  The UK ISP Tiscali claims it has now fixed the network problems that left many customers complaining of slow broadband speeds for more than a month. Tiscali underwent a massive upgrade of its network between 27 March and 7 April to fix localised capacity issues.
It logged 274 requests with BT to upgrade some of its Virtual Paths (VPs)– the connection from BT’s local exchange to Tiscali’s own network - to accommodate its customer capacity requirements. But despite BT Wholesale's confirmation that the upgrade had been completed, Tiscali continued to receive a "considerable number of complaints" from customers about slow speeds after 7 April. A Tiscali spokeswoman said: "We received confirmation from BT Wholesale that these VP upgrades had been completed in the expected time.
However we continued to receive a considerable number of customer calls reporting slow speeds which technically speaking we could not understand because our DataStream broadband service now routinely operates at a contention ratio of less than 20:1, which is considerably better than the recommended industry level (up to 50:1). After raising the concerns with BT, it conducted a full investigation, which highlighted that of 274 upgrades, 71 had not been completed.
This was resolved as quickly as possible and all upgrades were completed by 5 May. " Tiscali said it is now confident that the problems have been fully resolved and claims it has seen a "big drop in customer calls about broadband speed". It vows to routinely upgrade its network and VPs to accommodate customer capacity requirements and claims that in the last 12 months this has amounted to over 2000 new VPs and upgrades. It has also offered refunds to customers that reported a poor service. 
