I fully endorse Dawlish's comments below.

I have been with Tiscali/TalkTalk since 2005.
Service has been alright if slow, but it's always a struggle with the offshore support desks - frankly you dread talking to them.

I have just been without internet access for 10 days. I was sent 2 new routers and had numerous lengthy, difficult and tiresome phone calls with first line support desks in India and Thailand.

I finally insisted that my fault was escalated and TT UK support isolated it (to their servers) on the phone in 5 minutes and it was fixed 30 hours later. It was indeed a fault with TT servers and nothing to do with me.

During this fiasco I discovered the UK TT support forums which had I known about I would have used. The problem with them is that they are not real time and can take 2 days to respond. Not helpful when you work from home and your internet access is down.

The service is ok when it works but if you have any sort of problem - it's a nightmare.

Speedwise I am getting on average 1.3mbs on a line BT says is capable of 3mbs. (I live way out in the sticks).

I have been out of contract for several years and they have advised they will be increasing my monthly charge by 20% from next month. Time to swap ISPs I think.