back to article Pipex plotting carve-up for Tiscali deal

The breakup of Pipex and sale of its residential broadband customer base to Tiscali is looking increasingly certain. Insiders at the takeover target say the terms of the deal will be announced in four to eight weeks. In the meantime, managers are working out the personnel carve-up, with employees destinations in the split …

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  1. Brian Wright

    HD Staff

    Although I've found the quality of the Pipex service sporadic to say the least and the fact that I was signed to a Max-Unlimited product which they then changed to Limited but not telling us what the limit is hasn't helped. However I have found the helpdesk staff to be very helpful in the 4-5 occassions I have dealt with them, there was one exception but then that can happen to any ISP. I pity the staff if they are to be moved to Tiscali as they really don't seem to have a clue how to minimise customer churn, run a network, run an ISP etc etc, and the few people I know who work for them despise it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    End of an era (again)

    Sad, but no surprise.

    Pipex, under its original management, pioneered mass market broadband in the UK, five years ago (it was probably even reported here on The Register).

    Pipex's sale to GX was definitely reported here, and sadly it's been downhill ever since. Hard to see how much further downhill they can go after Tiscali though.

    We should feel sorry for all the punters who've been told they're locked in to 12 month contracts. Now would be a good time for them to contact their local Trading Standards for advice on how enforceable the alleged 12 month lock-in actually is (UK consumer law requires a fair balance of obligations and responsibilities between supplier and customer, and that one doesn't sound very fairly balanced).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hopefully....

    ....Nildram customers will be left with the business focused part...

  4. Sabahattin Gucukoglu

    Re: hopefully....

    ... as will the LLU Bulldog business customers, including those doing ADSL (not just the expensive SDSL or other pipes). I guess it'd be nice to give the techs to people who (presumably) are better clued than their residential consumer cousins, but having this very day just spoken to an overenthusiastic tech (by which I mean one who refused to stray from the scripts of enlightenment) through the business line (which I think is as a matter of fact also the way to get you to residential technical support if you choose the Tech Support option) who asked me to check every single possible point of failure at my end after I assured her that the disconnection occurred in the last half hour without my touching anything, I am a little uncertain. Indeed, were it not for the sudden restoration of the service, I feel sure I'd've destroyed half my desktop equipment before I got the next call, since I am unduely paranoid about it. And when today's short outage in the actual line was immediately following a two-month upgrade delay during which I was offline (but thankfully still with phone service), caused almost entirely by a leading zero in my IP address configured on a radius server (I'm still waiting for a response to my email about that - they've undercompensated me badly and not refunded me for a router that never came), I am preying the techs, billing (Indian call centre) and *Business* Customer Service will have more time to chase up faults and generally get things resolved. Ah well, at least tech isn't based in far-off eastern lands. And anyway, mine was my tech's very first call this afternoon, and she was very good-natured and thorough, if nothing else. Here's to hoping she doesn't crack sometime very soon before, during or immediately after the Pis...Tiscali handover. In general, I've been stuck with Bulldog simply because, at least before my LLU upgrade, the service really has been pretty damned stable for me, and with luck it'll stay that way as long as I'm a business customer. We shall soon see if the speed boost is worth the £20 reduction in my monthly broadband charges just for the privilege of leaving BT.

    Cheers,

    Sabahattin

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pipex going downhill

    We've been with Pipex for 2 years and for most of that time it provided a consistant, trouble free broadband service. About 3 - 4 months back we started getting throttling, it went from a high of 6Mb to a low of 0.2Mb and stayed there for a week before going back up to around 4Mb. This nows seems to be a monthly cycle. After following up with the customer & tech support we decided to move, being on a month to month contract. Guess we got out just in time. Pipex must be "winding down" to Tiscali's level of service.

  6. Andy

    bye bye pipex

    ive been with pipex for years but im not going to tiscali so ive just asked for my mac code and ill be off to bt in a week or so .. shame ive always told people to go pipex as their support (although ive never needed it) is very good and they always seem to answer their phones quickly

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pipex - a different view

    What of the smaller part of Pipex? CIX conferencing, for example?

    A few thousand members of the CIX community might well worry.

    Yes, CIX. A conferencing system first seen in the 1980's. The birthplace of Demon Internet (in the tenner.a.month conference) where Cliff Stanford (and others) had the idea for Demon and made it happen. CIX, "the first commercial Internet email and Usenet access in the UK" according to some sources and where a few of the movers and shakers of the Internet world still hang out.

    CIX conferencing became part of Pipex in 2002 and the idea of customer support by Tiscali may cause, erm, a certain amount of worry.

    Previous buy-out concerns were part of the reason that at least 3 projects (varying from free to commercial) are in progress to replace it if it closes. That's apart from my own, making 4.

    Time will tell. But the feeling within CIX seems to match Douglas Adams' bowl of petunias: "Oh, no, not again!"

    Care Bear

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What does this mean for new customers?

    Ive been with Pipex for 4 years, but was going to change to SKY broadband, when i spoke to Pipex they convinced me to stay, as ive always had a reliable service from them. Ive just signed up to a midi package.

    What will happen if Pipex and Tiscali merge??

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