I hate complaining about support services. I get all the tropes, and I get that dealing with customers can be difficult, but ever since Snap switched to 2degrees, the support staff quality has dropped significantly.

Let's ignore the time 2degrees disconnected my broadband service and after immediately calling to notify them, a service rep flat out called me a liar when I told them I did not request my service to be disconnected (even claiming they had evidence of my request), and that they could not reconnect me because my entire account was deleted. It took pulling a massive tantrum to finally get escalated to someone who could actually help. Low and behold? 2degrees error, account restored immediately and service restored in 5 minutes.

Now, since the above I've had constant speed issues with my VDSL connection spanning over a few months. I'm in what you would consider a rural area, so I'm not expecting miracles (Mapua, Tasman) either. My ADSL speeds were sitting at something like 7 or 8 mbps.

VDSL becomes available and I upgrade. According to what is available I should be getting 50 mbps, but lets ignore that for now, it isn't quite important. After upgrading, I get max 10 mbps down, 1 mbps up, maybe.

Call to have this resolved, relatively smooth, 2degrees acknowledge the issue and send out a Chorus technician.

Chorus technician comes, best he can accomplish is 20 mbps down, 1 mbps up. He does mess with my network cabling setup as well, to the point I have to call and have the electrician who set it up orignally to come back and correct it, but that isn't 2degrees problem, so moving on.

I'm actually fairly ecstatic with 20 mbps down. Having spent close to the last decade or so living with a 7 mbps connection (both in Auckland and Tasman), it's a serviceable speed. I can accomplish 90% of what I want to do on the internet with a 20 mbps connection.

However, after this change, every 1 to 2 weeks, the internet speeds crawl down to around 2 to 4 mbps down. The only way to restore the connection back to 20 mbps is to reset the Fritzbox 7340 router at the wall. I seal with this issue until it becomes annoying and consistent enough to call 2degrees and see if I can have it resolved.

Again at first, faced with a brick wall. They see no issue with the line, not their problem, until I finally get a service rep who listens, agrees this is unusual and provided I email 2degrees screenshot evidence of my connection at crippling speeds and restored after a modem reset, they offer to send out a replacement Fritzbox 7490.

Send the screenshots by email, get a relatively fast response saying they are looking into it, but won't send a modem now because they want to talk to a senior technician. Don't hear anything for around 7 working days. Email 2degrees for a update, no response, few days later call 2degrees, finally they acknowledge the issue and courier a modem out overnight. Great, some progress.

New modem arrives last Friday. Set it up, works straight out of the box.

I cannot get a download speed higher then 6 mbps now.

Deal with it for a few days to see if it might get better. It doesn't. Call 2degrees today to report the problem, I should have troubleshoot at this point and plugged in the old modem to see if it fixed the problem (hint, it did), but I thought surely this would be a simple settings issue and 2degrees would have the patience to sit and work through the issue with me.

Speak to representative, explain entire history again. Puts me on hold to check settings. Comes back and states roughly that there is nothing wrong with the settings, but I should be getting way faster speeds on my line (roughly 54 mbps) so he has escalated with Chorus and once their investigation is complete, they can help me then. 

I explain this isn't acceptable, that I've been through the process with Chorus already, that clearly there is SOME issue with the new modem, and not my line, and could he please help further then fobbing me off to chorus. Answer from representative is no.

I explain to the representative that fine, I will get off the line with you, switch to my old modem and if it restores the issue, call back and can we please have this looked into properly please. Rep agrees and I hang up.

As per above, swap back to old Fritz box, problem is immediately resolved.

Call back 2degrees. Get new agent, explain entire story again. Get told flat out she cannot help until the Chorus investigation is complete.

Once again, I have to basically tantrum and repeatedly request to speak to a supervisor to make any headway.

I explain flat out and clearly, I plug the new modem in, 6 mbps connection. I plug the old modem in, 20 mbps connection. I rationally explain that if I leave my old router in and let Chorus do their tests, they won't find anything wrong!!! I ask, if I leave the new router plugged in, and chorus does there test, will they now find something suddenly wrong with my connection? I finally, finally get a decent human being response of "No, they probably won't". Great.

In the end? They agree to send me out another new modem and to send back the last new modem then sent. I grudgingly accept, because I can believe that for whatever reason, I possibly got a dummy modem.

Holy heck though, could no one on their service team however provide anything better then basic troubleshooting?

So, so frustrating. 

EDIT TO CLARIFY: Both modems, in the internet settings page are showing a 22 MBPS connection, 1 MBPS upload. The line connection according to the settings page is solid.

The speed issue happens in use. Internet is slow, netflix is slow and all download evidence provided in the above is from doing speedtest.net tests on a desktop computer connected by LAN.