Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: ians on 07 July 2008, 10:30:55
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Does anyone have Tiscali broadband?
I am considering switching to this
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/talk/?code=ZZ-NL-11GK&srccode=
from BT.
Includes line rental, w/e calls and broadband for £15 quid a month. I am paying BT something embarrassing just for broadband at the moment.
I don't have huge broadband needs but do want it to work.
Cheers
Ian
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No experience of Tiscali, Ian, but an uncle of mine ditched them because of abominable back-up service apparently. Moneynet recently did a detailed survey of Broadband providers. Worth a look?
I use Orange at £17.99 a month with no problems at all, (I'm no expert though), and although I'm tempted by the Sky £16 pm offer for broadband, TV and free calls evenings and weekends, I haven't jumped yet for fear of ending up with crappy broadband service.
Bill.
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Lad at work has it - poor customer service and they keep threatening to cut him off
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I think, like many of the unbundled services, Tiscali works OK until there is a problem. I've heard horror stories about getting them to sort out problems.
Not saying BT are any better of course :-X
I use Zen Internet. Very expensive, but excellent service provided, and 1st class support when it goes tits up. I need the support, else you lot will be moaning when the forum goes offline ;D
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If lad at work used Tiscali like I used my BT connection he would have been cut off years ago.
I occasionally hammer my connection
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Sorry ,i know little about Tiscali. But i do know to avoid Pipex at all costs...... :( :( :(
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If lad at work used Tiscali like I used my BT connection he would have been cut off years ago.
I occasionally hammer my connection
My Zen line is pretty much hammered all the time. Fortunately, I have a decent usage allowance on it.
And, no, I don't run p2p on it.
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Sorry ,i know little about Tiscali. But i do know to avoid Pipex at all costs...... :( :( :(
Funny you should say that, but, from their web site http://www.freedom2surf.net/adsl/homeuser.php : Freedom2surf is a trading name of Pipex Internet Ltd, a Tiscali UK Company. :'( :'( :'(
I have been with Freedom 2 Surf for many years. They have been good in the past, but over the last couple of years have been getting slower and slower and slower and ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I am thinking of changing, but who to go with ?. Is there any garantee that anyone else would be any better ?. I don't think they publish actual transfer data, only the totally misleading "up to" figures.
Ken
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I have Tiscali, the option 1 bundle in that link.
Not had any real probs.....seems ok...tho i dont get 8M.....its normally 5-6M when i run a speed test.
I was the same, paying BT for line rental and hardly ever using the house phone and paid Tiscali for internet........then noticed they did package deals....so I switched......seemless switchover........got part refund for line rental from BT......now get the same and cut out a needless £10/month expense :y
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Different ISPs are better for different customers.
If I did change it would be to a smaller higher quality company. And I don't mind paying for the connection
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my dad (77 yr old)was with tiscali,when he had problems he couldnt get them to fix them so he ended up paying for broadband for 5 months with no connection.when he changed suppliers tiscali repeatedly sent him letters/court threats/bailiff threats etc; they worried him sick for months until my sister finally got a solicitor to write them a snotty letter. >:( >:(
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i have just gone to 20 meg virgin quite impressed upto now and i have heard its going upto 50 meg soon !! :o
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yeah, life's getting like that, all these big corporations have automatic shitty letter software that jumps into action if their bills aren't paid, never mind if they are wrong. British Gas keeps estimating elect bills for a storage place I rent, and sending shitty letters when they don't get paid. Our Elect usage has been basically 0 for years, yet they still come up with estimated bills for amazing amounts of juice used based on the previous owner's use, who left about 10 years ago !.
Ken
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i have just gone to 20 meg virgin quite impressed upto now and i have heard its going upto 50 meg soon !! :o
Speed is relatively unimportant really, stability and latency are more critical for my type of uses.
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I use virgin for telephone and broadband and i am very happy with them as i use to have them when they was NTL before they was taken over from virgin and i had them for 10 yrs in my last home and nearly 3 now and i can say that i don't have any complaints about them and they give a good service
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I'm with tiscali. Were great at first until they started sending letters because I download too much content from the internet, even though I apparently have unlimited downloads. Was put on a bandwidth with other heavy users and my 2 meg connection was running at about half a meg.
Phoned up to cancel the contract because of this - a week later and I had been upgraded to 8mb with no extra cost and the connection and speed test confirms between 6mb-8mb depending on the time of day. No problems since then.
Just like mobile phone contractors - you can get benefits from threatening to cancel because it's such a competitive market.
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Does anyone have Tiscali broadband?
I am considering switching to this
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/talk/?code=ZZ-NL-11GK&srccode=
from BT.
Includes line rental, w/e calls and broadband for £15 quid a month. I am paying BT something embarrassing just for broadband at the moment.
I don't have huge broadband needs but do want it to work.
Cheers
Ian
Know very little about Tiscali but have heard all the customer service problems with them (including with a friend), and on that basis I would not touch them. :(
BT are more expensive, but I find with Option 3 Total Broadband, including landline and hub phone, that they give me exactly what I require; a fast trouble free service. When I have rarely had a problem with my PC settings their remote back-up service has been faultless! :y :y You pay for what you get! ;)
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Does anyone have Tiscali broadband?
I am considering switching to this
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/talk/?code=ZZ-NL-11GK&srccode=
from BT.
Includes line rental, w/e calls and broadband for £15 quid a month. I am paying BT something embarrassing just for broadband at the moment.
I don't have huge broadband needs but do want it to work.
Cheers
Ian
Know very little about Tiscali but have heard all the customer service problems with them (including with a friend), and on that basis I would not touch them. :(
BT are more expensive, but I find with Option 3 Total Broadband, including landline and hub phone, that they give me exactly what I require; a fast trouble free service. When I have rarely had a problem with my PC settings their remote back-up service has been faultless! :y :y You pay for what you get! ;)
Now I know thats not the case :-X
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I used to have Tiscali and went for their highest speed at the time which was 8mb. Like TD got around 5-6Mb and then all of a sudden connection got really poor. Tested and it came in at 130kbs! Took them 2 weeks to sort it just for it to go t!ts up again 3 weeks later at which point they said it would take 3 months to sort it! (I sh!t you not!)
Left them for BT with whom I had no problems, plus to add insult to injury just found out that Tiscali have taken more money out of my account 1 year after leaving them!
The gloves are off now! >:(
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..when you read 'up to 8Mb' I know that you are likely to get less than this depending on distance from the switch etc.
But lets say I get 5Mb with BT. Does that mean I will likely get 5Mb-ish with the others who are also using the BT ADSL infrastructure?
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..when you read 'up to 8Mb' I know that you are likely to get less than this depending on distance from the switch etc.
But lets say I get 5Mb with BT. Does that mean I will likely get 5Mb-ish with the others who are also using the BT ADSL infrastructure?
That is the sync rate, which will be more or less the same, regardless of ISP. The throughput will be different, and will be based upon exchange congestion (affecting all isps on the busy VPs) and ISP infrastructure.
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but dont all of them use the same exchange (the BT one)? Or do different suppliers get affected to different degrees?
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Been with AOL for years. Never had any problems (must be one of the lucky one's) Recently had a free upgrade to 8 meg (only ever got about 5 meg though) and they gave me a free laptop (sold it) Only pay 20 quid a month (free router) got 2 still in box's. Get 40 gig download a month too. Young 'un uses most of that.
very happy with them :D
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but dont all of them use the same exchange (the BT one)? Or do different suppliers get affected to different degrees?
Just thinking about ADSL in the UK (forgetting cable, wimax, sat). Many will use BT's exchanges, and BT backhauls. Some will use their own equipment (in BT exchanges) and their own backhauls.
Those using BT backhauls connect themselves via connections called Centrals, often 622Mbps connections.
Once on the ISP network, they have to provide connectivity across their network and transit onto Internet.
So, bottlenecks can exist at any point, though tends to be in 3 places - the backhauls (either BT's or ISP if ISP have their own), the Centrals, or the ISP network.
The Centrals and the ISP network are specific to the ISP, the backhauls generally not (unless ISP owned).
The biggest cost for the ISP are the Centrals (in the £m per year) and their own networks/connectivity, so this is where they are most likely to skimp. Easiest way is to modify traffic throughput - 'shaping'. Virtually all ISPs shape, whether they admit it or not. p2p is normally the first, rightly, to get shaped. The ISP decide how much shaping goes on.
Thats a very simplistic, and general view, but you can see that ISP won't affect sync rate (what your computer/router reports), but will dramatically affect real world throughput. Congestion on the VPs (backhauls) will affect groups of ISPs.
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My personal advice on Tiscali is stay clear, but to be fair that is advice based on thier early days, one of my best mates still has it, and allthough is happy has had disputes with them.
To a degree they are all as good or bad as each other. So look at the cost of the support calls.
I aggree on a point some where in the thread as well, speed isnt everything. I am on 8 mb with Plusnetand achieve over 7MB most of the time. but would rather have 4mb or even 2 mb on a lower contension ratio as I feel my basic work just requires faster www refresh.
I have been there with the P2P and was classed as one of the people that caused the limits implemention as I was one of the people in the top 0.1% maxing bandwith and no, it was nothing illegal. But in all fairness my package was maximum cost and was a What you, as often as you want when you want it packeage, so I only wanted what I was paying for. Most of the time I was testing the speed and through put. Also I could confirm that download data was affected by school kids and weekends as I was keeping logs of data in MB's and Speeds.
What does interest me at the moment is that most ISP's are sticking to 8MB
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I am with tiscali. Have been for years. have my phone and net as an unlimited package. cant fault them. Exellent customer service, friendly and helpful and cheap too :y Highly reccomended
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I used to have Tiscali and went for their highest speed at the time which was 8mb. Like TD got around 5-6Mb and then all of a sudden connection got really poor. Tested and it came in at 130kbs! Took them 2 weeks to sort it just for it to go t!ts up again 3 weeks later at which point they said it would take 3 months to sort it! (I sh!t you not!)
Left them for BT with whom I had no problems, plus to add insult to injury just found out that Tiscali have taken more money out of my account 1 year after leaving them!
The gloves are off now! >:(
I must admit i get that problem tho i dont know whats causing it.....all i know is if i reboot my modem......the problem goes away again for another few weeks.....i thought it was my modem acting up :-/
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but dont all of them use the same exchange (the BT one)? Or do different suppliers get affected to different degrees?
Just thinking about ADSL in the UK (forgetting cable, wimax, sat). Many will use BT's exchanges, and BT backhauls. Some will use their own equipment (in BT exchanges) and their own backhauls.
Those using BT backhauls connect themselves via connections called Centrals, often 622Mbps connections.
Once on the ISP network, they have to provide connectivity across their network and transit onto Internet.
So, bottlenecks can exist at any point, though tends to be in 3 places - the backhauls (either BT's or ISP if ISP have their own), the Centrals, or the ISP network.
The Centrals and the ISP network are specific to the ISP, the backhauls generally not (unless ISP owned).
The biggest cost for the ISP are the Centrals (in the £m per year) and their own networks/connectivity, so this is where they are most likely to skimp. Easiest way is to modify traffic throughput - 'shaping'. Virtually all ISPs shape, whether they admit it or not. p2p is normally the first, rightly, to get shaped. The ISP decide how much shaping goes on.
Thats a very simplistic, and general view, but you can see that ISP won't affect sync rate (what your computer/router reports), but will dramatically affect real world throughput. Congestion on the VPs (backhauls) will affect groups of ISPs.
The Executive Summary.
In my case, it doesn't matter who I go with its going to be c**p :'( :'( :'(
Ken
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Tiscali are not very reliable, if you do a lot of downloading they throttle back your download speed at busy times.
I use BT option 3 with most of the extras and find it very good not perfect but who is?
If you have problem with the phone line and you are not with BT they will charge you for it.