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[kitz]

ASA has recently adjudicated on complaints by Tiscali user who were getting poor speeds.  The complaints were not upheld.

Tiscalis response was that although they advertise "Up to 1Mb and 2 Mb speeds", they sell adsl as a contended service which means that users share the amount of available bandwidth.

Tiscali asserted that all their customers were capable of achieving the advertised 1Mb and 2Mb speeds and that customers should experience speeds within the ranges stated by BT Wholesale; 200-1000 kbps for 1 Mb customers and 400-2000 kbps for 2 Mb customers.

This is an interesting development, most of us may have at some time or other experienced exchange congestion, but this adjudication seems to give ISPs the green light that slow speeds on the ISPs network is acceptable.

customers would experience different speeds depending on a number of different factors including the number of users online at any given time, their distance from the exchange and the quality of their line.

ASA said

We noted the complainants had achieved low speeds, but were satisfied that Tiscali's customers typically achieved speeds that were close enough to the maximum speeds advertised so as not to affect the customers' experience in any meaningful way. We concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead.

Full report
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Details.htm?Adjudication_id=41487

[kitz]

MrSaffron from adslguide makes some interesting comments which mirror my own concerns.

This could be taken to mean that a number of 1Mbps customers actually share a single 1Mbps sized connection from the exchange out to the Internet. In normal practice, it is actually the case that customers at the exchange are merged onto a connection that is several times larger than what any single user could use. If Tiscali are putting customers onto pipes that are only just big enough for one user, then contention is going to be felt more readily than with many other providers. /snip

One possibility for some Tiscali customers feeling they aren't getting their full speeds, is that the fair usage policy for their 'unlimited' service has come into effect. The Tiscali fair use policy is one with no specified figures, so people will find it difficult to know whether the slower speeds are down to the policy or other factors. In theory if the policy is working as it is worded, only a small number should be affected, but in practice it would seem that consumers who perhaps have one really big day of downloading in a month, can get penalised due to the daily assessment nature of the Tiscali system.

Full report
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2718