AOL ADSL Max Min Thresholds

Loki · 20 Jul 2006 at 13:12

For my sins I signed up with AOL a few months back on their Platinum service. All honesty it hasn't been to bad until they upgraded the line to the upto 8mbps service when our exchange was upgraded.

Since this has happened I have noticed an increase in latency on the line with higher ping rates and an overall decrease in the download speeds I can get. BT claim the maximum I can get on the line is around 3.3mpbs downstream. This isnt a problem as I am not a big file sharer by any strech of the imagination. However when I have done speed tests through ADSLguide over the course of the last few days it averages out at around 1.7mbps downstream.

Where would I stand with them as AOL claim their minimum for the service is around 2.53mbps and their service isnt achieving this. Is there anything I can do to increase the line speed or am I in a position whereby I can break contract with them. More importantly could I expect a faster service from another ISP ?

CurlyWhirly · 20 Jul 2006 at 14:06

Loki said:
Since this has happened I have noticed an increase in latency on the line with higher ping rates

AFAIK AOL enable interleaving by default :eek:

This is probably the cause of the latency.
I have interleaving enabled but I asked for it to be enabled due to the high error rate on my line which is aprox 5km in length.

However, on short lines there is no good reason to have it switched on unless the line is 'noisy'.

You could, of course, ring AOL's Technical Support and ask them to request that it be turned off but that is easier said then done as I expect you might find it difficult to contact someone who even knows what interleaving is :rolleyes:

That was my experience of CS and TS when I was with them until a few months ago.

Loki · 20 Jul 2006 at 14:31

CurlyWhirly said:
You could, of course, ring AOL's Technical Support and ask them to request that it be turned off but that is easier said then done as I expect you might find it difficult to contact someone who even knows what interleaving is

That was my experience of CS and TS when I was with them until a few months ago.

A little bit of History repeating there me thinks

I rang them on Saturday night and it took 20 minutes to tell him that maximum available bandwidth and what I achieved may not be related with my higher ping rates and packet loss. So although I should be able to download theoretically faster my pings to servers are higher. A real Eureka moment for him when he spoke to his supervisor who was nearly as clueless as him and confirmed as much.

They claim the reason for the higher latency is because of the error correction that they do. Can AOL disable interleaving on individual accounts ?

CurlyWhirly · 20 Jul 2006 at 14:36

Loki said:
A little bit of History repeating there me thinks

Loki said:
They claim the reason for the higher latency is because of the error correction that they do.

Yes interleaving as I mentioned above

Loki said:
Can AOL disable interleaving on individual accounts ?

They can't directly do it themselves but they have to request BTw do it on your behalf.

When I asked Zen to carry this out, it was done within 3 days and I had an e-mail off them confirming that it had been carried out.