[MAV13]

Hiya.

This could be a bit of a challenge as some of my problems appear quite technical. I hope somebody can help me.

I have an ongoing issue with Tiscali. Service is poor and Tiscali Technical Help either don't know how to resolve the problems or are blaming a third party. It may be that Tiscali are not to blame for everything but I am struggling to get a resolution from anybody. I have recently moved over to Tiscali from a Homechoice account and I believe all of these problems have arisen since the transition.


1) E-mail referrals from a Bigfoot account
I have a bigfoot e-mail address which forwards e-mails to my Tiscali/Homechoice e-mail address. I have been forwarding e-mails to this address for some time and before the Tiscali transition there wasn’t a problem. Only a handful of new e-mails get through now and it seems that most are blocked. I arranged a ‘control’ test by changing the forwarding details to a Yahoo e-mail address. These e-mails get through without a problem indicating that the fault lies with Tiscali. Bigfoot have also helped by sending their own test e-mails. They have provided me with the following report:

Dear XXX,

We have this status update taken from the tests. It indicates a blacklisting of our IP which is not supposed to be because we are just forwarding emails to its destination email account.

litemail08 - blocked
Connected to mx6.uk.tiscali.com, Port 25.
220 mail-12.uk.tiscali.com ESMTP Service ready 250 mail-12.uk.tiscali.com 550 mail not accepted from blacklisted IP address [66.114.252.224]

I hope tiscali can clean the blacklisting so that we can resume with the forwarding of emails.

Sincerely,


XXX, Customer Support (JVL)
Bigfoot Communications LLC

All signs point to Tiscali being the source of the problem but Technical help have no idea how to resolve this and say that they don’t block or blacklist any e-mails. It appears that I will have to help them to resolve it by myself. Has anybody else experienced such problems and have they managed to resolve them?


2) Intermittent Image Pixelation on Tiscali TV
The TV image quality has decreased dramatically since the move to Tiscali TV. Under normal circumstances the image is not the best but it’s watchable. As soon as the demand on my internet connection is increased eg a download is initiated on our laptop or my wife starts to watch a streaming image on the internet the TV image starts to pixelate, the image and sound judders until the download/streaming is stopped. This is baffling because I am now on an 8mb connection and speed is good. I do appreciate that dramatically increasing the demand would have an effect on the image but I didn’t have these problems with the previous Homechoice connection at 2mb. With the Homechoice connection downloads were slower (understandably) but the TV image was untouched. Tiscali don’t know what is causing this problem and are happy to leave the situation unresolved.

Note to help with replies – I am using the newer Tiscali STB with the green light and this was replaced a few weeks ago. The pixelation problem occurred both before and after the new STB was installed (but only following transition to Tiscali TV from Homechoice about 3 months ago). The pixelation effect only happens when internet demand is increased and I am connected to the TV via a standard SCART cable. Internet is provided via the Speedtouch router which comes with the new Tiscali STB.


3) Insufficent MTU settings for XBOX Live connection
I connect to Xbox Live and play Call of Duty 4 on my XBOX 360 quite often. Yesterday my connection worked. Today it doesn’t. Nothing has been altered at my end. Performing a test through the Xbox 360 shows that the MTU settings are insufficient. My (basic) understanding is that either the router or gateway determines the MTU setting for the network and allows or restricts the packet size of information transmitted over the internet. Tiscali are saying that they are not to blame and I can’t see a way to check or alter the MTU setting in the router. I am left to my own devices again. Can anybody help?




All in all I am left with the feeling (rightly or wrongly) that Tiscali are slimming down the quality of the service they provide in order to pay for the lower monthly fees. There is no doubt that the service is competitively priced and the TV works (but is not exceptional) and the internet works (but not really at the same time as the TV or with the XBox). Are Tiscali paring down or ‘choking’ the service to give me the bare minimum? I wouldn't mind if it was explained to me that to get lower rate X you will have to trade Y. I feel that the quality of the Tiscali service is being reduced behind my back.

Any feedback or advice would be gratefully received.

Regards, MAV13

[UnknownSoldier]

maybe a coincidence but I have tried connecting to Live todat since ages ago & get the MTU error & am also on Tiscalli.

[MAV13]

Thanks U.S. Maybe the MTU error is a change to XBox Live by Microsoft or it's a change that Tiscali have implemented today. I'll let you know if the situation improves. Can you keep me posted too?

Thanks, MAV13

[MK_Brett]

Mav13,

Can you PM me your broadband enabled phone number, and I'll get someone to have a look at this for you.

1) As Bigfoot said in their email, their IP has been blacklisted. This is not a Tiscali problem. We (Tiscali) use a number of third party blacklists that are used throughout the industry and it would seem that some of Bigfoot group's mail servers have ended up on one or more of these blacklists. It may be that there's good reason for this and that they've suddenly been sending a lot of Spam (as happened to us last year) so we have to be careful. It is entirely their responsibility to have their IP removed from the blacklist.

2)What you are describing here been known, but as a rule shouldn't happen. This is usually an indication that QoS has not been set correctly on your port. I can have this addressed, but need your details as above.

3)MTU is not something we would change lightly. Read more about MTU here http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/MTU.htm and try this first.

In any of these conditions I would not have expected 1st line support to be able to resolve, but they should have raised a ticket for you that should have wound it's way to one us. I will look into this once I have your details.

Regards

Brett

[MAV13]

Hi MK_Brett

1) Thank you for shedding more light on this. It appears there is nothing I can do now though. If I read your e-mail right Tiscali (in common with other ISPs) buy or obtain blacklists from third party suppliers who have identified that certain websites are a problem. The Bigfoot IP address has ended up on this list due to abuse by spammers and my e-mail address is also affected. I'm not really able to challenge Bigfoot unless I know who the blacklist suppliers are. Can my e-mail address by added as an exception to the Tiscali blacklist? It seems that all bigfoot.com addresses are being rejected which is an harsh measure. Maybe it's time to look for another free re-direct service. Any recommendations from the wider AV Forums community would be welcome...

2) I have sent my phone number to you via PM. Thank you.

3) I actually gravitated to the website that you suggested when the MTU problem first appeared. I appreciate that I can alter settings to suit my PC but it is is working correctly so there is no need to mess under the bonnet of the computer. It may be that the router or gateway needs correcting but I can't see an option on the Speedtouch for analysing or adjusting the MTU setting. Also it's worth pointing out that a) One day it worked and the next it didn't (with no adjustments made by me) and b) Another user Unknown Soldier is also experiencing the same problem with a Tiscali line.

Your help is greatly appreciated MK_Brett

Thanks again!

[ShadowTD]

Just a thought - you do realise Live! was down yesterday, don't you?

[MAV13]

I tried it again this morning ShadowTD and couldn't connect for the same reasons noted above. I'll keep the forum posted as to whether or not it's a temporary thing caused by Microsoft or an ongoing thing with Tiscali.

Thanks for your input it's what these forums are about. Please let me know if you manage to get back onto XBox Live later...

Regards, MAV13

[MAV13]

Update for all. Xbox Live is now active. If you have adjusted something your end Brett thanks for your help.

[MAV13]

Issues 1 and 2 have yet to be resolved though. I appreciate that I'm going to struggle to fix the Bigfoot problem but the pixelation on our TV is a disappointment. It is certainly a recent phenomenon which I find hard to explain...

[MAV13]

Originally Posted by MK_Brett

Mav13,

Can you PM me your broadband enabled phone number, and I'll get someone to have a look at this for you.

1) As Bigfoot said in their email, their IP has been blacklisted. This is not a Tiscali problem. We (Tiscali) use a number of third party blacklists that are used throughout the industry and it would seem that some of Bigfoot group's mail servers have ended up on one or more of these blacklists. It may be that there's good reason for this and that they've suddenly been sending a lot of Spam (as happened to us last year) so we have to be careful. It is entirely their responsibility to have their IP removed from the blacklist.

2)What you are describing here been known, but as a rule shouldn't happen. This is usually an indication that QoS has not been set correctly on your port. I can have this addressed, but need your details as above.

3)MTU is not something we would change lightly. Read more about MTU here http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/MTU.htm and try this first.

In any of these conditions I would not have expected 1st line support to be able to resolve, but they should have raised a ticket for you that should have wound it's way to one us. I will look into this once I have your details.

Regards

Brett

Hi Brett. I sent you my phone number via PM - can you tell me what the results of your investigations were?

Thanks, MAV13

[MK_Brett]

Hi,
I've only just seen your posts etc. I'll get this looked into and see what I can find out.
Re the email thing. There is nothing I can do. You will need to write (email) them. It is then up to them to have their names cleared. You will find you aren't the only one with this problem so drop them a line.
Re MTU, we haven't changed anything our end.

[MAV13]

Hi MK Brett.

I just thought I would update the thread out of fairness to you and the Tiscali team.

1) E-mails - still a problem and with both parties blaming the other I'm powerless to do anything.
2) A Tiscali engineer called this week and tried to help with the pixelation problem. We are now on the best download setting that Tiscali can provide. I'm satisfied that Tiscali have tried to the best of their ability but the problem is still there.
3) MTU - it appears that this was a temporary thing. You could speculate that it was caused by Microsoft during upgrades that caused problems with Xbox Live for about a month. I'm leaning towards this not being a Tiscali issue but in view of points 1) and 2) I suppose Tiscali is the first company I blame in cases like this. Apologies in this instance...

Regards, Mav13

[acdeag]

Why not forward emails to a Googlemail address then set that to forward on to Tiscali.

[MAV13]

I didn't know that googlemail could forward e-mails. I'll look into it.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[rainbm]

[QUOTE=MK_Brett;7822199]Mav13,

Can you PM me your broadband enabled phone number, and I'll get someone to have a look at this for you.

1) As Bigfoot said in their email, their IP has been blacklisted. This is not a Tiscali problem. We (Tiscali) use a number of third party blacklists that are used throughout the industry and it would seem that some of Bigfoot group's mail servers have ended up on one or more of these blacklists. It may be that there's good reason for this and that they've suddenly been sending a lot of Spam (as happened to us last year) so we have to be careful. It is entirely their responsibility to have their IP removed from the blacklist.

2)What you are describing here been known, but as a rule shouldn't happen. This is usually an indication that QoS has not been set correctly on your port. I can have this addressed, but need your details as above.

3)MTU is not something we would change lightly. Read more about MTU here ::. Kitz - MTU Problems .:: and try this first.

In any of these conditions I would not have expected 1st line support to be able to resolve, but they should have raised a ticket for you that should have wound it's way to one us. I will look into this once I have your details.

Regards

Brett[/QUOT


I am having problems with being blacklisted (I think) and am unable to send mail to any Tiscali or NTLworld email addresses. I think my email server account (Midphase) was hacked and used to send spam, but I have now improved the security on the account. both I and a Tiscali customer that I can't send mail to have been trying to get the matter resolved through Tiscali but without any success. Can you assist me in any way?

Thnaks,

Mark

[MK_Chris]

Hi,

We can certainly try to support your friend as a Tiscali customer, but as you've posted above from Brett, if your serivce is Blacklisted then you really should be contacting them?

Regards

Chris