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[rickyboy]

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.

[FRE07962128]

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!   You pay for what you get!

[TheBoy]

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!   You pay for what you get!

Now I know thats not the case  

[Gaffers]

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!  

[ians]

..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?

[TheBoy]

..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.

[ians]

but dont all of them use the same exchange (the BT one)?  Or do different suppliers get affected to different degrees?

[tomoco]

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  

[TheBoy]

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.

[Mr Skrunts]

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

[psychnurse]

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   Highly reccomended

[Taxi_Driver]

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  :-/

[Ken T]

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

[pete1666]

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.