+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted January 29, 2008 Subscriber² Share Posted January 29, 2008 (edited) Its hard to know where to start with this issue, simply put Tiscali are stopping all Sony PS3 owners playing Call of Duty 4 Online at certain times (mostly the whole evening up to 12 midnight).I first looked into this when I could not connect to games on my Playstation 3 and got “error 33” with Call of Duty 4, and also having many other connection problems in the game. After a little research I found out I was not the only one with these problems and even more amazingly nearly everyone was a Tiscali or Pipex (owned by Tiscali) customer. I have read all 41 pages on a Tiscali forum, which shows many of the ISP’s users moving away to another broadband provider and getting their Mac codes. It looks like the issue is COD4 uses P2P to find games and Tiscali are blocking this at certain times…they are going to lose thousands of their customers over this if its not fixed fast. The reason this has affected so many people is because COD4 is not the only game using P2P when gaming and lots of gamers playing other games are affected. You can read all 41+ pages here on Tiscali’s forum and there are many other sites with thousands of other gamers complaining. Now we are left with the questions: Are Tiscali legally allowed to block gamers from playing games online? Will they ever bother to fix it if they are allowed? Leave a comment below if you have been affected by this Tiscali problem, also tell us what games system you are using and what game. Source: http://www.product-reviews.net/2008/01/29/...-4-cod4-online/ OMG :| And some of you guys think the UK will have 100MBps lines and reasonable download limits in a few years? No all the giants in the UK give us are, unfair monthly caps, fair use policies, P2P port blocking/throttling, Torrent port blocking/throttling and a throttled connection at busy times in the day/evening. Of course there are ISPs that don't do that, but they are the smaller less attractive ones (usually still priced well, but they can't compete to the average consumer who is lured to the big ISPs with the cheap broadband/TV/phone packages that usually have 12-24m contracts as well) I'm on ADSL24 who do a monthly contract and charge me ?19.99 a month for 30GB peak (8am-10pm mon-fri) and 330GB offpeak (10pm-8am mon-fri & all of weekend). However for about ?5 more or even the same, the big ISPs offer the same 8/16 ADSL MAX connection/free UK calls/no BT line rental and Sky offer you part of their TV service for free. I pay an additional ?7 or ?8 I think it is to BT for free calls and I still pay my ?11 line rental I believe - Costs more, but my internet connection needs to be good and P2P/torrent throttling/blocking free. Edited January 29, 2008 by Audioboxer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deaf Spacker Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 I'm actually with Pipex and I can play online with no problems, I'm thinking of leaving them though as my internet speed has been halved for some unknown reason and before that they had problems which left me with no internet for a week :| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldgunner Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 that sucks for tiscali users, I think its time the customers rallied together and took on the bigwigs in the industry to stop this kind of crap happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazzyyfool Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Why only PS3 owners? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldgunner Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Why only PS3 owners? most likely because of how psn mp works, I guess XBL and PC is more centralized and not P2P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazzyyfool Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 most likely because of how psn mp works, I guess XBL and PC is more centralized and not P2P. Ahh OK. Right well, Tiscali block P2P anyway don't they? They might not know that the PS3 version of COD4 uses for P2P for online multiplayer and hence not be aware of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deaf Spacker Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 most likely because of how psn mp works, I guess XBL and PC is more centralized and not P2P. Most of XBL is P2P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted January 29, 2008 Author Subscriber² Share Posted January 29, 2008 I'm actually with Pipex and I can play online with no problems, I'm thinking of leaving them though as my internet speed has been halved for some unknown reason and before that they had problems which left me with no internet for a week :| I ditched Pipex after they mailed me saying you downloaded too much to be "fair", stop it or we'll kick you. I thought ok, i'll cut my downloads and I really did and they still kicked me. Phoned to complain, they couldn't tell me why I was kicked, and then decided that the month I downloaded a lot was just too much and they weren't giving me another chance. Didn't need a MAC code as they practically just cut my service, but they were tied to my phone line for a week after which is ironic. I was left without internet for two weeks cause of them and the process of them untieing themselves from my phone line and BT setting up my new ISP. Shame, as I joined Pipex when they were a fledgling and actually good - They turned to **** though. They throttle connections at peak times (will explain your speed drops), and they throttle torrents/P2P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazzyyfool Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Most of XBL is P2P. Which reiterates my question. Why only block PS3 versions? Does they PS3 version use different ports (which are currently blocked by Tiscali) compared to PC and XBL? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wakers Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 To be fair, Tiscali are about the worst of the worst. I used to be on them because they were the cheapest, but they are the cheapest for a reason. I had a bandwidth monitor on my pc (tiscali's limit was 30gb per month) - I used 12gb, and promptly got an email from them saying we were over the limit. I sent them the stats from the monitor, they claim its faulty. The next month, I used only 4gb - promptly received a warning saying we were going to be cut off if it happened again. Asked for mac code and left. Switched to BT who miraculously seem to have tripled our connection speed even tho Tiscali said it was impossible. Oh and they use Indian call centres with employees that (as usual) don't have a clue what they're talking about. I rang up pretending to be my mother (account holder) and the stupid man on the other end of the phone actually falls for it, saying "just one second Mrs.xxx" Hysterical :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timelimit Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Ahh OK. Right well, Tiscali block P2P anyway don't they? They might not know that the PS3 version of COD4 uses for P2P for online multiplayer and hence not be aware of it. I was with Tiscali for a few years and moved over to homechoice about 18 months ago (who are now part of Tiscali) and as far as I can tell they don't block p2p in any way :shiftyninja: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deaf Spacker Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 I ditched Pipex after they mailed me saying you downloaded too much to be "fair", stop it or we'll kick you.I thought ok, i'll cut my downloads and I really did and they still kicked me. Phoned to complain, they couldn't tell me why I was kicked, and then decided that the month I downloaded a lot was just too much and they weren't giving me another chance. Didn't need a MAC code as they practically just cut my service, but they were tied to my phone line for a week after which is ironic. I was left without internet for two weeks cause of them and the process of them untieing themselves from my phone line and BT setting up my new ISP. Shame, as I joined Pipex when they were a fledgling and actually good - They turned to **** though. They throttle connections at peak times (will explain your speed drops), and they throttle torrents/P2P. That sucks :/ I've heard their unlimited plan isn't really unlimited which is very strange, if you advertise a service as unlimited there should be no cut off point. Internet in the UK blows :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldgunner Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 On the contrary, BT have been fine gaming wise. they throttle torrents but my psn downloads have been good. I have no cap (yeah right!) and have a fair usage policy (figures). But I get the top package for free :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spenser.d Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Which reiterates my question. Why only block PS3 versions? Does they PS3 version use different ports (which are currently blocked by Tiscali) compared to PC and XBL? Well PC's use servers as hosts, don't they? Everything is run from one place. The same thing essentially happens with XBL too. When you get matched up, it picks the person best suited to be host, makes their box the host, and everyone else receives info from them. It's sort of P2P, but probably doesn't look like it at all to anything that detects P2P because a bunch of people are receiving info from one source, rather than a bunch of people receiving info from each other. I'm not sure how COD4 is run on PS3, though. -Spenser Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted January 29, 2008 Author Subscriber² Share Posted January 29, 2008 That sucks :/I've heard their unlimited plan isn't really unlimited which is very strange, if you advertise a service as unlimited there should be no cut off point. Internet in the UK blows :( All unlimited plans in the UK are subject to the dreaded "fair use policy" - A policy which doesn't show how much you can download, so in effect its a download as much as you want and see if you will get contacted by your ISP. http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/caps.htm - List of ISPs and throttling/traffic shaping in the UK. http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/isp_price_list.php - Prices and more throttling/capping information. I moved away from these unlimited providers with fair use policies onto an ISP that tells me what I can download with in effect a cap, but a 330GB offpeak cap is far more than enough for me. I tend to do heavy downloading during the night/over weekend, so the offpeak hours are fine for me. And let me tell you Pipex's unlimited service DOES NOT allow you to download 330GB, I got contacted for downloading a fair bit less than that ;) During the day I mostly downloading occasional things/play games/surf the web and that doesn't come near or at least it doesn't go over my 30GB peak cap. There are other packages like 60GB peak/330 or 380GB it might be offpeak, for slighty more ?. Plus the good thing is I have an official online usage tracker on my ISP's homepage control pannel, and they email me every morning with my up to date monthly stats - So I never go over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huleboeren Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Thank god our providers have no caps, throttling or anything whatsoever - If they ever start, I move to Sweden :D Slightly-offtopic :p: Most of XBL is P2P. Yet another reason that charging for online play on LIVE is wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy0 Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 God that's terrible, hopefully a fair few people will leave and force Tiscali to re-evaluate themselves. In fact the UK in general needs to re-evaluate its BB services! :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Veteran Posted January 29, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 29, 2008 Audio boxer: who are you with? ste Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huleboeren Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Audio boxer: who are you with?ste snipI'm on ADSL24 who do a monthly contract and charge me ?19.99 a month for 30GB peak> (8am-10pm mon-fri) and 330GB offpeak (10pm-8am mon-fri & all of weekend). snip ?:DD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted January 29, 2008 Author Subscriber² Share Posted January 29, 2008 ? :D ;) Yup - http://www.adsl24.co.uk/ Some good reviews here - http://www.ispreview.co.uk/ & here - http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WelshBluebird Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 +1 for ADSL24. Very good ISP, only just moved away from them. Only reason I did is because of my new ISP - Sky. Its LLU (so no silly Bt wholesale stuff like IP profiles etc), and its "unlimited" (the rumoured cap is 250GB, which I will never hit). Going from a BT wholesale based ISP (ADSL24) to an LLU one (sky) has mean my connection has gone from stable at 2Mbps, to stable at 3.7Mbps. And I've saving a tenner. Although if you can't get sky LLU, then I'd say go with ADSL24 (or any other entanet reseller) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deaf Spacker Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Slightly-offtopic :p:Yet another reason that charging for online play on LIVE is wrong You never miss an opportunity do you? :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huleboeren Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 You never miss an opportunity do you? :rolleyes: Damn right I wont :D Anyways, I wont go any further I promise - cant have the thread locked ^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyLarry Veteran Posted January 29, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 29, 2008 Damn right I wont :DAnyways, I wont go any further I promise - cant have the thread locked ^^ 1 member saying something stupid or off topic will not get a thread locked, it just gets that member warned. So go further on all you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huleboeren Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 1 member saying something stupid or off topic will not get a thread locked, it just gets that member warned. So go further on all you want. 1 member saying something stupid usually leads to someone else replying something which leads to everyone changing subject :/ See what Im getting at? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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