Customers of Tiscali UK's broadband services have received somewhat of a Christmas shock after the ISPs new owners, TalkTalk ( The Carphone Warehouse ), warned that users who did not "upgrade" to TalkTalk's phone line rental service would be charged an extra +£5 per month for their package!

The newsletter was specifically targeted at customers of Tiscali's "broadband-only" service, which is currently charged at £14.99 per month and could now rise to an unpleasant £19.99 if related users choose not to comply. Worse still is that TalkTalk will begin migrating related customers on 7th January next year, which isn't much warning.

Naturally TalkTalk maintains that its phone line service is superior and offers better value for money. However it forgets that there may be many service specific reasons why some users have chosen not to adopt TalkTalk or Tiscali's unbundled ( LLU ) telephone line services, availability being another issue.

Meanwhile PlusNet is offering frustrated Tiscali customers the chance to sign-up with their service and gain 3 MONTHS FREE BROADBAND, just enter the offer code tiscali when you register.