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2 months with Slingshot fibre in Auckland Part 1

2 months with Slingshot fibre in Auckland Part 1

As with most countries, the broadband and fibre network in Auckland and New Zealand are dominated by large telecommunication network companies. Just as in the US, where companies such as AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast have a hold on the infrastructure on which Internet services are built on, Auckland has the powerful Spark and Vodafone dotting the streets with their broadband ads and free Wi-Fi services.

However, as with most cities, there are smaller companies that resell fibre and network services which arent the ILECs, but rather separate service providers. Youll occasionally receive fliers in your mailbox regarding VDSL/ADSL/Fibre plans from Freedom, Stuff, and MyReplubic, plus from the increasingly popular 2Degrees.




A young technical manager based in downtown Auckland told me that despite all the promotions and discounts advertised for fibre and ADSL services, the prices are still pretty high and consistent across providers even by Oceanic and European standards due to the proportionally smaller population density.



Having worked with US telecom companies back in the day, and having spent the last half decade using the two dominant telecom providers in China (China Telecom and China Unicom) while working in multiple Chinese cities, I was curious how good New Zealand fibre services are.

Slingshot is one of the older broadband providers in Auckland, such that a few of the younger locals I polled werent aware of the company (Spark and Vodafone are the services of choice of wealthy and arguably less technical users). Slinghots most basic broadband plan is at NZD$59.95 a month for 100 GB for 12 months, and depending on your address, a VDSL or fibre connection.

Note: As a footnote, the NZD$59.95 monthly fee is considerably more expensive than the reseller network plans in Beijing and Shanghai.




One of the things I really liked about the broadband providers in Auckland is the efficiency at which you can check whether an address supports fibre, VDSL or ADSL, or additional installation is required. Perhaps thats the advantage of the city having an efficient infrastructure and smaller area compared to, say Texas or California. The option certainly isnt available in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. More than a decade ago, SBC Yahoo and Bellsouth took their time (up to a month) when it came to provisioning even the availability of Fiber to the Curb, the local ONU aggregating cabinet, or even if the POTS was healthy enough for a reliable network footprint. Today, you just pull up a web page and enter your address without having to speak to customer support.

Note: Its a bit scary though how companies in cities like Stockholm, Sydney and Auckland can easily and accurately check the network landscape of your address.

Subscribing to Slingshot

After a month of leeching off of public (and private) Wi-Fi and spending too much on my 2Degrees prepaid data mobile plan just to check my e-mails, I signed up on the Slingshot page. Since my address supported a fibre connection, and there were no differences in cost for selecting ADSL or their "Ultra Fast Fibre", I went for the latter at 100GB (which is more than enough for my needs).

Signing up was straightforward and the modem was shipped to my address within two days via the exceptionally reliable NZPost.





Note: I actually missed the delivery, which needed signing, and rerouted it to the nearby Countdown for pickup.

I was happy to see that the studio I was staying in already had wall Ethernet ports. Moreover, a fibre Optical Network Terminal Unit was already in the communications cabinet just next to my apartment door (the location becomes an issue later on but more on that in Part 2 of this series).


The modem is part of the service, and its an unremarkable CPE. Admittedly, I wasnt concerned so much that it was running an 802.11ac or 802.11n transmission standard, than the availability of Ethernet ports for my Linux server.

Continued in 2 months with Slingshot fibre in Auckland Part 2

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