Tiscali gets tough with service ‘abusers’

Tiscali UK has threatened to boot off users who abuse its 24/7 unmetered dial-up service. In an email Tiscali warned punters that they have "extremely high usage" on their AnyTime dial-up packages.

The ISP claims that this high usage level is "adversely affecting the service we can offer other users" and that unless punters "significantly reduce" their usage then their accounts will be terminated on 18 September 2002.

Oh, and Tiscali also uses the email to try and tempt these heavy users to consider signing up to broadband.
It's not known how many people received the warning. Tiscali claims it is a small number.

In a statement Tiscali told us: "The Tiscali Anytime package is not an ‘always on’ product, but unfortunately, there are some customers who use the product as if it were, thereby compromising the quality of service offered to other Anytime customers.

"As a result, we have contacted those customers who are 'always on' and have asked them to migrate to our new broadband service, which is far more appropriate to their usage. If they haven’t modified their Anytime usage or migrated to broadband within a month, then we will have to release them from their current service."

Coincidentally, newspaper reports from Italy today quote Tiscali CFO, Massimo Cristofori, as saying that the pan-European ISP plans to make a "significant" investment in broadband. The company is looking to triple the number of ADSL users to 300,000 by the end of the year.

So, is booting off heavy dial-up users and trying to get them to sign up to broadband part of Tiscali's strategy to grow its broadband user base?

"This is not a way of 'beefing' up broadband numbers, as The Register suggests, but more a chance to offer quality of service to those Anytime customers that use the service," sniffed the ISP. ®