AOL slow speed, anyone else?

GregI

GregI

GregI

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Anyone else with this god forsaken company? I've been using AOL for longer than i want to think and had afew bad times with them but nothing that was major. Anyway, the past 3 or 4 days my internet speed is just unbearable. It takes minutes to load pages sometimes and getting videos on YouTube... forget about it. It's a shy far away from my usual download speed of 1.1mb/s. Is anyone else having such issues? I haven't touched any router settings or nothing. Here is what i'm facing.

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my mate is having the same problem. unfortunately the only solutions i would suggest is to change your isp.

you telephone exchange is probably facing congestion and the AOL back end is probably a aging system that is in need of a long overhaul.

by the way if you get the slow speeds during peak times then you are probably experiencing traffic shaping
 
Hey, thanks for reply. Good to see i am not the only one having trouble. Unfortunately, from what i understand the only company to offer such speeds in my area is AOL. I live just outside Edinburgh aswell. :(

The slow speed is all the time. I've been on the net at all hours just to check.
 
having the same problem was always constantly connected at slow speedshighet was like 2.5mb! lowers was something like 400k or something! migrated to be now im contstantly connected at 4.5mb get rid they are useless!!
 
Okay, read a thread on another site where a guy basically kept rebooting his router to get put on another less congested exchange or something. Seemed to work abit. Getting 200kb download atm. Will check in the morning to see if it improves on that and to see if AOL is finally putting traffic shaping on me.
 
GregI said:
Okay, read a thread on another site where a guy basically kept rebooting his router to get put on another less congested exchange or something. Seemed to work abit. Getting 200kb download atm. Will check in the morning to see if it improves on that and to see if AOL is finally putting traffic shaping on me.
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that is very wrong for a number of reasons and incorrect

disconnecting doesnt actually put you on a different exchange. you telephone exchange is fixed. disconnecting the router will provide you a new ip adress which is dynamic. this can increase your speed depending on how the new ip adress is routed from the exchange. but it very bad because if you are constantly disconnecting you router. this will cause the dslam at the exchange to raise your snr noise value, which in return will decrease your sync speed and also your download.

you should sync your modem/router once and leave it alone.
the best time to do this is probably during off peak hours like 3am or early hours of the morning when no one is online.

the other alternative if you have a netgear router is to installs dgteam firmware. make sure your version is compatible first. and decrease the snr value , which will increase your sync speed and download.

however this might not solve the decreased download speed you are all experiencing because, like i said its a AOL problem from their back end.

BT broadband is the next best bet, if none of the llu services are available. at least they are not as bad as aol
 
Make sure the MTU is set to 1400 in your router and try using OpenDNS instead of AOL's/Talktalks appalling DNS servers. If your using wireless change the channel to 3, 8 or 9.
 
Rabtech said:
Make sure the MTU is set to 1400 in your router and try using OpenDNS instead of AOL's/Talktalks appalling DNS servers. If your using wireless change the channel to 3, 8 or 9.
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correction its channels 1,6 and 11 which don't overlap

LaFonera_Software_Chillispot_-_07_wlan_channels.gif
 
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sandman06 said:
correction its channels 1,6 and 11 which don't overlap
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Yep, Im aware of that however other local routers will probably use 1, 6 or 11 as their default channels. I've not seen many problems from adjacent channels compared to using the same channel as another router, even though it may overlap frequency wise.
 
Thanks for the help guys. I'm using a Thomson Speedtouch router given to me by AOL, so the MTU size of 1400 is inbuilt and Channel was allready at 1. At around 5:30am, the speed was about 350kb/s, today at 5:30pm it is about 110kb/s. Is my best bet to simply hope AOL does nothing about it and it magically fixes itself?

I have an old Netgear DG834PN i can try with that dgteam firmware (if it's compatible). Can't hurt.
 
Give the netgear a go, just need your username/password, set the MTU to 1400, OpenDNS and sort out your wireless.

The Thomson routers are 'generic' routers so the Netgear should be better. It wont help if the problem is at the ISP's end but doesn't hurt to try.
 
Okay, i reset my Netgear router as i couldn't remember the password i had entered ages ago. I went through setup and whatnot. Set MTU to 1400, inputted correct isp details but netgear page brings up something along the lines of "Can't establish DNS details. Please input them manually." I thought it was just another AOL error so i stuck in the 2 numbers from OpenDNS but nothing changed. I went ahead and installed the dgteam firmware. If i do somehow get dns working on it, what value should i use for snr?
 
Well enough is enough. My contract is up with AOL in another month iirc. If i can't get Be internet just now, then shove some names forward for likely candidates to be my ISP. The plan would be to wait until i can get Be in my area and switch over ASAP.

Things i need included though -

1. I definately need the option to download as much as i want per month. I can be flexible on this though, some months i won't download more than a few GB and others it'll be around 70 or so.
2. Speed wise, I would be happy if i could get my original speed back (1.1mb/s download) but if not no problem. I'd actually sacrifice download speed for greater uploading. Was only getting max 45ish on AOL.
3. Price wise i'd like it to be under 20 quid a month. Abit over is okay if the service is worth it.

If you need to check availability for ISP's in my area, EH33 1AL.

Cheers

Oh and one last question. My mum has her billing stuff and whatnot all on the master screen name of the AOL email address. I am right in saying that if i cancel, they won't just be deleted?
 
AOL can keep email accounts open even though the broadband accounts closed, just ask them to when you cancel.

As for ISP choice your a bit limited really, maybe some other user on a BT Wholesale based ISP can help as I'm on BE.
 
I'm going to settle with the "out of area" o2 broadband since it's the closest i will get to Be. Plus i'll save about 3 quid a month.
 
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