Formal Complaint to Slingshot

This is a formal complaint to Slingshot and its parent company Call Plus as per the Slingshot Complaints

Policy found at http://www.slingshot.co.nz/Files/SlingshotComplaintPolicy.pdf

This is to be submitted immediately for Supervisor Review by the recipient at Slingshot.

If a supervisor cannot resolve this issue, it is to be submitted by him or her to the department manager

concerned, outside of Customer Service.

This document has been delivered by email to Slingshot via the contact us method at

http://help.slingshot.co.nz/ It was sent on Saturday 18th October 2008

My Slingshot username is chrisgordon

Complaint In Detail.

My Name is Ray Taylor. I am writing to lodge a complaint about the service currently being delivered to

Slingshot Full Speed broadband subscribers.

In the last 6 weeks, Slingshot has implemented a throttling policy on users who download files larger

than 10mB in size. At the point of their connection passing 10mB within a 2 minute timeframe, a

throttling policy kicks in, and reduces the user’s connection speed to 256kbps. For most users, this cuts

their connection speed by more than 50%, usually by more than 80%. It makes downloading most files a

more timely process, not expected by anyone using a broadband internet connection.

Up until this policy was implemented, most Slingshot customers had good connection speeds at all times

of the day, including peak times, and the network traffic prioritization rules worked well.

Personally I have tried lodging a fault ticket with the help desk via telephone to 0800-89-2000 and was

told that a fault ticket could not be lodged because the service rep believed my modem was ‘faulty’ and

the technical team would not accept my ticket because of this. The modem is not faulty, has been

replaced by the same model a few times and found to have exact same behavior. It has also been

replaced by 2 different modems of a different brand.

The modem I am using creates a short delay when running a trace route on its hop to the destination

server.

C:\>tracert www.slingshot.co.nz

Tracing route to www.slingshot.co.nz [202.180.68.145] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms router [192.168.2.1] 2 329 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1 3 56 ms 56 ms 55 ms p32.argent.cust.commverge.net.nz [202.180.81.32] 4 57 ms 57 ms 54 ms vlan93-cpcak3-e1.tranzpeer.net [202.180.76.68] 5 55 ms 54 ms 68 ms vlan7-cpcak3-s1.tranzpeer.net [202.180.81.49] 6 55 ms 55 ms 56 ms vlan9-cpcak1-s1.tranzpeer.net [202.180.83.133] 7 57 ms 56 ms 56 ms www.slingshot.co.nz [202.180.68.145] Trace complete.

The delay of 329ms above is normal and does disappear when I change to a D-LINK DSLG604 model

router. The throttling rule, however, continues to be in place.

This demonstrates that the fault is at the Slingshot end of the connection.

Discussion about the problems on the Slingshot forums found at http://forums.slingshot.co.nz has been

taking place over the last 6 weeks in regards to the issue. Everyone there appears to be having the same

problems.

This demonstrates that the fault is at the Slingshot end and is more of a Policy rather than a fault.

Because it is a policy, and has a rather large impact on the connection speed, it should also be noted on

the broadband plans pages. I would like to make reference to the advertising of the plan that I am

currently on:

This screenshot was taken from

http://www.slingshot.co.nz/DesktopDefault.aspx?

tabindex=999&tabid=11&subnav=3

On this page it advertises that users will receive

Full speed downloads, and makes no mention of

any throttling or download limits, other than a

monthly limit.

The throttling kicks in after 10mB is transferred

within 1-2 minutes. This is 0.01GB of the 15GB

monthly limit. It also applies when topup blocks

have been purchased and there is data in credit

available to be used.

Slingshot also makes claims not to throttle a user’s connection in the customer help section of the

website. From the article ‘Bandwidth,data caps and P2P explained’, this screenshot was taken

It specifically mentions that Slingshot

does not throttle traffic (rate shaped)

and this clearly an opposite to the

service being provided.

In the slingshot forums at

http://forums.slingshot.co.nz, a poll was launched

asking if any were having problems downloading,

to which 82% replied yes.

You can find more information, along with videos of my issues at

http://forums.slingshot.co.nz/viewtopic.php?t=1923

Also a Video Demonstration at http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=24yv97o&s=4

To sum up this complaint

• Slingshot is not providing the service that Myself and other users are paying for. I would like this

immediately fixed.

• Slingshot do not advertise any throttling policy associated with the plan and specifically lie about

not throttling users within the help section of the website.

If there is in-fact no throttling in place, I would like the Slingshot Network Status page to be correctly

updated to reflect the fault that clearly the majority of Slingshot users are currently experiencing.

I will be allowing 2 weeks. If after 2 weeks no resolution has been found, I will be submitting a complaint

to the Telecommunications Disputes Resolution group, to help solve the service issue, and the

Advertising Standards Authority to help enforce proper advertising on Slingshot’s website.

Within the 2 week period, if not resolved, a TDR Reference number will need to be sent to me.

Ray Taylor

175a Georges Drive

Napier

06-835-4247

raymondt@andcomputers.co.nz