Dreaded AOL

Last Kronin · 30 Sep 2007 at 21:46

I know, i know AOL is rubbish but its wayyy to o much hassle changing from it at the moment, but heres my problem, i recenlty ( 2-3 months ago) got a chance to upgrade my connection speed to the 'upto 8mb' which i did as it stayed the same price £24.99 that was with Talk Talk, which i cancelled a few days later as i didnt want talk talk, however my speed didnt really increase that much maybe up to 2.5mb, i could live with that as my upload speed almost doubled, however over these last 2-3 months my ping has steadliy been increasing in ET, i used to get 40-50 but now my ping has increased to 90+, as it the same server ive played on and it hasnt moved outside the country i blame AOL. Ive tried numerous times to contact them about the 2.5mb speed and the increase in ping only to get stupid answers like clean the cache, check for spyware etc etc.

So my question is does anyone no where i can actually check the speed of my internet exchange ( laurencekirk) or a number i can phone to ask BT as i would like to be armed with all the information i need before i finally phone AOL on there xpensive phone number and create a big ruckus with them.

tolien · 30 Sep 2007 at 22:51

There's no one at BT that you can talk to.
It's possible that 2.5Mbps is all your line can do - it's got nothing to do with the exchange though, it'll readily do 8Mbps if your line can.

Last Kronin · 30 Sep 2007 at 22:56

and is there no way of checking the line myself?

MumboJumbo · 30 Sep 2007 at 23:01

i switched from Aol to Virgin media cable a month ago and its been perfect 4mb hole time

You can pay BT to come check out your line or something. Or just get cable like i did

tolien · 30 Sep 2007 at 23:07

Last Kronin said:
and is there no way of checking the line myself?

In what way?
Posting your SNR margin, attenuation and the rate your modem says it's connected at would be a start.

something daft already!! · 1 Oct 2007 at 10:32

8igdave said:
i switched from Aol to Virgin media cable a month ago and its been perfect 4mb hole time

You can pay BT to come check out your line or something. Or just get cable like i did

Virgin will "shape" your speed, so you will prob only get about 200k downloads (if your lucky) in the evenings. This is something they have just introduced. God help you if you have a problem with billing or other customer service related issues, they are the worse out there, I know, I used to work for them about 4 years ago and have been a customer for about 3 years. If you dont have a problem with the service, they are very good, its when something goes wrong they generally mess up.

wij · 1 Oct 2007 at 10:38

Like tolien says, post your line stats if you can and that would help guestimate the best sync speed you are likely to get from your line.

The high pings in games are likely to be congestion on AOL's network and their poor routing and peering with other providers.

Do yourself a favour and ditch AOL and sign up with an Entanet reseller such as ADSL24, one month contracts, no traffic shaping and a very good network behind it. Or if you can get it Bethere would be even better.

Sone · 1 Oct 2007 at 10:48

i signed up with aol a year or so ago before the were bought out and i have had zero problems.

Havent seen a limit yet (torrents get full speed, on pipex i was only getting 20k), will move eventually but see no need to rush