Tiscali Enforce 30GB Cap (13 Feb 2005)

500 users told to take a hike

The Register and ADSL Guide are both reporting the latest antics of Tiscali. They report that users downloading anything over 30GB a month have been written to, effectively telling them, "goodbye".

It appears that in January 2005, Tiscali quietly introduced New Terms and Conditions for New Customers. However, at least they have learnt from ntl's fiasco a couple of years ago, with customers who signed prior to this date still subject to Tiscali's Original Conditions.

As far as we can tell the recent enforcement letters are being issued under the original terms and the more woolly "network integrity and avoid degradation" Clause 5.9.

The new terms, clause 8.4 now identify that broadband services are capped to 30GB a month data transfer, that is combined upload and download. Apparently this can be and is regulated by Tiscali prioritising light users. There have already been complaints from users seeing marked drops in connection speeds when they exceed the limits.

Tiscali, in their clause 8.5, have also gone as far as to introduce provisions whereby they could recover from broadband users charges for their misuse of broadband. Since the dictionary definitions of misuse include "improper" or "excessive" there is now a route whereby Tiscali could try to raise additional charges from their flat rate connection fee.

Tiscali are no longer advertising as "Unlimited", but now "Unlimited Access". To AntiCap this is a misleading ploy on words. Is "unlimited access" likely to still be interpreted by Mr Average that you will be able to use that connection all the time?

Previously users of Tiscali have complained of capping, although the ISP has denied this. Interestingly The Register's article does show the IPS has follwed Plusnet's approach of moving heavier users onto one contended bandwith so that they all compete with each other.

The ISP comes to attention of online media on all too frequent a basis. The message is clear, if you want to use your connection without watching your back, avoid Tiscali.