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2 months with Slingshot fibre in Auckland Part 2

2 months with Slingshot fibre in Auckland Part 2

Continued from 2 months with Slingshot fibre in Auckland Part 1

As mentioned in Part 1, the ordering process is all done online. However, I made the mistake of setting a specific date for fibre activation. Since I had already moved to the studio, I should have chosen the "As soon as possible" option in the checkout screen of Slingshots order system, rather than a date two weeks later. I had assumed erroneously that they would still need to send an onsite technician to get clearance from the building manager, or enable the telco switch in the building cabinet to get fibre. As it turned out, I wasted 2 weeks and suffered needlessly, since all Slingshot needed to do was open up the lines for the service remotely.



Since I wasnt informed of any onsite tech visit, I called Slingshots customer service on the scheduled day. The helpful gentleman who took the call quickly told me I didnt need to do anything other than power on the fibre ONU and connect the router on the selected day of activation (at 6 am).

I gave myself a slap on the forehead, and quickly set up the Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections. No additional GUI steps are required apart from changing the SSID from the modem GUI. While you can retain the default SSID "Your new WiFi", its a pretty odd Network Name, and if a new tenant in the building decides to subscribe to Slingshot, youre definitely going to encounter Wi-Fi issues. Slingshot doesnt use unnecessary authentication configuration from the customer, such as PPPoE, or dial-in details. In fact, all the technical service rep did was tweak the modem and Wi-Fi router settings remotely to "optimize the service". For my part, I was just happy to have a home Internet service again.

For those who have never set up a fibre service, the required lights on the ONU are Power, Optical, and LAN1 (for the router). The Wi-Fi router has Power, Internet, Wi-Fi and Ethernet lights if you connected any wired networking cards.



The downside on my setup actually had nothing to do with Slingshot itself, but the location of the Fibre ONU, which was on the corridor leading to my single-room studio. The modem came with a fairly short Ethernet cable, which meant that unless I purchased a longer Ethernet cable especially for the Wi-Fi router, my Wi-Fi router was pretty much stuck in the corridor. Note that you cant make a direct connection from the fibre ONU to the Ethernet auxiliary cables wired in the room. The first loop is made between the ONU and the provided Wi-Fi router, and then the routers Ethernet port to any Ethernet connection.

Note: Im pretty stingy, so I currently have the Wi-Fi router in the corridor, propped up on a box, until I decide to purchase a Cat6 cable. Thankfully, the somewhat isolated location of the Wi-Fi router didnt affect daily usage, though this isnt ideal for most people.

Performance and service

In the last month, I havent had a drop in connection. My data requirements are modest compared to hardcore gamers or avid torrent downloaders, so the visible throughput was more than adequate. After several years in China, I was just happy that I no longer needed a VPN service and I had full access to Google online services. 

My Moto G4 Plus had Android-centric issues maintaining a connection to the Wi-Fi router, but my Kindle Fire HD 8, Macbook Air, and Surface Pro 4 was able to access 70-80% fibre speed over the Wi-Fi connection.

New Zealands telecommunications network is very clean compared with countries that still have existing legacy POTS or cable TV lines. I wasnt surprised that my Fedora 25 Workstation was able to make full use of the fibre speed when surfing or streaming video. Moreover, in anecdotal use, the default settings of file transfer utilities and torrent applications made downloads quick and easy. Transmission for Fedora 25 was able to download Ubuntu Budgie in less than 5 minutes with just a few available seeders.



Overall, I was happy with signup and setup, especially when compared with network service installation in North America and China. The one-time fee and the monthly charges, at least according to locals, can be considered pretty much standard. I like the simplified firmware of the CPE, though Im pretty sure gamers and serious network administrators would probably prefer more configuration settings.



The Internet has become a utility that no longer needs as much attention as other home services. Most people can set and forget their Wi-Fi and Ethernet connection, which was the whole point of the introduction of a fibre infrastructure in cities. Ive only been using the service for a short period of time so theres not much to write about at this point . . . and I hope it stays that way.

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