Reply to: Fecking Tiscali

[ba55meister]

hehe.. one word. Tiscali! I'll never go with them after seeing their 2meg line performance in my mate's house! disgrace

[MPwannadecentincome]

Came back from a long weekend away this afternoon to find Tiscali is down, finally resumed service at about 4:30pm!

but the ADSL was up all the time, what seemed to be the problem was the routing in the network or the DNS server - no URLs could be translated to IP addresses at all, though I never did try pinging a known IP address directly to see if it really was just the DNS.

Well the service is getting worse - all IP addresses unreachable for 1/2 hr in the morning and an hour this evening

Time to start looking for alternatives - 12 month contract expires in June

[expat]

Quote:
Originally Posted by minestrone
You are meant to be an IT contractor, one that is paid good money to solve problems.

Er, people in glass houses and all that. You should have written 'who is paid' not 'that is paid.'

My error was a simple one of missing a word in a sentence. Yours is just plain bad grammar.

I don't agree. I think that Minestrone is quite correct, even if I might have preferred to use your version. There is a difference in emphasis, which either or both of you might have missed: "who" is adding extra information, more or less conversationally; "that" is defining: it emphasises that characteristic of an IT contractor as being a necessary attribute of those of whom we speak.

Equally, you simply made an error, as you point out. That is IMHO not bad English per se, just a simple mistake.

There is worse goes on hereabouts!

[gingerjedi]

Came back from a long weekend away this afternoon to find Tiscali is down, finally resumed service at about 4:30pm!

but the ADSL was up all the time, what seemed to be the problem was the routing in the network or the DNS server - no URLs could be translated to IP addresses at all, though I never did try pinging a known IP address directly to see if it really was just the DNS.

http://www.opendns.com/ stops the buggers spying on you too.

[MPwannadecentincome]

Came back from a long weekend away this afternoon to find Tiscali is down, finally resumed service at about 4:30pm!

but the ADSL was up all the time, what seemed to be the problem was the routing in the network or the DNS server - no URLs could be translated to IP addresses at all, though I never did try pinging a known IP address directly to see if it really was just the DNS.

[Sysman]

Tiscali are truly awful.

Their customer service is a joke if you can get through on their premium numbers.

And they don't bother replying to letters except 3 months later when you can take them to arbitration or court.

Ignore cancellation letters that aren't sent by registered post (this was Tiscali in another country).

<rant>
I ended up with them when they took over another ISP, after 2 months of not receiving the service I paid for, I cancelled my broadband with them due to breach of contract send them a cheque to go away and threatened to take them to court if they didn't leave me alone. I also cancelled my direct debit instruction. (Luckily I'm in a cable area.)
<snip>

</rant>

A very similar story here. It would have been worth my while to hire the fanciest lawyer in town. Hindsight is a wonderful thing ... Sigh

Five years on and I still get wound up about it. I'd better stop now and have a nice cup of tea

[minestrone]

Er, people in glass houses and all that. You should have written 'who is paid' not 'that is paid.'

My error was a simple one of missing a word in a sentence. Yours is just plain bad grammar.

Incorrect and I use it in the same way Mark Twain used it in "Is Shakespeare Dead?"

There are many reasons why, and they have been furnished in cartloads (of guess and conjecture) by those troglodytes; but there is one that is worth all the rest of the reasons put together, and is abundantly sufficient all by itself--HE HADN'T ANY HISTORY TO RECORD. There is no way of getting around that deadly fact. And no sane way has yet been discovered of getting around its formidable significance.

[Fred Bloggs]

Have a serious look at VISPA, http://www.vispa.com/ , they offer seriously good support. When we were having trouble with our previous BB supplier (Hotchilli, or ADSL4LESS, both the same firm, who didn't have clue what to do) for >1 year.

VISPA sorted it straight away. They correctly identified that the Netgear 834GT router we were using had issues with long telephone lines. At the time, nobody else in the industry was accepting that there were issues with Netgear equipment.

A bloke from VISPA dropped off a BT Router/Modem to us on his way home from work, set it up for us and left it with us to try for a couple of weeks. Never had a problem since. That's good service. Try them.

[SueEllen]

Yeh Tiscali offer just a good a service as the premium providers I showed that’s why you're complaining ... if I have a problem with IDNET I can ring their customer service and it will be answered promptly by a native English speaking technician based in the UK not by an Indian call logger with a crib sheet.

Some of Tiscali's staff have UK accents.

However they seem thicker than the Indian staff as they sound like they can't read of a crib sheet.

BTW I transferred from Wanadoo/Orange to Tiscali about 5 years ago and they left me without a connection for 8 weeks, I clocked up 6 hours of phone calls and threatened them with Ofcom before they agreed to release me from their 12 month contract even though they never provided the service I was paying for.

Have you tried ringing customer service yet?

[gingerjedi]

You are getting a 'good service' from IDNET because they dont have the large customer base yet. Im sure you will have checked out their blurb.

People seem to be missing the real point to make some obscure comments. I havent had a problem with tiscali's connection speed or service in the 4 years I've been with them.

Its only recently ie the last couple of weeks, that there has been an issue. I suspect this is driven by their financial troubles.

The true test of your comparison, would be if IDNET and the other small providers used, had the same size customer base as tiscali.

You're right the small providers are small enough to care but that's why I pay a premium, they have low contention rates, high usage allowances and no traffic shaping so they're firmly pitched at the premium end of the market. Look what happened to Pipex when they tried to expand their once respected service, not every company needs or wants a large user base.

I agree that a cheap BB package maybe fine if you don’t need any of the things I mentioned above and provided you have a perfect phone line.

Have you got through to anyone who speaks English yet?

[BolshieBastard]

Yeh Tiscali offer just a good a service as the premium providers I showed that’s why you're complaining ... if I have a problem with IDNET I can ring their customer service and it will be answered promptly by a native English speaking technician based in the UK not by an Indian call logger with a crib sheet.

BTW I transferred from Wanadoo/Orange to Tiscali about 5 years ago and they left me without a connection for 8 weeks, I clocked up 6 hours of phone calls and threatened them with Ofcom before they agreed to release me from their 12 month contract even though they never provided the service I was paying for.

Have you tried ringing customer service yet?

You are getting a 'good service' from IDNET because they dont have the large customer base yet. Im sure you will have checked out their blurb.

People seem to be missing the real point to make some obscure comments. I havent had a problem with tiscali's connection speed or service in the 4 years I've been with them.

Its only recently ie the last couple of weeks, that there has been an issue. I suspect this is driven by their financial troubles.

The true test of your comparison, would be if IDNET and the other small providers used, had the same size customer base as tiscali.

[BolshieBastard]

No wonder we import foreign workers if this is the best standard of English we can get from our native workforce.

You are meant to be an IT contractor, one that is paid good money to solve problems.

Er, people in glass houses and all that. You should have written 'who is paid' not 'that is paid.'

My error was a simple one of missing a word in a sentence. Yours is just plain bad grammar.

[gingerjedi]

Wow, a comparison of a whole four broadband providers....

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/compare.html

If you had bothered to look... pick which ever ones you like, Tiscali will still come near the bottom of any comparison.

All the best ones are Entanet resellers.

Idnet aren't and they offer one month contracts, they even do a BB and phone package now.

[dinker]

Wow, a comparison of a whole four broadband providers....

Umm, I think you`ve missed the point. This was a comparison between the best and the worst. Here`s a larger list:

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php

All the best ones are Entanet resellers.

[blacjac]

Thinkbroadband comparison

Tiscali are awful, flame me too if you like... cheapskate.

Wow, a comparison of a whole four broadband providers....