how about, two crayons, and my milk?

Given that the cheapskate British consumer wants all-you-can-eat broadband for £6.49 a month it's no surprise Tiscali is struggling and we're entering an end game of who can bleed the most for longest will win. Broadband has turned into a hopelessly loss-making proposition, whether you're Talk-Talk giving it away, AOL chucking in a free laptop or Sky offering almost unlimited packages for a nominal amount the best thing any telecoms company can do is get out of it ASAP. We all know the consumer will ultimately pay the price - once there are only a couple of providers their hegemonic status will allow them to ratchet up prices to towering figures like the satellite telly racket, but until then all companies like Tiscali will do is lose money. They've done this from the beginning, Tiscali's business grew from screaming.net to World Online and ultimately Tiscali and all they've ever done is lose money. Broadband is a mug's game.

I'll up the bidding to a bottle of whisky, a gun and two bullets.

Of course we want it.

In this day and age, why not?

Lack of optical fibre? We should have had optical fibre all over the place a decade ago.

Lack of powerful servers? Their fault, not mine.

If they offer cheap unlimited broadband of x speed and for x amount of money then I will take it at face value; why wouldn't I?

Well I wouldn't now, with experience and with a lot of forum reading etc - but I did so that is proof in and of itself.

Paris Hilton as her facial expression matches how I feel about the matter.

The real problem is they bought their market share, which has proven to be an expensive and seriously damaging route.

I'll bid 2 bottles of Grappa and a Fetuccine al Ragú, and maybe a Fegato alle Veneziane.

Oh please, Steve, if you wanna attept to write in Italian, just don't fail at it! It's written as Fegato alla Veneziana.

BTW, if I had to die, I'd rather die with a mouthfull of Pagliata. Now that's a rare dish, thanks to the mad cow stuff you mates exported to the rest of Europe, and once dead I won't care to be sick!

PH icon 'cause I have talked about food!

Oh I don't know, there's something masculine about venice... maybe it's all those chaps using their poles to get about.

I bid 2 gallons of two-stroke mixture and a vespa. Ciao!

Because I wasn't sure whether singular is used. I think only getting the number incorrect is far superior to the standard level of Italian spoken in England.

I knew I should have gone for Sepie alla griglia instead.

... ooo - too rich for me. I will refrain from bidding.

Tiscali, 4th largest ISP in the UK, firmly believe that they will not survive the projected scrabble for survival over the next 2 years. Nothing to do with the quality of their service then obviously.

Why should a company that has never delivered a decent service ever expect to make a profit. You don't win customers by reducing the level of service. Up Pompei with a sharp stick!

Oh well, Seppie is spelled with a douple P. ;)

No matter what: I am a customer of Tiscali. I know perfectly well that when I'll have a problem it is going to be a ROYAL PAIN IN THE BUTT to get it fixed. For the time being I have a 10mbit/s which is truelly unlimited (at least here in Italy we haven't seen the marketing bullsh*t, strage as our governament is the first to f*cks us).

Anything but Telecom Italia is fine by me at this stage ;))))

PH once more 'cause I am talking about sexually related stuff.

The inconsistancy of service - and the apparent downsizing of their service and their staff.

I read a comment on an earlier Tiscali story where a 'tech support guy' had posted as an annonymous coward to say the service was great and the article was wrong about customers being lost.

Well, the trickle from the dam has started to crack the concrete - prepare for a flood in the next year or so...

MichaelG, you have got it in the proverbial nutshell. The tiscali support guy (indeed the entire tiscali empire) reside in a perpetual state of brainwashed denial. They are absolutely convinced that they are genuinely providing a "service" based solely on the premis that it's "cheap and cheerful" - whilst real people, the ones who are on the recieving end, can only see "shoddy and crass". If tiscali were actually to ask their customers instead of their board members, if they sought feedback from their ex-customers instead of launching mudslinging exercises, debt collection threats and antisocial verbal assaults, if they tried to contact their own customer support services using their own support website instead of just barking orders at them by internal memo, dammit - if they could just try sending an attachment of screenshots to their own engineers --- they would soon realise that all is not as rosy as the teenage mugshots that adorn their site and the narcisitic heavy petting they give themselves in their own press.

Anyone ever tell you that when you were younger. Buy cheap as chips Broadband you are going to get an inconsistent service and crap customer support.

It's the same in all walks of life except with Gas and Electric where it is very expensive and you still get crap customer service.