Page 1 of Uncapped broadband bargain - early warning!

Existing broadband customers of Tiscali are now being offered (subject to the usual line capabilities etc) 1MB UNLIMITED (ie uncapped) at £15.99 per month, and 2MB unlimited at £17.99. I understand this is to be rolled out to new customers within a month or so. I`ve gone for the 1 meg, and so far so good. (any existing users here can go to the `members area` and upgrade there).

Really heavy users of P2P may wish to read the new fair usage terms (available on the main site) - but essentially unless you regularly P2P on weekend afternoons and weekday evenings, the service really does look unlimited.

Quote:
A very small number of customers use Peer to Peer or file sharing software, which constantly sends and receives video and other very large files, throughout the day. This type of activity uses a lot of bandwidth and can significantly reduce the speed at which other customers can access the internet during peak hours. Approximately 1% of customers use more than 30% of the available bandwidth during peak hours. We don`t believe this is fair to the vast majority of our customers.

This fair usage policy automatically identifies the very small number of extremely heavy users and manages their bandwidth only during peak hours (being 6pm to 11pm Monday to Friday, and 12pm to 4pm on weekends and bank holidays), to protect the service for all our other customers. Outside peak hours, the use of the internet by these heavy users is unaffected.

We think this is the fairest approach. It protects the quality of service for the vast majority of our customers when they most use the service, while at the same time allowing the extremely heavy users to continue to send and receive without restriction outside of peak hours.

Tiscali have had their knockers (deservedly so too) but I`ve had my service since January with just a couple of issues which were quickly sorted (by the guys in the forums - forget the official helpline).

Hope this helps someone.

This item was edited on Sunday, 21st August 2005, 19:16

Has your 1MB upgrade come through yet ? I did the same about a week ago and although my user profile says I`m on 1mb now my download bandwidth is still 512kbs max.

I worked for Tiscali until Feb `05. I`ve seen how it treats it`s customers and i`ll be frank it`s a cowboy ISP on the verge of bankruptcy. It`s track record is a joke and it`s had more than a few slaps on the wrists from OFCOM.

I will pray for you. Good Luck

Rikki

I applied for my upgrade on Wednesday and asked the forum guys on Friday if it could be sorted for the weekend - and they did it.

Rikki - your comments dont surprise me as I`m a regular visitor to the forums - however I can only speak as I find and if anything untoward does happen, I`m nearly out of contract so I`ll move elsewhere (they are just introducing MAC migration).

I agree with Ryderage. Tiscali are less than ideal. I was with libertysurf. They restructed "popular" sites on the "free" number, so you could only access them on the 0845 number.

And there responce to letters was to advise you (in writing) to call there 0901 numbers for any assistance.

As for there service, a friend was "blocked" for downloading 1Gb over the first three days of his connection. Given SP2 for windows is several hundred megs, plus windows updates ect. I feel they where very unfair.

Take a peek over at Adslguide and see what they say, compare tiscali to a real ISP. you will see the difference via Adslguides compare feature.

Chris

I`ve been with Tiscali for a while now, on the 512k unlimited for £19.99. Having just checked the member`s area, it seems all I can upgrade to is 512k unlimited for £14.99.

Which makes all kinds of non-sense to a computer dunce like moi. Although i get the impression I should be really, really p***ed with them.


"I did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave my cheese out in the wind"
Be nosey - what i`m playing and what i`m listening to..

Might be a phone line restriction that Matthew, mine will only allow up to 1MB due to the distance from the exchange (I`m told).

I`ve been with Tiscali for years now, their support isn`t great but I`ve rarely had to use it.

Are the T&Cs originally posted new or have they been in place for some time ?

Thanks for this info. I was on 2mb with 15gb download restriction for £19.99p. Just upgraded to 2mb unlimited for £17.99p.

I think with any ISP you`re going to get screwed over at some point.
They all have their weaknesses and problems. Here are a few tips.

[*] avoid premium rate ISPs (50p / £1 /min)
[*] keep jobs in the UK ! sign up with UK providers who have call centers in the UK
[*] check out ADSLGUIDE particulaly the ISP unhappiness section (real eye opener)

yes I used to work for a UK ISP.

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