Tiscali UK is cracking down on broadband users who hammer the service at peak times. Its "three strikes and you're out" policy means that bandwidth hogs will receive three warnings if they are found to be abusing the service.

If punters fail to moderate their usage, then the ISP plans to restrict their usage during peak hours "for the good of all other customers".

However, the ISP has made it clear that the restrictions - should they be introduced - would only apply at peak times and not during other parts of the day.

The threat comes as Tisclai UK introduced a new Fair Usage Policy which aims to prevent P2P punters and other heavy users from hogging the service during evenings and weekends.

The ISP reckons that around 1 per cent of its 600,000 or so broadband users are using up to 30 per cent of the available bandwidth during peak hours. "We don't believe this is fair to the vast majority of our customers," it said in a statement explaining the changes.

It goes on: "This fair usage policy automatically identifies the very small number of extremely heavy users and manages their bandwidth only during peak hours (being 6pm to 11pm Monday to Friday, and 12pm to 4pm on weekends and bank holidays), to protect the service for all our other customers. Outside peak hours, the use of the internet by these heavy users is unaffected."

Tiscali said it has consulted with customers and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to draw up the new FUP. ®

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