stuff recently.

If I'm wrong, by all means correct me. But don't lie - don't blame it on a bad port at the exchange (if there's a bad port at the exchange, then why the hell did purchasing a data block make it go away?), and don't repeat the lies about no filtering, etc. with Slingshot, unless you can back that up with concrete evidence that suggests Slingshot does not partake in that stuff. If you can hand me some decent proof that SS doesn't do it, and/or explain why purchasing a data block fixed my filtering/blocking/restricting/censoring/etc. issue, then great. I'll apologise and forever be a convert.

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#107872 31-Jan-2008 22:18

I've had that exact same issue - your not alone. Though I've been having other issues too.

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nzbnw

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#107882 31-Jan-2008 23:17

Please don't jump on me, as I will take my Telecom hat off for a moment, but why do you stick with Slingshot when you and others are having all these issiues?

There are plently of oher companies willing to provide you with your broadband connection, and tend to offer the support to back up their product a lot better than what I keep hering about Slingshot?

nzbnw

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#107885 31-Jan-2008 23:30

I would have switched, but my housemates are a bit more stubborn in the sense that they don't want to pay more (even though they'll get better service) and they don't really want to get hit with the disconnection fees which were higher from memory.

If it was my choice - I would have switched months ago - to Xtra or Xnet.

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panther2

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#107887 31-Jan-2008 23:51

i've not had any problems with websites not loading on slingshot.... bittorrent actually works now too in my case.. maybe i'm just lucky

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#107894 1-Feb-2008 02:44

Slingshot don't throttle or block sites, it's not BS. There must be another reason why your having problems.

Maybe it's your computer, could it be tweaked, so your system runs super fast on a BB connection and when your speed is reduced, your loosing packet. I'm just thinking of possible solutions and not putting my hands over my ears and screaming "They are Blocking me."

Last month my cap expired (after 55GB yum extra datablocks) and I had no problem's, my throttled speed was sitting around 100kbps, which is better than dialup.

If you have a problem (which it sounds like you do), don't give up, keep on complaining.

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#107898 1-Feb-2008 07:10

hellonearthisman: Slingshot don't throttle or block sites, it's not BS. There must be another reason why your having problems.

Maybe it's your computer, could it be tweaked, so your system runs super fast on a BB connection and when your speed is reduced, your loosing packet. I'm just thinking of possible solutions and not putting my hands over my ears and screaming "They are Blocking me."

So lets take our household:

We have:
3 XP computers

2 Macs
1 Vista machine

All of them worked fine on a DIAL UP connection, on a different BROADBAND connection, a mobile broadband connection limited to 1X and a wireless hotspot connection! I was lucky enough to have a 'virgin' XP laptop that I was reinstalling with SP2 as well and just for kicks I set it up to use the Slingshot connection rather than our Xtra BB gateway... and it didin't work!

At the time we tried several different modems, removing the switch we use (mind you it worked fine with everything else)... but it must be our computers. A TEXT BASED PROTOCOL such as IRC DIDN'T WORK - something that works fine on a 14.4kbps dialup connection!

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hellonearthisman

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#107996 1-Feb-2008 15:37

Ok, I think there is/was a problem but is not sorted now?

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#108034 1-Feb-2008 18:13

You think? We only just spent two threads trying to shift the blame onto the users... As I said a lot of the troubleshooting had been performed with no avail.

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raytaylor

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#108871 6-Feb-2008 12:08

Yes I agree - there are issues.

Once upon a time, 64k was too slow to even be able to access their website so you could purchase a topup block. I used to have data counting problems where if I were going through my usual 2gb+/day it would take up to 3 days to count. This was never good because at the start of each month, the bill would reset to 0, and be at the 3gb limit almost instantly when the 30th and 31st days data was counted.

I told one of their technicians about not being able to topup through the website at 64k which was really like 14.4k, and he said it would be passed on.

Next time i was at '64k', i found i still had full speed access to their website and forums, but intermittant access to anything else. They appear to now be using a site based throttling system, rather than a blanket throttling system - well thats what i have observed anyways

Ray Taylor

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