Freedom2Surf & Pipex Customers Acquired by Tiscali

[Freedom2Support]

Pipex Communications PLC have this afternoon confirmed the sale of it's residential broadband customer base to Tiscali for a total consideration of approximately £210 million, on a debt-free basis, before adjustments

As part of the deal customers from Freedom2Surf, Bulldog Broadband, Toucan Broadband, Homecall, Nildram and Pipex Retail will transfer to Tiscali. Pipex Business broadband customers will remain with Pipex and are not part of the deal.

Pipex will retain its web hosting, domain registration and Wimax licensing operation.

Mary Turner, the chief executive of Tiscali UK commented:
"We will be able to offer our new Pipex customers the full range of Tiscali's services including broadband, telephone and TV. This acquisition provides us with an even greater opportunity in rolling out our double and triple-play offers."

Peter Dubens, Executive Chairman of Pipex, commented:
“Over the past 3 years, Pipex has successfully transformed the scale and quality of its Broadband and Voice customer base. In the consolidating UK market, today’s announcement crystallises value for shareholders, and ensures that Pipex’s customers will continue to receive a wide range of competitive, high quality communications and internet services."

Full Announcement
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/L...499&source=RNS

[Freedom2Support]

Reaction from PlusNet's Neil Armstrong: "Tiscali acquiring Pipex will create massive customer churn in the consumer broadband market. Pipex is ranked fifth for customer service by Uswitch and Tiscali ranked seventh. We expect Pipex customers will react to this move by voting with their feet. Broadband users want speed, reliability and first class customer service, not mass market offerings."

Credit: Net4now.

[keith_thfc]

Originally Posted by Freedom2Support

Reaction from PlusNet's Neil Armstrong: "Tiscali acquiring Pipex will create massive customer churn in the consumer broadband market. Pipex is ranked fifth for customer service by Uswitch and Tiscali ranked seventh. We expect Pipex customers will react to this move by voting with their feet. Broadband users want speed, reliability and first class customer service, not mass market offerings."

Credit: Net4now.

What a load of tosh......

Customers wanting decent speeds certainly won't get that at Plusnet with all their traffic shaping.

Wasn't long ago Plusnet were in bed with Tiscali to provide their LLU - which all went very pear shaped indeed, not helped by the fact they shoved customers over without permission.

If there is to be any churn then most customers wanting out will move to the specialist LLU providers, where they get what it says on the tin with no hidden surprises......

[NewsreadeR]

Broadband users want speed, reliability and first class customer service, not mass market offerings."

So effectively, Neil is saying Plusnet won't be benefitting from the mass exodus.

[Justin]

Well if I think back to this time 2 years ago there were quite a few decent ISP's, look at it now and you are hard pressed to find one or two that are any good!

[NewsreadeR]

Problem is Justin, I feel this is just the start of the fall down of the great ISP's.

Give it another 2 years and there will only be a handful of smaller ISP's and about 5 or 6 Tier 1 type.

F2S turned my MAC code request round in 90 mins - I guess they will need to get them out pretty fast after this announcement!

Peter

[dave757]

Am I foolish to wait and see what this actually means for the service we receive, before jumping ship? Is it really likely to be that bad? Where else is better without paying more money? F2S are one of, if not the cheapest for the service I currently receive.

[NewsreadeR]

To be fair, we do not know what the consequences or the format of what is going to happen.

From experience on buy-outs all companies say it won't change, business as usual. Historically that is crap and in the IPS world, it goes boobs up.

Take AOL for example, they went all Pete Tong a couple of months ago. F2S went Pete Tong about a year ago.

There are plenty of ISP's that are great though. Newnet is awesome I use them for my daytime connection at work and Sky at night.

Used to pay £24.99 for F2S nighttime and £24.99 daytime. Now I pay £16.99 and £10.00 so saving £22.99 and getting a far superior level of package.

[acidtechno]

so.. I am expecting the first newsletter direct from Tiscali to all users titled with the subject "Welcome to the family".

[NewsreadeR]

Put it this way, try and leave and they pass you to the Mafia Office, not migrations.

[Tim]

We've had a nightmare with Tiscali in the past... trying to cancel with them was a nightmare, speaking to people in the call center that didn't really care and actually hung up on us. This was years ago... but still puts me off being back with them.

[Hyster]

Mac code requested..........I'm off.....

[No Rest]

Time to move on I think! I hope F2S service stays the same but I expect it will be integrated into Tiscali who no doubt will make a really half assed job of it ensuring you have problems with you connection and most importantly of all making sure you cant cancel!

[keith_thfc]

Originally Posted by No Rest

Time to move on I think! I hope F2S service stays the same but I expect it will be integrated into Tiscali who no doubt will make a really half assed job of it ensuring you have problems with you connection and most importantly of all making sure you cant cancel!

If you were on a f2s LLU service 2 years ago when Pipex took over you will already have experienced all these here anyway..........

This isn't like Zen being taken over by Tiscali. Its Pipex for crying out loud. An ISP that is still blatantly mis-selling a fake unlimited service, shoving customers on to LLU without permission, lying about other ISP's to stop them leaving, giving out MAC's that don't work and forcing traffic shaping on the masses without any prior warning and then doing a u-turn at Nildram but not at f2s.

How on earth could things be any worse with Tiscali?

[No Rest]

Originally Posted by keith_thfc

If you were on a f2s LLU service 2 years ago when Pipex took over you will already have experienced all these here anyway..........

This isn't like Zen being taken over by Tiscali. Its Pipex for crying out loud. An ISP that is still blatantly mis-selling a fake unlimited service, shoving customers on to LLU without permission, lying about other ISP's to stop them leaving, giving out MAC's that don't work and forcing traffic shaping on the masses without any prior warning and then doing a u-turn at Nildram but not at f2s.

How on earth could things be any worse with Tiscali?

No LLU out here in the middle of nowhere thankfully!

[Justin]

Keith, if you search my posts for the word Tiscali you will find out exactly why they are worse, they have done many things that are worse than what Pipex have done, including showing porn as banner ads on their websites (Thats really irresponsible at the time it was calling itself an ISP for all the family).

They also booted me off for daring to complain about their services and destroyed a great ISP in LineOne just by running it totally into the ground. Of course, despite booting me off all those years ago, they continued to bill me, month, after month, after month. It wasn't till I actually shut the BT line down it was attached to that they stopped!

Speaking of misleading advertising, Tiscali have ads everywhere for unlimited broadband, yet there is a fair usage policy and there has also been allegations of them selling email addresses on, the amount of spam you get on a Tiscali account, is crazy, especially when it's on an address there is no way a spammer would get. Then you have the whole SPAM issue, there is more spam coming from Tiscali (IMHO) than any other UK ISP as they simply don't care.

More recently there was the YourTeamBuilder site, aka the Tiscali Network which seems to resemble something of a pyramid/matrix scheme, and just this last week was the breaking of DNS standards so they can show you even more ads.

[acidtechno]

after reading your informative words Justin it does make me wonder why you would consider thinking about continuing providing support for an ISP owned by Tiscali.

Clearly your advice is to migrate from F2S?

Have you any other info you wish to add regarding Tiscali activities past and present?

[Justin]

All: The front page post and the start of this thread have been made clearer and now have quotes from Tiscali

Acidtechno: Because this site is not for me, it's for the users.

[acidtechno]

http://www.pipexgroup.com/pg.asp?rnsnews

news item at the pipexgroup site about the sale. Cannot see any news at F2S, Nildram or Pipex ISP sites.

[Avoura]

The Tiscali news is the worst yet for F2S users. Tiscali has often been rated poorly in the broadband market and I do not want to be a customer of them. I shall be looking for a new ISP soon, any suggestions as to what might be the best, and one not likely to be acquired any time soon?

[chriswsm]

OK a few serious questions:

Question # 1:
Will customers be changed from an IP stream to a Datastream product?

F2S & Pipex = IP Stream. Tiscali = Datastream (in areas where they have sufficient customer base to buy the IP layer off BT).

From my experience Datastream products are subject to periods of slowness.

I tend to get a ping of 15 - 25 on most FPS games. Chap in flat below me is with Tiscali and his ping averages 60 - 70 on the same servers. Our PC's are a similar spec (I built his PC). If he wirelessly connects to my service he gets ping similar to mine.

Question # 2:Will the support function for F2S customers change?

At the moment the helpdesk is open up to 7 pm Monday to Friday. This is not ideal but the staff are friendly, know their product, communicate well and listen well in my experience.

I recently had the misfortune of sorting out a friends web problems and had to speak to his ISP helpdesk which was in India. Trying to convey the fact that he was suffering intermittent connection loss (AKA a Disconnection fault where his modem was losing sync with DSLAM modem about every 20 mins) was a difficult experience. I would never pay the kind of money F2S charge if they had non UK support. Might consider it if they halved their price. I put up with it for my mobile phone but that is dirt cheap (H3G).

Question 3:
Will there be any Job Losses caused by the Tiscali takeover?



That will do for now.

TWICE I've voted with my feet out of Tiscali (and once out of Pipex!) - shocking service, nil customer support, and a firm that don't give a toss as long as they're raking in the cash. And TWICE I've found myself aboard again - not from free choice but because of their predatory takeovers.

I've found the same with my banking and savings over the past few years - making informed choices (I thought) only to find my money again and again in the hands of people I didn't want to do business with, as the market moves closer and closer to effective monopoly.

Where is our famed Monopolies Commission - living off backhanders, in the Seychelles, or what?

[tonplus]

Tiscali have got to be the biggest bunch of cowboys known to the ISP world, I'll wait for my speed to decrease and the general line quality to go and will I be able to speak to anyone outside India?? I don't think so!!
O well, the line was good while it lasted.

Originally Posted by Avoura

The Tiscali news is the worst yet for F2S users. Tiscali has often been rated poorly in the broadband market and I do not want to be a customer of them. I shall be looking for a new ISP soon, any suggestions as to what might be the best, and one not likely to be acquired any time soon?

I'm about to sign up with the Entanet reseller, ADSL24. adsl24.co.uk

A good range of speeds/bandwidth, sensible pricing, and positive feedback in thinkbroadband.com, and in their own site forum. Just like f2s in the old days.