November 2007

Driven to Plus.net by Awful Tiscali Service

After a long time looking I’ve finally left Tiscali with whom I had broadband and phone for over 2 years and I can’t believe I lasted that long.

Terrible Tiscali

For the last 6 months (probably a lot longer) I’ve not been able to do anything but basic web browsing and emails from mid-afternoon until about midnight, each and every day. This means no Peer-2-Peer downloads (I couldn’t use the BBC iPlayer, for example, and I’m fairly sure Channel 4’s On Demand service uses the same technology). It means no online gaming on my PlayStation 2 or, more recently, my Nintendo Wii. For other users it seems they have problems with PC gaming.

I’d be a little annoyed that Tiscali offered me “unlimited” 2MB broadband and then deliberately restricted the speeds during peak times. I’d be quite a lot more annoyed that they weren’t even honest about it at first, denying that they used traffic-shaping. But the fact that their traffic shaping stops me from using a lot of these services altogether (they say it’s a problem, I’m not sure whether it might be deliberate) is an outrage. Tiscali’s forums have seen reports flooding in from other users being affected and yet this has been ongoing for months.

As if that’s not bad enough, Tiscali “customer service” staff don’t want to know. In fact, Tiscali don’t even want you to contact them, so they make you call a rip-off 0871 number. This would be fine if I needed advice about what to plug in where to get my broadband going, but why should I line their pockets by calling their premium rate number to report a network problem that they have caused?

Pastures New – PlusNet

Anyway, as of Wednesday, I’m out. I’m now with Plus net on a 90-day trial (offer runs until 20/12/07), so we’ll see how that goes. At least they’re honest about their traffic-shaping and say that they limit speeds from P2P software during peak hours. That I can live with, as long as it’s not blocked altogether. They also have an 01 geographic number so I know I can phone them if I have a problem and not run up a big phone bill doing so. Since it’s a trial, if their traffic-shaping is anything like as broke as Tiscali’s I know I can leave without penalty. My main worry is that their 8GB package won’t be enough since it covers both uploads and downloads during the day (8am to midnight). Hopefully I can get any big downloads I need done overnight (downloads from midnight to 8AM are unlimited – they don’t count towards your allowance) and even if I can’t, I can find out without worrying about being stuck in a 12-month contract thanks to their trial offer.

This probably sounds a bit like an advertorial (I would get a referral bonus if anyone did sign up from my site) but the whole thing all sounds a bit too good to be true, when you factor in that you can get a free Static IP and a user survey by Uswitch.com rated them number 1 on customer satisfaction as well.

I’ve only starting with Plus.net 2 days ago and the speeds don’t seem tremendous (but still better than the 1.5-ish Mb/s I was getting with Tiscali) so I can’t say too much about my own experience yet, but as a company they’re already looking a whole lot better than Tiscali. I’ll post a follow-up after I’ve had a couple of weeks to find out how good they are.

If you decide to sign up, please make sure and tell them you were recommended by “ferson” (no quotes). Cheers.

Microsoft Want to Own You

Installing Microsoft’s Virtual Earth 3D plugin for Firefox (yes, they wrote something that works in Firefox) I was reminded of one more reason why I hate Microsoft.

You’d think with all the anti-competitive suits being filed against them they’d get over this, but apparently not.

Have a look at what’s presented to you when you install the Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D plugin.

Yes, that’s right, when you install Virtual Earth 3D, Microsoft try to take over your home page and default search engine: two completely unrelated services. If they must give us the option then fine, but they have the boxes ticked by default and that is where I believe they cross the line from opportunistic cross-selling to scummy, underhanded manipulation. Not that it’s a big surprise, they do the same thing with their Windows Live Messenger product. This is an even more blatant example of what they’re trying to do here, which is using their strength (and in the case of Messenger, dominance) in one market to try and dominate in another.

If it takes another legal case to sort this out then it should be done, but Microsoft should be fined and forced to pay legal costs. The previous controversy over their bundling of Media Player in Windows obviously hasn’t taught them anything.

“This generation does not want an archive of music” – Vodafone

Vodafone‘s head of internet and content services made this bold, and rather hasty, claim in promotion of MusicStation, Vodafone’s new subscription music service, which offers unlimited music downloads – downloads which all become useless the inst ant you stop making regular monthly payments to Vodafone.

“This generation does not want an archive of music. We offer unlimited music on a rental model – no-one has done this in the marketplace, and certainly not the iPhone.”
Al Russell, Vodafone’s head of internet and content services

Maybe this blogger, in his early-to-mid-twenties, is too old not part of whatever Mr Russel means by “this generation” any longer, but the last thing I want is to pay over Â£100 a year (Â£2 a week) and have nothing to show for it at the end should I decide to change networks. I’ve always avoided subscription-based download services like Napster for exactly this kind of reason (even they now offer Napster Light: a pay-per-download service). I will use it if it’s included free when I happen to take out a Vodafone contract (which I might have to if they’re the only network to get the N95 8GB which I desperately want, just not at Â£50 a month!), but MusicStation will not be a factor in my decision.

Perhaps Vodafone should take a look at the experience of Bango who manage, among other services, The Sun newspaper’s download service.

Trusted brands are keen not to be tarred with the subscription brush. For example, The Sun newspaper that uses Bango to power the pay per downloads on Sun Mobile, print “No subscriptions – No hidden charges” on its ads to reassure consumers it is not a subscription service. Mobile operators have also expressed a desire to move away from this type of payment as subscriptions are a major cause of consumer dissatisfaction.
Network for Online Commerce – Pay-per-download gaining popularity…

The ‘archive of music’ as Mr Russell describes it, is the modern equivalent of the CD collection. It doesn’t make a difference if you only listen to the CD once in 5 years, you keep it because you can.Â It comforts the inner-hoarder in all of us. The long and short of it is, I think, that we do want it.

The push for subscription based downloads has nothing to do with what Vodafone’s (or anyone else’s) consumers want, it’s all about the interests of the big service providers and record labels, and any push towards this should be resisted. It will by this consumer anyway.