Tiscali UK expells 500 broadband hogs

Tiscali UK has expelled "just over 500" broadband users for excessive use of the ISP's high-speed internet service. Those who've received their marching orders are being given the opportunity to leave Tiscali "without penalty.

The ISP says the bandwidth "hogs" have gorged on between 30 Gig and 150 Gig a month. At the same time, the average Tiscali UK punter uses less than a Gig a month.

In a statement the company said: "Like other ISPs Tiscali has a small proportion of very heavy users. This group of less than one per cent currently hog around 30 per cent of total bandwidth.

"It is therefore necessary for us to protect the service for the other 99 per cent considerate users by establishing an acceptable guideline for use and serve notice of termination, which we are able to do within the scope of our current and previous Terms and Conditions, for those who are affecting the quality of service for the rest."

Tiscali UK has changed its Ts&Cs warning all 350,000 broadband users that they now have a 30 Gig a month allowance. in light of the changes, it says it is "no longer appropriate to promote [advertise] these services as 'Unlimited', even though for most customers their experience will that of an unlimited service".

Some readers have contacted The Register claiming that Tiscali UK is enforcing this 30 Gig cap rigidly and that, in reality, it equates to 1 Gig a day usage. the service deteriorates noticeably when this limit is hit, they say.

Tiscali UK denies this. A spokeswoman said: "We are not capping daily use and in fact the 30 Gig a month is currently only a guideline to be enforced when necessary. We think it is only sensible to give customers a guide as to what we consider as 'heavy use'.

"Any poor level of service experienced by the customers who have contacted you might be down to the fact that we have grouped together some of the heaviest users on a 25:1 contended service."

In June 2003 Tiscali UK booted off a bunch of heavy dial-up users after they ignored requests to reduce their online usage to less than 150 hours a month. As with its broadband hogs, Tiscali UK amended its Ts&Cs to impose the cap on its AnyTime dial-up service claiming that some people were using the service excessively and that their "level of usage is adversely affecting the service we can offer other users". ®

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