skoobidude

I recently got rid of AOL (56k) as there seems to be so many better deals out there - i.e. Braodband for similar monthly fee....
So I signed up with Tiscali but was unable to get 1MB braodband as my phoneline was unsuitable. I was informed that I could probably get 512k b'band but decided to opt for pay as you go 56k for the time being. Talk about slow or what. AOL was loads quicker + I have a few other niggles:-
When dialling in it does not automatically log me in and check for emails as AOL does.
Its very unreliable especially late at night where I struggle to get online at all.
All this has put me off going for b'band on Tiscali.

Question is:-
Are any of the other ISPs as friendly and easy to use as AOL without the problems as mentioned above?


Nick

mike1210

yes

not sure about the cheapest but id go with plusnet www.plus.net

also check www.adslguide.org

MattW

Heard lots of good stuff about metronet, metered broadband around £12 per month for 0.5mb. friend of mine uses them and is very enthusiastic about their support and reliabilty.

http://metronet.co.uk/

InvisibleMan

what were aol offering at 512k & why not go with them if you like them?

Nicks VR4

AOL 512k is £17.99 a month

Soulgirl

NTL is just about to upgrade their 3MB service to 10

skoobidude

I won't touch NTL. Had their Digital TV service for 3 years at my previous house.
It took many phone calls to cancel it and they still kept trying to bill me......
I won't go into it but you get the picture.
For what its worth I may consider going back to AOL for the sake of a quid or so.
Only been with Tiscali pay-as-you-go for just over a week and already my phone bill is over £9!
Need to go monthly I think!

Nick

PS Soulgirl, are you the one with the silver classic with pink stripe?

InvisibleMan

you should get better than that, if youve been with AOL for awhile they should give you a good discount, they did with me. Cant you get 1mb at all?

Soulgirl

Certainly NTL had a very bad reputation but I can personally say I have not had issues with them for at least the last 2 years

Every company has horror stories so unless a massive percentage of customers complain about the same thing that shouldn't dissuade new customers in the first instance

Yes, I am

Liamdela

God its good to see some good feed back on AOL. I work for AOL UK .. based in Ireland .

InvisibleMan

been with them a long time, had no probs with them though can you improve AOL India at all?

btw what time when you call CS will you get Ireland, is it in the mornings and afternoons you get India?

i didnt join the bandwagon with everyone leaving cos you changed your TOCs...so can you get me a 2mb upgrade

Nicks VR4

Been with AOL for a while now can't really grumble too much apart from now charging you to talk to there tech support and yes the India Call Center needs some sorting out
Got the 2MB upgrade a while ago
BUT kept getting a pop up on AOL saying I needed to download the latest drivers to stay online did it 4 times and 4 times not responding seen others on AOL having major problems
I now have a email from AOL saying I need to updgrade drivers as after the 31st Aug speed will decrease to 128Kbps

I'm going to upgrade this today so will report back if I get back online

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

God the above post is just proof of how bad AOL really is.

Hah the tech support was never much good. I used it for a week on dialup once upon a time. Always the same response, 'We're never wrong, it must be you'. Get another helpdesk analyst, 'Oh yes, youre right there seems to be a problem with that'

'Need drivers to stay online?' wtf kind of ISP needs drivers to make sure the crappy/resource sapping client works correctly on a 2mbit line?!? and then states speed will drop if u dont use their sh1tty app addons? It's laughable.

InvisibleMan

it seems its only me that get automatic aol updates when i first start it. dont know if theres a difference in 1 to 2mb as regards to drivers but i'll keep an eye on it. Ive had the past serveral versions & V9 has come along way from when everyone used dialup & said to avoid aohell (atleast it didnt have a 2hr cut off ) its changed and improved alot, their new IE+tabs style browser is very nice (dont work for them, not plugging them just after my free 2mb upgrade, hint hint Liamdela )

on the tech front hopefully i shouldnt need it, havent for the past 5yrs.... thing is all isps are as bad as each other, support, changing TOCs & changing service. eg people say how great plusnet are then theres a TOC & the discussion forum is full of people whinging they arent getting full p2p speed, theres now a million gig cap which is far too small and everyones after their MAC... ive more important things in life to worry about than changing isps every month....

Nicks VR4

I am actually quite happy with AOL no worse than other ISP's IMHO
What I am reading on the AOL techi group is that BT uses PPPoA and are moving to PPPoE thats the reason for the Driver updates for the AOL Broadband Modem
SO anyone that is using a BT line ie Yahoo etc will have to do the update to there BB modems as well
So until BT actually change over the config some people are downloading the new drivers and as BT have not swapped over the drives wont work

Nick

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Exactly youre forced to use an 'AOL modem'. i just hate AOL for the fact that you have to use their cacky client to connect to the net, and then they advertise it as an amazing thing. When its actually a trumped up buggy bulletin board, which seems to cause more confusion than help when it comes to connection settings and routers etc. The whole point of the client is to help newbies connect to the net and view the AOL content with ease. In the end all it does is complicate matters. It is not a proper ISP, period.

lightning101

I have 2mb AOL with a linksys router and no AOL software installed, hasn't dropped in months and i'm a heavy user.


Why would I need drivers ?

InvisibleMan

you dont have to use their software to connect you can use just the normal IE. Ive just been using their equivilent IE browser which uses the tabs, like the IE addon ones.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Ah right, didnt know that. At least theres the option now then.