Frank O' Phile
Active Member
I have been with Tiscali (max package, BB, free calls, line rental all in for £30 - 32 month)for some years but recently started to struggle with wireless connection to laptops. (Mine and our lad's since Christmas). The performance was poor considering a 90-100% reception.
So I started to look around at what alternatives were available and also looked at possible improvments to the existing set up.
First I found this site and looked at which companies had installed their own equipment in my local exchange and could therefore offer a better service. Tiscali had not installed, but O2 had so I checked their offers. There was a discount for O2 phone customers so I nipped into town to their retail outlet and bought a PAYG sim card.
Then I called Tiscali (11.30 a.m.) to get my MAC code. It took them over 10 minutes to answer the phone only to have a real live person tell me that they were too busy to take my call.
'I just want my MAC code,' I said. They 'promised' someone would call me back before 9.30 that night.
Then I called Simplify Digital to take an offer with O2. Up to 20Mb b\band, £10 per month, two months free, £70 cash back. I know, read that bit again if you like, it took me a few goes to do the maths and realise it was £30 pa for high speed B\band. All done in 12 minutes.
Then I called the Post Office to take over the phone line, (left BT way back when they wanted me to pay extra for not going Direct Debit). They offered a decent deal and no contract, just 30 day rolling deal. Brill. Only £12\month with usual free calls deal.
The following day, ie. 24 hours later, Tiscali (Talktalk or Blahblah as I now call them) call back and promised me the moon on a stick if I stayed with them, but it was still more expensive than my new combination. I let her empty her basket before telling her
'meh.. I don't think so'.
'But you wont get anywhere near 20Mb on your line, no matter what O2 promise you'.
'I don't care', says I, 'it's only 30 quid a year, not 30 quid a month like I'm paying now.'
So there we are. I'm now on O2 mobile, waiting for double my current download speed (currently manage 3Mb) for peanuts and changing the phone line too. If\when O2 launch their home phone service I can have a look at that and am free to change from the P.O. if I wish.
As an aside, I downloaded a wifi sniffer program and found that current my wireless router was operating on the same channel as a nearby recently installed Sky system, so I changed from channel1 to channel 11 and it's currently working better than ever. Have you checked yours?
Bye Bye Blah Blah, Hello2.
So I started to look around at what alternatives were available and also looked at possible improvments to the existing set up.
First I found this site and looked at which companies had installed their own equipment in my local exchange and could therefore offer a better service. Tiscali had not installed, but O2 had so I checked their offers. There was a discount for O2 phone customers so I nipped into town to their retail outlet and bought a PAYG sim card.
Then I called Tiscali (11.30 a.m.) to get my MAC code. It took them over 10 minutes to answer the phone only to have a real live person tell me that they were too busy to take my call.
'I just want my MAC code,' I said. They 'promised' someone would call me back before 9.30 that night.
Then I called Simplify Digital to take an offer with O2. Up to 20Mb b\band, £10 per month, two months free, £70 cash back. I know, read that bit again if you like, it took me a few goes to do the maths and realise it was £30 pa for high speed B\band. All done in 12 minutes.
Then I called the Post Office to take over the phone line, (left BT way back when they wanted me to pay extra for not going Direct Debit). They offered a decent deal and no contract, just 30 day rolling deal. Brill. Only £12\month with usual free calls deal.
The following day, ie. 24 hours later, Tiscali (Talktalk or Blahblah as I now call them) call back and promised me the moon on a stick if I stayed with them, but it was still more expensive than my new combination. I let her empty her basket before telling her
'meh.. I don't think so'.
'But you wont get anywhere near 20Mb on your line, no matter what O2 promise you'.
'I don't care', says I, 'it's only 30 quid a year, not 30 quid a month like I'm paying now.'
So there we are. I'm now on O2 mobile, waiting for double my current download speed (currently manage 3Mb) for peanuts and changing the phone line too. If\when O2 launch their home phone service I can have a look at that and am free to change from the P.O. if I wish.
As an aside, I downloaded a wifi sniffer program and found that current my wireless router was operating on the same channel as a nearby recently installed Sky system, so I changed from channel1 to channel 11 and it's currently working better than ever. Have you checked yours?
Bye Bye Blah Blah, Hello2.
