Rugby World Cup: Spark customers continue to have issues during All Blacks' game

A Spark Sport customer was frustrated with the coverage. Photo / Facebook

Spark Sport customers continued to have issues with coverage as the All Blacks defeated Namibia 71-9 at the Rugby World Cup in Japan this evening.

Issues occurred for customers more than 15 minutes before kickoff, including streaming disruptions during the haka.

Customers took to the Spark Sport Facebook page and on Twitter to express their frustrations, among them TV1 broadcaster Hilary Barry.

"Mr B's infuriated by these three dots during his rugby coverage but I've told him it's a lovely time for us to talk. And talk. And talk. Oh now it's just gone to black."

Mr B’s infuriated by these three dots during his rugby coverage but I’ve told him it’s a lovely time for us to talk. And talk. And talk. Oh now it’s just gone to black. pic.twitter.com/RmJI9Obpig

— Hilary Barry (@Hilary_Barry) October 6, 2019

"Not only will the games not stream your screwing the net up for other programs too!!!," one customer said.

"We're having the SAME problems! What are you doing to fix this? Getting pretty sick of getting up n down every 2 minutes," another added.

The comments continued.

"It's been buffering like this for the last 20 minutes... Spark Sport ruining the rugby world cup again... Get it together..," said another

"Just missed the All Blacks haka again," one customer said.

"Are you serious spark sport? Game hasn't even started and we are being told please try again later!," one fan added.

Spark Sport told customers on social media "the metrics we monitor show no issues stream-side".

Spark said they had no issues with the All Blacks' last pool game against Canada on Wednesday.

"Last night was very quiet for the Spark care team. We saw lower numbers of people contacting customer care than we had expected, relative to the number of people watching the match," a spokeswoman said.

"Key performance measures tracked well and the vast majority of customers had a great viewing experience. There were no system-wide, device or service-specific issues last night."

In a media release Spark Sport stated 'vast majority of Spark Sport customers had a great viewing experience'.

The release said the concurrent streams peaked at the second highest since the All Blacks' opening win over the Springboks.

"Spark Sport is happy with how things worked throughout the match," the statement said.

"The streaming service worked well across devices and the content delivery network (CDN) servers delivering the coverage to New Zealanders operated well within their capacity. Spark's broadband network performed well, as did the networks of other broadband providers."

"For the volume of people viewing the match our care teams helped a modest number of customers who for a range of reasons had challenges streaming. To help these customers we have deployed some additional care measures to help ensure they have a better Rugby World Cup viewing experience."