Kiwis moving house saved from fibre broadband woes

21 February 2017

Kiwis moving house saved from fibre broadband woes

In time for the month when more Kiwis move than any other, Orcon and Slingshot have today launched a savvy new service to help keep thousands of Kiwis from landing in broadband limbo when they move into a fibre broadband-ready home.

Research just released by Kiwi business iMoved.me predicts around 1,000 moves a day in March, but for Kiwis lucky enough to find themselves in a property that can get ultra-fast broadband (UFB), there’s a risk they could be offline for some time.

Taryn Hamilton, General Manager Consumer (Orcon and Slingshot), explains: “We have customers who are moving into a new house, see that the house can get fibre, and place an order for fibre broadband.

“With fibre installs already set to take anywhere up to six weeks, what people don’t always realise is that if the order hits any snags, like neighbour consents or non-standard build work, they can be left with no internet – and as expected, they can get pretty annoyed, especially if it drags from weeks to months.

“It’s an issue that has been troubling the industry as a whole for a while now.”

As if moving house isn’t stressful enough, the results of a recent survey by Consumer NZ found the biggest complaint with UFB was lengthy installation delays; an issue for 23 per cent of customers – and Slingshot and Orcon data from December supports this finding, showing average wait times for MDU Consent UFB installs to be as long as 67 days.

Orcon and Slingshot are proud to have cracked a work-around to keep customers online while their fibre order is being processed, called ADSL While You Wait.

“At sign-up, new Orcon and Slingshot customers can select to get a specially-priced ADSL service ($59.95 for unlimited data) while waiting for fibre to be installed.

“They won’t be weeks without a connection – a temporary ADSL connection will get customers online within 5-10 working days and we’ll switch their connection to fibre as soon as the install process allows,” says Hamilton.

“Fibre is the best technology available – it’s fast and reliable and we strongly encourage our customers to get it if they can. We know there are some barriers to getting connected, which is why we’ve come up with an interim solution to make the transition to fibre as smooth as possible.”

More than a third of Orcon and Slingshot’s new connections are on fibre.

“While the industry as a whole has a long way to go to streamline fibre install processes and solve the lengthy delays that come with it, we’re stoked to be able to offer a solution for customers who are prone to having a pretty terrible experience – and at a time where volumes will be higher than usual,” says Hamilton.

ENDS

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