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Tuesday, October 7, 2014
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Slow internet sparks battle BY KURT BAYER OF APNZ An Ashburton electrical wholesaler’s head office is battling telecommunications giant Spark over “unreliable and slow service” in a fight that has so far cost it more than $25,000 in termination fees. R Redpaths Ltd tore up its contract with the company after becoming frustrated by slow internet. Ashburton staff confirmed that they too had been plagued by slow speeds and frequent system failures. Redpaths now refuses to pay the break-up penalty, with company bosses expressing disbelief at being penalised for moving away from a company that it says could not offer the goods they were paid to produce. Now the electrical supplier, which has 15 branches across the South Island, has vowed to fight the telecommunications giant in court. The company claimed it had “constant” issues with the service from Telecom, now Spark, which it was paying between $10,000 and $20,000 a month for. System crashes that could put branches out of action for hours at a time, a slow line speed, and a “poor” back-up service are all part of the firm’s allegations. Redpaths’ operations and marketing director Brent Cameron said his company switched over two branches to a standard residential service for a year –
without telling Spark – as a trial. An independent IT expert concluded it was Telecom’s issue while Telecom carried out a review and suggested Redpaths needed to upgrade its system. Spark believes voice and data, mobile and WAN services met the customer’s needs. “When issues did arise, in particular with two challenging site relocations involving multiple parties, Spark Digital worked closely with the customer to resolve them,” a spokesman said. “In the case of the managed mobility service, there was integration and installation issues so Spark Digital cancelled the contract at no cost to the customer.” But Redpaths say problems persisted and earlier this year told Spark it wanted out of its contract. Spark then charged Redpaths $25,000 in termination, or break, fees. A Spark spokesman said that once Redpaths made it clear it did not wish to continue with its ongoing contracted services for voice and data, mobile and WAN services, the firm was advised that early termination fees applied. While Redpaths paid initial termination payments while it was changing over services, it said it would not pay any more and would take the matter to court if necessary. Spark would not speculate on potential legal action, but noted that much of the early termination fees had already been paid.
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