TV Forum troubles?

[cwathen]

Yep, I'm with Wanadoo AnyTime!! glad to know I'm not the only one having this problem.....

Yeah when I had Freeserve/Wanadoo anytime, (stupid decision to displace the Freeserve brand btw, Wanadoo has almost no recognition in this country whilst Freeserve does, and added to that is still strongly associated with Dixons, which is a very respected brand here) I had problems with the connection just not working for ages after connected, and then suddenly springing into life.

Going off on a tangent now, but I am surprised unmetered dialup is still so popular in broadband areas. With 150Kbps 'mid band' packages now available from quite a few providers (notably Tiscali) for the same price as unmetered dialup, but offering the advantages of not tying up the phone line, not having any annoying 2 hour cutoffs, and operating between 3 and 4 times faster than dial up, I can see no real reason not to ditch dialup if the option is available in your area.

[Fireboy]

I also have problems with Wanadoo, but they seem to be on and off - e.g. I'll get the Gateway Timeout 30% of the time in one week, but then it may be weeks before it happens again.

I am surprised unmetered dialup is still so popular in broadband areas. With 150Kbps 'mid band' packages now available from quite a few providers (notably Tiscali) for the same price as unmetered dialup, but offering the advantages of not tying up the phone line, not having any annoying 2 hour cutoffs, and operating between 3 and 4 times faster than dial up, I can see no real reason not to ditch dialup if the option is available in your area.

We've been able to get broadband here for a long time, but we've never subscribed due to the set-up costs and the fact that we'd need a wireless network etc. plus my parents aren't particularly technologicaly minded.

Also, if you want less than 12months, you have to pay a fee and not all ISPs will let you have 1/2months anyway - and it looks like we'll be moving early next year.

[Asa]

Going off on a tangent now, but I am surprised unmetered dialup is still so popular in broadband areas. With 150Kbps 'mid band' packages now available from quite a few providers (notably Tiscali) for the same price as unmetered dialup, but offering the advantages of not tying up the phone line, not having any annoying 2 hour cutoffs, and operating between 3 and 4 times faster than dial up, I can see no real reason not to ditch dialup if the option is available in your area.

Yeah, 150k isn't available in my area but 256k is and with Tiscali it's £3 more per month than what I'm paying with Wanaserve Anytime. Does Tiscali have a bandwidth limit? I can't see any mention of one on their website.

[Neil Jones]

Going off on a tangent now, but I am surprised unmetered dialup is still so popular in broadband areas. With 150Kbps 'mid band' packages now available from quite a few providers (notably Tiscali) for the same price as unmetered dialup, but offering the advantages of not tying up the phone line, not having any annoying 2 hour cutoffs, and operating between 3 and 4 times faster than dial up, I can see no real reason not to ditch dialup if the option is available in your area.

Yeah, 150k isn't available in my area but 256k is and with Tiscali it's £3 more per month than what I'm paying with Wanaserve Anytime. Does Tiscali have a bandwidth limit? I can't see any mention of one on their website.

According to this month's issue of .net magazine, one user claims that Tiscali were indeed capping his account, a thought which was backed up with postings somewhere else. They, of course, denied ever doing this but according to the article, there's a clause in the T&Cs of Tiscali's service which basically allows them to "change your access rate" if they deem you use it too much. The article for this user in question also suggested Tiscali limited the guy's access to downloading 100-150Mb a day. He has since cancelled his account.

[Katherine]

Talking of trouble in human form on TV Forum, YTVsophie's just surfaced......

[cwathen]

Yeah, 150k isn't available in my area but 256k is and with Tiscali it's £3 more per month than what I'm paying with Wanaserve Anytime. Does Tiscali have a bandwidth limit? I can't see any mention of one on their website.

They don't mention one, although there can be up to 50:1 contention (not a problem usually though unless you live in a particularly densely built up area where broadband is particularly popular). They can 'restrict your access' if they deem that you have made 'excessive usage' (but as with any ISP, they won't define what 'excessive usage' is. It seems though that they have built in the means to cap your speed at well, through the way the pacakages work;

Every Tiscali connection I've ever used connects at 2.2Mbits (wouldn't it be lovely if you really had all that speed to play with ), but the available bandwidth never goes over the speed you are paying for. I have even heard that if you change to a faster package, the speed change is instant, apparently without you even have to reconnect. This suggests that your connection speed is just set in your account details rather than there being any technical difference between different pacakages and so could easily be capped if they wanted to do it.

We've been able to get broadband here for a long time, but we've never subscribed due to the set-up costs and the fact that we'd need a wireless network etc. plus my parents aren't particularly technologicaly minded.

Granted, I'm not saying there isn't an audience for dialup still (in particular, that almost all of them have removed the contract terms may make them attractive to a lot of people), but there's still a lot of people who have 1 computer, complain about the kids tying up the phone line all the time, have broadband in the area, have no plans to cancel their internet access, yet when pressed about changing to a connection that is faster, won't engage the phone line whilst in use, but costs the same, they then start saying 'nah what I've got is alright'. Fair enough it's their money, but I can't quite get my head around these people's decision.

Even the startup costs have largely gone, with various free modem, cheap/free connection deals doing the rounds.