Tiscali bottom of the class

(By Richard Holway 7.00am 29th July 09) Long term readers will have shared my pain over the broadband service we get here in leafy Farnham. Farnham is hardly Dartmoor - but the service is pretty awful. Just about OK for my work during the day but using iPlayer is out-of-the-question in the evenings.

I thought that it was just the distance from the exchange, the copper wires and the general decay that BT has allowed in the infrastructure around here. But it also looks as if my choice of ISP - in my case Tiscali - also played a part. As you might have read in the Ofcom report yesterday - (see ComputerWeekly) - Tiscali came bottom of Ofcom broadband tests. Although I pay for 8mb, I never get it. Nationwide Tiscali users get just 3.2-3.7mb - the slowest of any UK ISP.

I do live in some hope though. Charles Dunstone's Carphone Warehouse has just taken over Tiscali. (See my 10th May post Carephone Warehouse buys Tiscali - Farnham holds its breath) He promises faster speeds. for Tiscali users But I doubt even he can do much around here. The real revolution would only come if we had fibre. And that would mean digging a trench and the Farnham treelovers (often including me!) would be up in protest.