I can now report that a clear choice has emerged in my quest to find a new ISP that offers a good and competitively priced package for my communication needs. That is Slingshot, whose nDSL offering will be of more use to me than a full featured broadband/phone package. This is because my home phone is little used. Another nice feature that Slingshot has is IMAP mail, meaning I can always access all my messages on their webmail system.
The main issue with nDSL is Telecom’s restrictions in which it may prove necessary to change phone number etc. I am yet to contact Slingshot to find out what is involved in making the actual changeover. I expect them to have much better service overall than Telecom, which since they went onto the Yahoo system, have really sucked in their service … not that they were much good before then. There is a perception that they are only concerned with profit in their change to Yahoo and moving their call centres offshore, both of which would come at the expense of customer service. Slingshot’s Voice IP offering looks quite good with the Easyphone features, particularly voicemail to email.