Pay As You Go Broadband

In answer to BT’s new UK£19.99 broadband product, capped at 1gb but “burstable”, Tiscali have launched a competing product aimed at customers wanting to dip their toes in broadband internet access.

Bandwidth is set at 512Kb/s and has an option of either 1Gb of data per month, or 50 hours online. Customers who go over their basic allowance either pay 2p per minute or 2p per Mb extra, depending whether they are on the 1Gb or 50 hour package.

The new packages that are appearing from suppliers look like good value at first, but we thought we’d check what you’re really getting. We dug out our HP48G+ and calculated that you could get nearly 10Gb down the pipe on the 50 hour package, but then it does limit you to less than two hours a day online. Further frightening calculations revealed that certain DigLif staff spend at least 120 hours a month online, and so for “heavy” users uncapped products currently retailing at UK£29.99 are best.

Tiscali’s Broadband Offerings

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Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?