Crap
I've been with Homechoice before and they were as bad as Tiscali (who I am with now).
I went with Tiscali because I rent a flat and the block of flats has no main aerial (building management are w@nkers) and I didn't want a Sky dish installed, and Virgin was not available in my area (central London).
Anyway - I have had problems with Homechoice before but they were the only people who could give me TV down my phone line and not have a dish installed, and they are owned by Tiscali.
I didn't read any of the forums on Tiscali, but then BT Vision is hideously overpriced at £200 installation plus subscription so, I suppose I had little choice if I wanted TV.
Just for the record, AOL were crap as well, outages, delays when moving home, customer service who had no record of previous conversations etc...
Tiscali were ok for a bit. Yes of course there were phone calls (average waiting time 15 minutes) to ask why I had no set top box agreement with the 'welcome pack' (which consisted of a cardboard folder and a leaflet telling me which freeview and subscription channels were available). There was the initial problems with having no internet due to Tiscali failing to tell me how to configure my current router (which was from AOL).
After that though - all fine.
Then this month they decided to upgrade the 'exchange' where I lived, and shut down my internet and TV. So there were phone calls telling me to reboot, unscrew panel on phone socket and use test socket etc.
Then they restored my internet and not my TV. So more phone calls, an engineer was booked because one was necessary for a 'screen 4 error' (where Tiscali TV initial greeting screen has a countdown and does not count below 4, then issues a network not found error).
I sent an email to Tiscali asking what my options for cancelling the TV were and if I would pay less if I used just broadband and phone, or if I switched supplier for my phone and just used the broadband.
An engineer called not long after that to confirm the appointment that had been booked (which incidently, is only during work days 9-5 for a 'screen 4 error' which is what happened with the TV). He advised me to turn on my set top box. It was working.
He advised that an engineer is not necessary for a 'screen 4 error' and that Tiscali had probably just reconditioned my phone line, which is what they do to fix that problem.
Nice.
Now for those of you who talk optimistically of obtaining MAC codes and escaping your current ISP and migrating to greener pastures - I wanted to do that while I was with AOL UK and lately wondered if I could do the same with Tiscali.
You cannot do this if you, like me, are on a 12 month contract.
When I cancelled with AOL UK they offered me a lower monthly subscription with free evening and weekend calls included in the same price I was paying for my broadband - the reason they said was that now I had paid the full Silver package price for 12 months they had subsequently recovered the cost of the wireless router they had given me for free when I subscribed with them and so could offer me a better price.
I would rather pay for a router (the old looking and weaker signal generating Thompson Tiscali router is not as good as the AOL Netgear router) and have no minimum term contract than be chained/shackled to an ISP I joined and found I didn't like.
I can migrate for free between phone providers providing I have a phone line already installed (only BT install phone lines incidently, nobody else seems to) and I do not need a MAC code or to buy myself out of my contract (which could cost £200 or more).
They should ban minimum term broadband contracts - that is what they should do.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
