I used to be on TelstraClear cable.  Which was OK.  There were some issues -- anywhere that tracerouted through reach had poor performance, and they don't peer, but apart from that the service was well-priced and had reasonable performance.  I was, dare I say it, happy.

I moved (due to getting married) at the end of May.  New place had TelstraClear cable in the street but they had some reason why we couldn't be connected.  So it was DSL time.

So 3 weeks before I moved in (during which my fiancee was stuck without internet) I phoned up slingshot and signed up for Naked DSL.  The guy on the phone said that they provisioned Naked DSL by provisioning a landline, then turning on DSL, then switching to naked.  And the phone line worked the day after my fiancee moved in.  Which was awesome.

Came back from honeymoon at the very end of May to discover there was still no DSL on the line.  Rang up slingshot and the guy I talked to seemed competent and put through an urgent order to provision naked DSL.

Naked DSL came up that week.  The iTalk line that we'd asked them to port a number took ages to come through (another week or two?).  

Because the italk line was taking so long someone at the callcentre provisioned us an extra one so we'd have a phone, even if it had the wrong number.  So this helped.

Eventually the italk line with the correct ported number appeared so I switched the config on the ATA and forgot about it.

At some point during this debacle I received our first bill.  It had homeline charges, homeline setup charges, no sign of the refund of these I was promised by the person I first spoke to about getting naked DSL.  So I called up and complained and they sent me a letter saying they'd investigated and the charges were refunded.

I've just received what I think is our third bill.  It contains such gems as

• $28.32 of iTalk line charges, including a $10 credit which I assume is how they make the "free italk with naked DSL" bit work.  $28.32 is not free.  Yes, that line they first provisioned so I could get some phone service at all is still there and we've been charged for almost two months of it.


• $25 of early termination charges for the slingshot cheap talk plan on that homeline we didn't want

To add insult to injury, the broadband provided by slingshot is really slow.  I've never seen over 1Mbps international on an individual TCP connection for more than a few seconds at a time, and it's usually worse.  I know I should be able to get better performance because with the same computer, connecting to the same sites on the internet, things were much faster on TelstraClear.

Even if they fix the billing nightmare (for the second or third time, now) they're not going to be able fix the crappy performance for just me.  So I think I want out.  Don't know where to -- maybe WorldxChange? -- but this ongoing nightmare is not worth me saving $20/mo.

I have no idea if I'm on a 12 month contract or anything, but if they try to charge me early termination I intend to take them to the disputes tribunal.

So:

• any advice on what to say to them when I call about this


• who should I switch to? I want naked DSL (have been on VoIP since 2005), someone who peers, isn't slow, and won't drive me up the wall.  I'd love a free traffic in the wee hours option but no one else does this anymore?