UPDATE: Reader complaints suggest that the issue is far from fixed and migrated Pipex customers are also having the same speed/performance problems.

ISP Tiscali UK has reportedly been forced to roll back a software update to its broadband ADSL traffic management platform after performance with popular services, such as Apple's iTunes, was slowed to a crawl during peak hours.

We've certainly seen a spike in complaints over the past couple of weeks concerning speed, not least from online gamers that have witnessed huge jumps in latency, often causing multiplayer gaming to become unplayable:


The latest update, which was posted yesterday afternoon in this topic, simply says "Our engineers are continuing to address this issue. Some service changes were made late Friday night in an attempt to restore the service back to normal."

Separately, Thinkbroadband reports that Tiscali has begun migrating Pipex's BT based IPStream ADSL broadband customers onto its own unbundled (LLU) and Datastream (non-BT) platform. Customers enquiring about the changes are just being told that "work is being carried out on your line at the exchange" and are not being clearly informed of the platform change.

The move will allow Tiscali to save money on each of its Pipex based subscriptions, yet customers fear the potential for further service deterioration. Tiscali offers some of the cheapest broadband packages in the country and frequently touts “unlimited” marketing terminology at price points that many rivals simply can not match. Naturally, paying less rarely gets you more and service quality has been known to suffer.