Fed up with AOL, time for a new ISP

[balls]

Unfortuneately living in the country has its problems, in this case the maxmium connection speed available is 3mbps, which as you can imagine is less than great (especially coming back from Uni network) for the last few years I've been on AOL silver broadband package at 1mbps even though there is an allowable 2mbps. I called them up and I quote the person in saying that it will be up to four months for them to upgrade it for free.... I asked if there was any other way, and he told me if I cancelled and then re purchaced the same product it would change over, Immedately.

Naturally to me this seemed absolutely idiotic, and seeing as the connection is flakey at best I thought it might be finally time to change ISP.

I've used a few broadband testers which tell me that I've got a few main options of: BT broaband, Orange broadband, Tiscali Broadband, Virgin Broadband, Pipex Broadband and Eclipse broadband.

I was looking for an unlimited package as I do a fair amount of downloading and game playing, and preferably one with a wired router (I don't have anything wireless in the house) and preferably the router to be 64bit compatible. Also a VoIP phone will be unused as I have a phone contract with Dot mobile and I've got more minutes than I could possible use in a month.

Wasn't looking to spend more than about £20 a month for an 8 mbps connection (as the connection should be upgrading soon)

Thank you for your help..

 

[balls]

Also (although I'm not too sure due to not knowing how it works) being on cable broadband is generally much more reliable than ADSL. Also you get less contention (although I'd imagine as you're in the country that's not a problem).

Hope this helps!

I wish I was in a cable area, but unfortuneately I'm going to have to rely on ADSL for the time being.

 

[balls]

It says there you're in a virgin media area.

Didn't know they did ADSL aswell. Ahwell learn something new every day.

on closer inspection, it looks like the virgin media adsl package is the best suited, 8meg max, unlimited downloads (with uses policy), free wired router, aparently 64bit compatible no VOIP, for £18 a month.

Now to deal with AOl's cancellation call centre

 

[balls]

Well I called up to ask for a mac code, and after about 30 seconds of talking to somebody called Rashmir (suprisingly I could understand her accent), I was offerred the upgrade to their platinum package £12 increase normally, for free due to our 7 years of being with them. All in all pretty successfull as its continuing as a monthly payment also with no cancellation fees.

 

[balls]

Thats good then still being monthly, least you can tell em where to shove it once you start getting capped everynight to about 30k from half 5 till about half 10, and when you breach the FUP for downloading a couple of files.

Had the choice of an 18 month contract which included their free wireless router (completely useless as its not 64-bit compatible) or a monthly one in which I'll have to get a router myself