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Covert Tiscali migrations
(30-01-08) - Former Pipex customers who have been experiencing connection problems in recent weeks have been covertly moved to Tiscali’s local loop unbundled (LLU) network, it has been reported.
Tiscali (www.Tiscali.co.uk), now the UK’s fourth biggest ISP, bought Pipex (www.Pipex.com) for £210 million pounds last year and has begun moving customers onto its LLU network in a bid to increase profit margins, reported The Register.
LLU is cheaper than traditional ADSL as once a provider like Tiscali has installed its own technology in the local exchange; it no longer has to rent lines from BT.
An insider at one of Tiscali’s subsidiary brands told The Register that the focus had shifted from quality to customer numbers.
“The logic is that we'll save more money placing customers on the Tiscali backhaul per month than we will lose from customers migrating away,” he said.
He also indicated that Tiscali, which has complained about the strain that services such as the BBC iPlayer puts on its network, plans to implement a full block on peer-to-peer services at peak times. Peer-to-peer is a common way of sharing files and is used by the BBC iPlayer, Channel 4’s 4oD and Sky's (www.Sky.com) Sky Anytime.
A Tiscali spokeswoman said that the migrations were being done in order to offer customers better connections as well as to save money, and insisted that customers were not being informed of the moves because providers “do network migrations all the time”.
Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “Although switching someone to LLU might give them a better line, Tiscali needs to inform its former Pipex customers of the implications of switching to an unbundled line.
“Tiscali offers fully unbundled services - meaning that both the phone line and the broadband are unbundled - and while this makes for cheaper packages, it means that anyone trying to move back to the BT (www.BT.com) maintained network could find themselves facing up to £124.99 to have a line reinstalled.
“Customers need to read up on the possible costs of LLU, and make sure they find out if they’re going to be migrated,” he advised.
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