Tiscali Problems - constant dropouts!

[shaniannie]

Had serious problems with Tiscali - I'm just gonna copy this letter in here so you can all see the problems... I'm absolutely furious! This letter will be sent to the Milton Keynes and London address first thing tomorrow morning. If anyone has any links or email addresses that may be useful so I can send it there also it would be excellent!

(for some reason I've had difficulty posting and sorry for the "blurb" post, it was throwing errors at me!)

Here's the letter (I have replaced phone # and my full name with ***):

Dear Sir/Madam,

We have been contacting your Technical Support help line and your cancellation line, trying to get some sense out of anyone. Needless to say, this hasn’t happened and I contacted Trading Standards to advise me of my next step, and this is why I’m writing to you now. I have been advised to give you 10 days to write back and resolve this situation.

We were told on an initial line check on the Tiscali website that we would be able to receive from 6mb to 8mb broadband connection, advertised as unlimited and always on.

Our service was activated on the 23rd of June 2006. Since the first time we connected we have had an extremely intermittent connection. By extremely intermittent I mean that we have to re-connect, after being randomly disconnected often 5 or 6 times in 10 minutes. The problem is much worse during peak hours (after 6pm). I am enclosing a copy of the printout from the “members” area of Tiscali to show how often these dropouts occur. We read all the information given to us by Tiscali, and although it mentions random speed throttling and occasional dropouts we did think the amount of dropouts we were getting were excessive. Nevertheless, we waited for the 10 day stabilisation period to end before calling Technical Support.

After the 10 days were up we called Technical Support. We went through ALL the checks they asked (i.e. Filters, modems, digital electrical equipment, any other electrical equipment, modem (of which we installed and re-installed 2 different modems), drivers, USB ports, having the modem connected to main BT socket etc). We even went to the extent of switching off and unplugging every single electrical item other than the computer in the house to see if it made a difference. It was established that the dropouts were not a result of any problems within our control, it was a Tiscali problem.

We mentioned to the technical support that our dropouts were much more frequent after 6pm, to which he replied,
“Do you need to use the internet that time of night? Can you not use it during the day?”

Yes, very helpful, Tiscali!!!

After all checks were made and our problem still not being resolved we were told that it had been escalated to another Technical Support department and had a solemn promise that we would get a “call back” within 24 hours.

24 hours later and this hadn’t happened.

We called numerous times during that week to enquire about the status of our escalation, each time presented with the ever so helpful, “Have you checked your filters?” During each phone call we were promised a call back within 24 hours, guaranteed… This never happened.

After much frustration at the poor internet connection and extremely poor and unhelpful customer service we decided to cancel our subscription with Tiscali. We didn’t think this would be a problem due to Tiscali being unable to resolve their technical issues in supplying us with the always on internet connection they had advertised. A 56k dial up connection was more reliable and stable than the service Tiscali is providing. The constant dropouts are also extremely frustrating when we are signed into some websites (e.g. online banking, website control panels etc) as these will all require us to “start from the beginning” and go through the process of logging in etc again because we have a different IP address as a result of having to re-connect! This would not be an issue if Tiscali were providing us with the internet connection they had advertised and under a contract to supply to us.

We were informed on Friday, 7th June by Technical Support that they could not deal with this and we would have to call the Cancellations Line the following working week, between 9-6pm. Fair enough.

We called first thing Monday (10th) morning, and were informed by Aadiela (the advisor I spoke to) that if we wanted to cancel our service she’d gladly do so, but we’d have to pay the remainder of a 12 month contract totalling over £200!

I could understand this had Tiscali provided the service they claimed they would and I had simply “changed my mind”, but this is by far NOT the case.

I wish to cancel because Tiscali cannot supply me with the ALWAYS ON internet connection they advertise, and do not abide by their promises to call us back.

Grudgingly, we agreed to wait a FURTHER 3 DAYS for a call from the 2nd team Technical Support (I believe based in Milton Keynes). This brought the total of days waiting for a call to 9 days! Needless to say, this call was never received by us.

Numerous phone calls later during this week still have not resolved this issue.

Further, we were told this morning on the phone that it was on the advisor’s computer that we HAD been called by Technical Support, and that Miss *** ****** Owen had agreed to downgrade our service to 2mb!!! I don’t know which *** ****** Owen they spoke to, but I can guarantee that it isn’t the *** ****** Owen with the phone number 01*** ****** who has the account in question with Tiscali!!! Someone is obviously falsifying records and amending contracts without their customers’ knowledge and consent! We were informed that these calls would have been recorded – I urge you to find the recording of that supposed call, because from what I can see, it is fraud!

We have now been told that we have to wait another 24 hours, and failing a call-back within that time frame, another 24 hours on top of that... Each customer advisor we have spoken to has presented us with numerous excuses as to why we cannot speak to their supervisor/manager (one of which was Sean McFarlane who apparently was “busy on a call” for over an hour while I held the line to speak to him), and have refused to give us an “end date” as to when we should expect this issue to be resolved.

No one has of yet given us any answers as to why our connection keeps dropping, nor has any remedy been presented to us, other than paying off the remainder of a contract, which Tiscali have broken under “The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982” quoting from the Tiscali website… “ Act of Parliament which states that goods and services must of be merchantable quality, be fit for the purpose for which they were bought, and be as described when they were sold. If a product sold does not meet any of these conditions, the consumer has the right to demand a refund. If the shop refuses to give one, then it can be taken to court, probably the Small Claims Court, and sued “.

To resolve this issue we ask Tiscali firstly, to appologise for the extremely low standards of Customer Care we have received (as not one person we have spoken to has done this). Secondly, we ask that our line is released and we are issued with our MAC code so that we can transfer our broadband service to another ISP who can provide us with the service that Tiscali have failed to do, WITHOUT us having to pay the remainder of the contract. Thirdly, as a result of Tiscali’s unacceptable levels of Customer and Internet service, we have incurred a very expensive phone bill, which is billed by Tiscali, and believe that all calls made to Tiscali should be disregarded on our bill.

Downgrading my service to 2mb is NOT something I will accept.

As we stated above, we require that this issue be resolved within 10 days of Tiscali’s receipt of this letter.

We have been advised by our local Trading Standards office that Tiscali’s failure to do this will result in Trading Standards taking up this issue with Tiscali’s controlling Ombudsman.

I await your response to this complaint.

[Zer02004]

I'm afraid that you have little choice where the speed "downgrade" is concerned if this is a BTw MAX product. The service is advertised very carefully as Up to 8 Meg. Nowhere on the Tiscali site portal does it say that any speed guarantees are in effect. It can't, because the MAX product is rate adaptive, which means that the speed eventually achieved depends on a few factors such as line quality etc.
Some people have "upgraded" to MAX only to find that their best speed achievement is far lower and overall performance far worse than their previous fixed level service.

I would however agree with the rest of your complaint and had you had the chance to sample the service to any extent, you would soon have realised that the term "unlimited" is not used in the context that any normal person would expect!

By the way, as a new member your first few posts are moderated so they won't appear immediately. This is an anti spam device and is nothing personal.

[shaniannie]

I'm afraid you may have missed my point to the whole complaint I have about Tiscali

I have no problems whatsoever with the speed of the connection we are receiving, when it stays connected, or with the "unlimited" description with a FUP....

It is simply that Tiscali are failing to provide an "always on" connection, which is the contract I signed up to with the 8mb... They are not providing the service they advertised therefore surely they cannot force me to use their 2mb service???? I did not sign up for that, so if they cannot provide me with the service I signed up for they should release my line without making me pay the 12 month contract, shouldn't they???

[Zer02004]

All I'm saying is be very careful. Tiscali are well known for their dubious command and interpretation of the English language. You may be better off with a fixed 2M product than a MAX product which eventually synchs to something less than 2M.

To ensure that it's nothing your side of the master socket, I can take you through various tests etc if you like.
Do you know which delivery system you're connecting via - IPStream, DataStream or LLU? If it's their LLU circuit then that's very likely to be the cause of your problems.
Have you tried the BT test login? (You won't be able to access it if you're connected via DataStream or LLU).

[shaniannie]

Thanks for your help

Yes I do understand that I may be better off with a 2mb rather than a MAX, but by this point, I don't want any further dealings with Tiscali, so them offering me a 2mb service is not acceptible.

I have tried literally everything I can on my computer (my partner is a pc technician so he knows what he's doing). Short of lugging it into a field far away from any other electrical devices! I'm sure Tiscali would come up with something like "cow pats will effect your line" as an excuse to that too! lol

We have read extensively about Tiscali (sadly AFTER we started having troubles ) and realise that we are among thousands of annoyed Tiscali customers!

I don't know which delivery system I am connecting via, and no I haven't tried the BT test login...

Could you please let me know how to do these tests???

[Zer02004]

I wasn't thinking so much of electrical interference - More of a "PC health check" plus some simple elimination tests such as directly using the hidden test socket (NTE-5 master sockets only).

To use the BT test login you need to change the username/password combination of your modem/router login to:
USER speedtest@speedtest_domain
PASS Leave this blank.

You will only be able to access one page but if it holds, it shows that the problem is not with your equipment/line/exchange as it bypasses the ISPs network. If the dropouts still occur, then you need to start looking closer to home.

What modem/router do you use? Can you provide line stats?

[shaniannie]

Right now we use a sagem f@st 800, the one provided by tiscali, we did also try the alcatel speed touch adsl modem (the one provided by pipex 18 months ago, we migrated from their 2mb service to tiscali - we had 2 or possibly 3 dropouts from pipex in the whole 18 months) The problem was the same with both modems. We don't use a router.

We have tried it in the NTE-5 master socket, and again, it was the same.

What line stats would I need to provide? (Do you have a link or line stats from somewhere else?)

I won't try the BT login right now, as I said, during the daytime my connection isn't as bad, I do need to use my computer during the day, so leaving it on that where it may even connect to Tiscali for 5 or 6 hours isn't practical, but I will try it tonight, where on average I get disconnected every 30 minutes at the very most. There was a period last night (around 11.30pm) when I got disconnected 6 times within 10 minutes, and from 8am to around 6pm we'd only been disconnected a total of 6 times.

Surely if it was a problem on my line it would be randomly disconnecting me at all times, not just much worse at "peak" times?

Again, thankyou for your help

[shaniannie]

Also, how do I check whether or not I'm on the Tiscali's own LLU???

And I shouldn't have spoken so soon in my last post, 5 mintues after my connection dropped again!

[shaniannie]

At the risk of looking dumb by posting again, I have found information on my local exchange and it looks like we're not on Tiscali's LLU...

This is the link to the details on my exchange:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...hp?ecode=WNHOL

[shaniannie]

Oh my GOD!

Thankyou Scream for some of the (not so directly given, yet there just the same ) email addresses to Tiscali in some posts on these forums. I emailed my letter to a number of them (5 I believe) last night, and have just received a call from a Mr McKenzie, telling me that all my requests will happen, and he will be calling me in a couple of hours with my MAC code.

He has also given me his direct number, so if the change VIA the MAC doesn't go smoothly I can contact him!

I'll update you when I have more to say

[Zer02004]

This may be immaterial now but you may well suffer the same fate with a MAX connection from any supplier so I'll outline a few things briefly.

For now, forget the Sagem modem. These are known to be problematical across the board.

Varying SNR seems to be something of a "feature" of the MAX product, particularly it seems at peak times. If your stats are borderline then the effects that you describe can occur.

Just connecting to the NTE-5 socket isn't good enough. You must remove the lower faceplate and connect to the test socket underneath. This will negate all possible internal telephony equipment and wiring etc problems.

A traceroute to say, the BBC will often reveal what delivery system is in use:
Click on Start>>>Run and enter cmd /k; tracert www.bbc.co.uk

You have a SpeedTouch modem so stats can be gleaned from that via the accompanying Dr SpeedTouch program.
Install it and run the Diagnostics.
Right Click the icon in your systray and select Advanced>>>Write log to disk.
Open the resulting file in Internet Explorer and scroll down to the section that contains the following:
ReceiveAttenuation_dB=
ReceiveMargin_dB=
SendAttenuation_dB=
SendMargin_dB=
These are your down/up stats.

While you're at the SpeedTouch support section, download and install the "High Speed Driver". This will help with stability issues.

If you are connected via DataStream (Very likely), the MAC that Tiscali provide will be severely limited as many "winning providers" will not process DataStream-IPStream applications. If you can, ensure that your next provider is IPStream based only.

You must ensure that your system is virus and malware free and no other "connection software" can interfere with the broadband connection.

You must ensure that your system has all necessary chipset drivers installed. An ethernet based ADSL router is far more stable in this respect.

Anyway, good luck with your transfer and your future provider. May your dropouts be minimal!

[shaniannie]

After realising that many isp's won't migrate us we've called back the CEO that called this morning and he's cancelling our line. This will take 10 days.

He is also giving us free dial up (56k) in the meantime...

The problem we now face is choosing another ISP...

We've visited adslguide, and the 2 top performers seem to be pipex and eclipse.

Now, the problem I have with Pipex is that we've only just left them...

The problem I have with Eclipse is that they seem to ONLY offer the MAX service, so if we do go to them and still have problems, we may be charged £47 to cancel... and have to start all over again...

From what I can see though, Eclipse are IPStream, and I already know someone using the same exchange as us on the 8mb service with IPStream (from Pipex!) and have no trouble with it...

Dilemmas, dilemmas!

[Zer02004]

I thought that a cease and reprovide may be in order which is why I mentioned the possible MAC difficulties above.

As for your new provider, think long and hard this time before signing up.
Be very wary of being placed on an LLU circuit! If something goes wrong there, you'll have even more difficulty in transferring!
It's very important that in your position, if at all possible, you choose a BTw based IPStream provider.

It may also be very wise to avoid any long term contracts.
On the subject of contracts:
There are big differences in contracts where penalties for "early leavers" are concerned. Some providers levy a fixed fee, whilst others insist that all 12/13 (1 months notice inc) payments be paid as penalty.

You would do well to closely scrutinise any "bundled" deals where for instance, "free phone calls" are offered as part of or are conditional to acceptance of the broadband package. These deals can turn out to be very expensive!

Many (Most) providers have fixed traffic allowances (Some rigid, some not so rigid), FUP clauses and/or throttling and port blocking procedures in place. A high speed connection can rapidly eat up meagre allowances!
If you want to use P2P, TVoIP, VoIP, NNTP etc ensure that you check first.

Whatever you do, carefully read any T&Cs and associated FUPs or other conditions very carefully several times! Keep a hard copy of anything that you agree to.


As for Pipex, my advice is to give them a very wide berth at present. Where once they were the leaders in their field, they are now distant stragglers who use misleading advertisements and hidden contracts to entrap the unsuspecting. Every package gives minimal return for maximum outlay. Their alleged £6.99 package for example actually weighs in at nearly £30 per month with a rigid traffic allowance and draconian penalty clauses.
Others within the Pipex group present some very good deals at present but these companies must in my opinion, sooner or later be fully consolidated under the Pipex umbrella.

[shaniannie]

The good thing about the LLU is - our exchange doesn't support it (see post #9 in this thread ) so that will not be an issue.

We do use P2P VERY occasionally, a few times a month probably... We were told by Pipex (when calling for our MAC to migrate to Tiscali) that our usage had never gone beyond 15gb, and was usually only just above 10gb.

I just feel totally in limbo with this whole thing... why oh WHY didn't I stay with the perfectly fine pipex 2mb connection I had?????!!!!!

[Zer02004]

I don't really like making recommendations any more simply because the market is so volatile. What looks a suitably attractive deal today may look pig ugly tomorrow. Until the legalities of the terms and conditions surrounding UK broadband contracts are challenged and statutory conditions are put in place, ISPs can do what the hell they like and if you don't like it, tough!

However, Zen and if you like a gamble, UKFSN are worth considering. Nildram are a reputable company with some good deals on offer but they are a part of the Pipex group so that may rapidly change. AOL are just about the only UK ISP with no currently active throttles and FUPs etc but they are up for sale so that could soon change.
You've got at least ten days to consider your options (Probably a lot longer given Tiscalis past record) so use that time well. It will pay you to do so.

On the subject of the "free" dialup account from Tiscali - Is it actually free in that it's a Freephone number or is it just free in the sense that they don't charge you anything above your call costs to use it? As I intimated earlier, Tiscali use the English language in a manner that often deviates from that which a normal person would expect. Check that connectoid!