Fed up with AOL, time for a new ISP

balls

balls

balls

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Joined
20 May 2007
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1,198
Location
Bath, Somerset
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..
 
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Small word of warning: much of the advice given by people here (including me) will mostly be down to personal experience. This WILL cause bias etc so if I were you after looking at the advice here, take a look at the WHICH? website as I think they did a massive review of broadband suppliers a couple o' months ago which should be good.

Anyway

Personally I'm on virgin media and I've never had a problem since they took over from ntl. Much faster and more reliable connections than ntl and the people on the phone are generally a lot nicer and more helpful too.

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! :)
 
justinwilkin said:
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! :)
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I wish I was in a cable area, but unfortuneately I'm going to have to rely on ADSL for the time being.
 
justinwilkin said:
It says there you're in a virgin media area. :confused:

Didn't know they did ADSL aswell. Ahwell learn something new every day.
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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 :(
 
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.
 
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. :p
 
LoadsaMoney said:
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. :p
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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
 
LoadsaMoney said:
You can e-mail for a MAC on AOL, so theres no need to call India. :)
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when I called to get the MAC code i wasn't connected to India (suprisingly), i went to Ireland. I was also given the sale of cheaper package due to being with AOL for a long time, but i eventually got them to give the MAC. I went over to Sky, about 3 weeks downtime while BT did their job & sky eventually sent out the kit. Had no problems, service is good and so is the speed.
 
balls said:
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
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I have just signed up with an Enta reseller TitanADSL which have offered me £5 off my first month and with all enta resellers they offer 1 month minimum contract which i thought was ace! Here is there link web site could be better but not bothered about their site. www.titan-adsl.co.uk
 
LoadsaMoney said:
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. :p
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Hasnt been that bad ;) AOL still told me off last week via a nice letter saying ive done in excess of 300gig over last 3 months lol

but they were capping me almost daily from 5ish-12ish, gonna check for an isp thats uncapped in evenings so I can just let my torrent go wild during that time/ or one with a 400-500gig limits :)
 
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