Orcon has fired back against Spark’s 'misleading' response to their latest campaign about telcos throttling broadband services.
The spat began yesterday when Orcon released a statement regarding their TV ad that was released on Facebook. They claimed the aim of the campaign was to highlight how other ISPs, including Spark, throttle their broadband services, while they did not.
Spark quickly responded saying the statement was nothing more than a PR stunt, that they do not currently shape broadband traffic and that Orcon’s position on traffic management is exactly the same as Spark's.
However, Orcon’s GM Mike Shirley says the ISP's traffic management position is in fact not exactly the same as Spark’s.
“The purpose of our latest campaign is to highlight that fact in particular”, he says.
“Unless there is a serious network event such as a major outage, Orcon will not throttle or prioritise traffic for our customers”.
Orcon says they have enough bandwidth not to prioritise time-sensitive traffic, and that Spark’s statement about how they don’t currently throttle or shape broadband traffic does not mean they won’t in the future.
Shirley says “if Spark intends on not ever shaping or throttling traffic, then we invite them to change their terms and conditions”.
Throttling aside, the debate has at least detracted from the initial criticisms Orcon faced over their upcoming TV ad.
