OK, another computer-related question.

As some members know I've been without home broadband access for quite some time now. This all started when my landlord accidentally cancelled our BT account (don't ask!). It was restored within the 5 working days that all telecommunications companies seem to think is an acceptable minimum; however, 3-4 weeks later Tiscali, who supplied our broadband before the BT line went down, still haven't managed to provide us with a restored service. I've been playing the flugel and using a dongle kindly loaned to me for the past couple of weeks, but it's quite slow sometimes, doesn't load pictures properly, doesn't let me on to certain sites which it thinks might not be suitable for me (!), and anyway I'm irritated by Tiscali's apparent lack of any sense of urgency.

I'm going to phone them again in the morning, and try pointing out that since they've now failed to meet three estimated re-connection dates it would be possible for me to regard this as a cynical attempt to stop me leaving them when in fact they had no intention of getting their act together. I don't really believe this is the case, I think they're just disorganised, but it might hurry them up if I threaten to report them to consumer standards for making promises they had no intention of keeping.

So I was just wondering if anyone knows the name of the body I need to threaten them with. Ofcom? Oftel? Any ideas???

Thanks, Ron. I actually never had any problems with Tiscali before, although possibly that was just luck that there was never anything I needed them to deal with (the one time I had a basic query I phoned and they were very helpful about it).

The problem was that BT having closed then re-opened the account, Tiscali seemed not to understand what had happened, and at first kept telling me to check my router, filter, modem etc., even though I told them repeatedly that it wasn't a technical fault but simply that the supply needed re-establishing.

In the end I got to speak to someone from the engineering team who seemed to understand me better, and confirmed that yes, they weren't treating it as a fault but simply as a re-connection. At this point I decided that even if their customer services had given me confused responses, the technical people obviously did know what needed doing and I just needed to be patient. But it's now yet another week-and-a-bit gone by and still no sign of anything actually having happened.

Another aspect which can be frustrating concerns all those disconnections for "road works" in the middle of the night. These have been going on for many years with several different "providers." They usually last only ten to thirty minutes, but the restoration or re-connection is not auto-matic. It can sometimes be tremendously disappointing to find that the timed recording of some inter-net wireless station which one has carefully set up has failed. (The worst recent case was some works of the great French master Florent Schmitt, recently broadcast on France Musiques. They provide "Listen Later" only for "concerts" but this programme for some reason did not qualify as a concert and was lost to us for ever due to a 2 a.m. disconnection.) We have yet to see a contract which offers or guarantees CONTINUOUS connection but would advise members to jump at it if it ever comes about.

I, as always, had never noticed you gone at all...

That sounds like my experience, yes.

I'm with Tiscali and have used their online "Questions" facility a few times - it looks good potentially, you can start a thread which will get answered and then you can post a reply etc. In practice it's dreadful. Each time you post, you get a different Nigel from Mumbai who asks you yet again for info that you've already posted on the thread. I've never got anywhere with any of the queries I've raised and have given up with each.

However I'm reluctant to leave Tiscali since everyone else sounds equally bad