Slingshot (ISP)

Slingshot Communications Limited
Subsidiary
Industry Internet Service Provider
Telecommunications
Founded 1996
Headquarters Auckland, New Zealand
Key people
Mark Callander, CEO
Taryn Hamilton, GM
Products Broadband
Dialup
Telephony
VoIP
Parent Vocus Communications
Website www.slingshot.co.nz

Slingshot is the third largest telecommunications company in New Zealand. It has an approximately 16% market share of the New Zealand fixed telephone landline and residential broadband market.[1]

History

Slingshot was founded in 1996 by Malcolm Dick and Annette Presley. The company was established as part of the CallPlus group of companies to provide residential customers with high quality and affordable internet and toll calling services.

Slingshot competed heavily on price and service efficiency from day one and offered customers a huge amount of calling and dial-up value for very little cost. Slingshot has grown from the small challenger brand in the marketplace to the third largest telco in New Zealand.

Slingshot is 100% Australian owned and operates in New Zealand with more than 300 staff all working locally in Auckland CBD.

Achievements & Successes

Slingshot’s Better Network

Slingshot has New Zealand’s fastest growing unbundled Local Loop Network (LLU) and since 2012 has unbundled more than 150 exchanges from Whangarei to Invercargill. 75% of these exchanges have been installed outside Auckland in traditionally under-served regions.

Slingshot's Bigger and Better Network means Kiwi households can get better Broadband speeds, competitive Better Network deals, faster fault notification and faster fault resolution than would be available via a third party provider.

Slingshot Fibre (Ultra-Fast Broadband)

The New Zealand Government has undertaken an initiative which will see the delivery of Ultra-fast broadband using fibre optic cables to up to 75% of the population within a ten-year period[6] The nationwide ultra-fast broadband network uses Fibre connectivity to provide download/upload speeds of up to 100Mbit/s/50Mbit/s for residential customers. Fibre will enable faster downloads and streaming - content including movies may be up to 50x the speed of regular broadband. Slingshot Fibre is currently being trialled with a number of customers and will be rolled out across New Zealand soon.

Products

Innovative Products & Services

Charity/Fundraising Initiatives

Market Position

Slingshot is the third largest ISP in New Zealand, and the largest Kiwi owned and operated broadband provider in New Zealand. As of 2015, it has 16% of the residential market.[1]

Parent Company

Slingshot is a subsidiary of NZ telecommunications company CallPlus. Callplus was founded in 1996 to provide NZ consumers with competitive deals on Calling and Tolls. CallPlus continues today as the B2B arm of the organisation, providing comprehensive Calling, Mobile, Broadband, VOIP and Fibre services to SME's across New Zealand.

Slingshot was established in 2001 to provide residential solutions.

Senior Management

Criticism

On 15 August 2008, Slingshot came under criticism from the public and the media about a problem with their web cache. The cache, set up to solve a known problem with YouTube, caused private information of customers to be shared among other customers. The error caused users logging into websites such as Gmail, Facebook, Bebo and TradeMe to be given access to the accounts of other Slingshot customers who were using those websites at the same time, instead of their own accounts.[9] Similar incidents occurred with Slingshot in September 2007 and May 2008[10][11]

In December 2013 Slingshot was fined $NZ 250,000 after it admitted transferring competitors' customers to its business without authority. Slingshot pleaded guilty to 50 charges under the New Zealand Fair Trading Act in the Auckland District Court and admitted it had transferred 27 customers' accounts from other ISPs to Slingshot without the customers' authority.[12]

References

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