Tiscali Home Broadband and anytime phone

[Kent Accountant]

My daughter and her husband have a limited budget and live in Tooting.

They are considering installing broadband and Tiscali are offering 8mb broadband + phone for £19.99 per month which seems quite good.

Does anyone have any comments - positive or negative - about Tiscali - or any suggested alternatives.

My daughter is a primary teacher and has an iBook from the school. Will she be able to connect that easily?

Thanks in advance

 

No, don't go with Tiscali worst ISP on the planet along with AOL!

If they are looking for something cheap and decent it may be worth looking at the Virgin Media Packages you can get basic TV, Telephone and a Broadband Line for something like £30 per month.

 

[fastbuck]

I use (tolerate!) Tiscali, and certainly wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

 

[AdamW]

No don't do Tiscali! I have a few business customers who are Tiscali refugees and a couple of friends that are on it and they say it is awful. Friends were drawn in by the cheap offer but it hasn't been worth it.

As Carl mentioned Virgin do a good package and there a few companies that can offer a deal on a telephone/broadband package.

iBook will work fine with any broadband - it will just need to be plugged into the router/modem or the wireless set up on it.

Adam

 

[sendit.co.uk]

I have always used the Tiscali broadband service and have never had any problems with them - their rating for this on uSwitch had always been excellent until they started the dual broadband-phone offer.

Their broadband support is fantasic - they helped me out of a few situations which were not even Tiscali related (spyware bot and once I added a problem programme to my computer!).

I can't fault the broadband and I can't imagine that the phone service can be any worse than BT!

 

[RedEvo]

I used Tiscali for years with very few problems. For the last two years plus we've been with Zen - the best.

I'd avoid 'packages' and get your broadband from a decent supplier.

d

 

[falconinternetlimited]

There's a good resource here : http://www.dslzoneuk.co.uk

Depending on your daughters bandwidth requirements (i.e. how much she plans to use the internet) you could find that a PAYG broadband connection is a good way to go.
We offer an up to 8mb broadband PAYG package for £14.98 which includes 1GB of usage. Extra GB's are £1. The next tariff up is a 3GB peak time and 30GB off-peak tariff for £16.50.

The phoneline (bt etc) would cost on top.

Our broadband is provided by Entanet International Limited who are a well respected broadband wholesale provider.
We provide free phone support as well as support by email, MSN, Skype...in fact any which way you like.

In terms of the iBook I am not familiar with it but from what I understand of the device, there's no reason why your daughter couldn't get online with it.

Feel free to PM / contact me if you have any general questions you would like answered,

Best wishes,

Rupert

 

[brownie]

their rating for this on uSwitch

uSwitch get kickbacks from suppliers.

 

[mobyme]

I have been with Tiscali since it took over X-stream (Yes that long) and have never had any sort of problem with them. I would recommend them to anybody and have done on many occasions.

 

[franco_24]

I know that some people have had no problems with Tiscali but then thousands have. They are commonly reported in the UK as the worst ISP. I signed up with them a couple of years back and had nothing but trouble with them. A quick look up on Google throws up page after page of dissatisfied customers.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/complain/complain.shtml

If you have a lot of spare time, thrive on frustration and love being on the receiving end of corporate piss take then you will love them.

 

Tiscali have a bit of a bad rep lately - and it is not unfounded. I love the way people also slag AOL, yet in NI AOL are probably the least hassle for any home user - they provide all the necessary security and parental controls for free.

Have a look at this comparison site and you will see Tiscali, etc compared across a number of things.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/compare.html

The £19.99 sounds decent enough, but there is no point in saving a couple of quid a month for a rubbish service.

Whatever they go with, ensure that you get some sort of Internet Security loaded up (Avast or AVG free or suchlike).

 

[APRogers]

Be aware that Tiscali have also recently purchased the domestic broadband customer base of PIPEX, which will include subsidiaries like Freedom2Surf.

So, if you have an opinion on Tiscali, and are currently a customer of PIPEX or one of it's subsidiaries/associates/acquisitions, you may wish to review either your opinion or supplier.

 

...and Talk Talk have purchased AOL UK - it is getting kind of hard to keep track of them all.

Having said that, I installed Talk Talk for someone this week and it is starting to actually look like it should now (maybe took some of the AOL influence). Their security add-on is rediculous though and eats resources like nothing I have ever seen.

Service is where they all seem to let you down nowadays - and these bloomin' expensive support calls which they seem to want to drag on forever.

 

[Christiane]

Just don't.... unless you enjoy talking to someone in a call centre in India for hours, who hasn't got a clue what you're on about and repeats the same thing over and over again, and that's after millions of phone calls to solve the same problem.

 

[APRogers]

Their security add-on is rediculous though and eats resources like nothing I have ever seen.

There should never be any need to install the software that these outfits ship. Buy a router and stick the username and password in. It manages the connection and provides a front-line (not total protection) firewall, leaving the computer to do computing, not connection management and protection.

and these bloomin' expensive support calls which they seem to want to drag on forever.

Amen. What happened to the good old days of at least an 0870 number of 'valued' broadband customers. As for out-sourcing/off-shoring, I'll get me coat now, before I'm told to - it's one of my favourite soapboxes.

 

The problem with these broadband companies is that they are preying on peoples lack of knowledge about the technology. They lie, cheat, falsely-advertise, rip-off and generally provide p***-poor support - but they get away with it !!

Who oversees the services these brutes provide to the unsuspecting home-user and who decided that home-users don't deserve a decent service?

A shambles - but hopefully as more and more people become clued up about their options some of the more rubbishy ones will all but disappear.

 

[amanda(uk)]

My daughter and her husband have a limited budget and live in Tooting.

They are considering installing broadband and Tiscali are offering 8mb broadband + phone for £19.99 per month which seems quite good.

Does anyone have any comments - positive or negative - about Tiscali - or any suggested alternatives.

My daughter is a primary teacher and has an iBook from the school. Will she be able to connect that easily?

Thanks in advance

hi there Tiscali are really good a lot of my friends are with them and they have not had any problems. There prices are really good aswell especially the Broadband and Phone line deal this is a resonable price much cheaper than most providers and Tiscali offer just the same packages and services as the expensive providers. In the end its up to you which you chose. If you wish to choose Tiscal go to my website address on my profile and this will show you the latest deals from Tiscali.

 

[blazing_air]

"throwing my hat in the ring"
I've been with madasafish for a while now and havent had a glitch with them.
8mb broadband for £17.99 free router blah blah blah.......
Honestly i've had loads of isp's in the past and so far these have the best.

 

[ellisn]

I used to be with Nildram and never had any trouble, was tempted away though by Tiscali, big mistake. I now have to suffer dropped connections which continually happens for about an hour a day. I will be moving back as soon as my contract is up. Tiscali is OK if you are a 'domestic' surfer but when your business depends on it it's rubbish.

All the best

Neil