Can't work it out .. ?

[Alandal]

We started with AOL over five years ago, but since the UK side was sold off - service (how many additional programs do you need to download from them and how many processes running in the background ?) and speed has got slower and slower (as slow as 900 kbps when paying for up to 8000 kbps). We gave them an deadline to resolve issues, but got nowhere.

So we moved and now are getting 7816 kbits downloaded in 0.89 sec - at a lower price than we were paying with AOL.

If they cannot supply what you are paying for, we suggest it's time to move.

Al & Al

[silvery]

Al and Al who have you moved to?

I have been with aol for some years broadband.  And it has been terrible this last few days for me.  I only go on there to check my emails, and normally use firefox.  Have just clicked on it and the opening page is still loading - 2 minutes now)  and still not there.

Would this have anything to do with cpu usage as that is varying wildly too.

[Lydart]

I'm having no problems whatsoever with AOL, although my daughter is (see the email I forwarded to Pels).

I'm not on AOL broadband tho' ... we use BT and their broadband. 

[Alandal]

Silvery,

We have moved on to use "Be There", who offer up to 24mb download - but you will need to check that they cover your area.

There is a small charge up front to get their equipment, but got a speedy service of conversion and they have an excellent help centre (which does not cost 5p a minute!).

(The only drawback we found was with AOL - as when we tried to "uninstall" their numerous programs, we failed. In the end we had to save our data and reinstall Windows)

Al & Al

[Zeb]

Nothing wrong with IE7 either.

Oh, really?
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/internet_explor.html

The only time I use Internet Explorer is when I'm testing my web sites to make sure they display properly.

Original poster, I recommend you connect to the internet as normal and install a third-party browser like Firefox and use that instead of AOL.

As for the connection issues, that's probably down to Carphone Warehouse and their wonderful way of treating their customers.

You see, AOL UK suffered some financial difficulties and put themselves on the market. Carphone Warehouse bought them out just like they have with Talk Talk and some others. I was with one ISP just before Carphone Warehouse bought them out and after they changed we had problems like yours on web sites and thongs slowly got worse so we changed ISP. Guess who we're stuck with now...

 

[Pels.]

Original poster, I recommend you connect to the internet as normal and install a third-party browser like Firefox and use that instead of AOL.

Thanks Zeb .. to be perfectly honest that's what I've been doing since Sunday .. I'm now jumping from one to the other and it's working .. it's been quite an education though! 

As for the connection issues, that's probably down to Carphone Warehouse and their wonderful way of treating their customers.

You see, AOL UK suffered some financial difficulties and put themselves on the market. Carphone Warehouse bought them out just like they have with Talk Talk and some others. I was with one ISP just before Carphone Warehouse bought them out and after they changed we had problems like yours on web sites and thongs slowly got worse so we changed ISP. Guess who we're stuck with now...

 

I must admit when Carphone Warehouse took over Talk Talk they didn't do themselves any favours in the popularity stakes .. and I remember reading a lot of complaints which were posted at the time. 

[Zeb]

I've just agreed a new contract too .. 

You should never have to agree to a new contract. This is their way of keeping you locked to them for another term which is mostly 12 or 18 months. What was their reason for asking you to sign up to a new contract?

AOL UK used to have an uncapped service now they ARE capped. Download too much and you'll have slow speeds during the day time. We get about 285Kb/s during the day and up to 500Kb/s during the night/early hours.

Here's some other information which may help...

Don't go with Virgin (aka Telewest Broadband, NTL, Eurobell) as they severely cap their customers. We were with Virgin with a 20MB line and got as fast as 50Kb/s during the day and only twice did we hit max line speed of 2100Kb/s during the night/early hours with about 300Kb/s at other times. We were with them for about 1 month until we terminated their contract for them.

I know a few people with Be There and they don't care what you download or how much at a far cheaper price than anything I've seen. This is who we'll be moving to when our AO(hel)L contract expires.

[downside]

Oh, really?

The context of that statement was that I had no problems accessing and navigating my way around rootschat.com using IE7.

[Zeb]

Okies