AOL sucks

[IanA2]

Only recently I was defending this bunch. It seems that they "have issues" which have resulted in around 100,000 people getting no or intermitted service. This has been going on for three days now. Do they mail you? Do they put a notice on their boards? Do they answer their phones? Nope. After a day trying to sort it out, I decide to phone them. After about twenty minutes runaround on the phone I get a recording telling me "they have issues" no time scale no nothing. On their help page buried right at the end, a small paragraph under system status saying yup, you've guessed;

"System Status
Friday, 13 February 2009
12:08

Please be aware of a major network issue affecting AOL Broadband members. Work is on-going to resolve issues as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience"

The only thing that changes is the time!!

Argghhh...right rant over.....time for an isp change.

 

[Mudster]

Yup, I've been through various cheapies and always end up back with BT.

Don't even consider Pipex or Tiscali...simply shocking.

 

[kwakdonut]

Too right, wouldn't touch AOL with a barge pole extension......

 

[kwakdonut]

Sky are very good

 

[Mudster]

Sky are very good

I wanted to try them but they had no coverage in our area. Neither did Virgin.

 

[IanA2]

Yup, I've been through various cheapies and always end up back with BT.

Don't even consider Pipex or Tiscali...simply shocking.

I'm looking at Sky, BT, and O2........all which would be cheaper that AOL!!

 

[adewall55]

I'd rather wipe my backside with a broken bottle than use AOL. The 2 things amount to the same, a pain in the ****!

 

[flango]

As above Sky good and have been faultless with me for the last 2 years, if no Sky service then has to be BT if reliability is what you are after

 

[Spinal]

I had AoHell for almost a year; never again!

I'm with Virgin as they are the only company offering 50-mb/s... problem is, they do traffic "shaping" for 10 hours a day, which a right pain!

The instant another ISP can offer those speeds in my area, I'm jumping ship!

M.

 

[flango]

I had AoHell for almost a year; never again!

I'm with Virgin as they are the only company offering 50-mb/s... problem is, they do traffic "shaping" for 10 hours a day, which a right pain!

The instant another ISP can offer those speeds in my area, I'm jumping ship!

M.

If you are in Uxbridge as I think. I think this is one of the areas where the BT WiMax is going to be trialled, this will give you wireless 72 mb/s

Will check with my Nephew for you as they are just doing the transmitter site survey

 

[kwakdonut]

I wanted to try them but they had no coverage in our area. Neither did Virgin.

Are you sure? Sky use normal BT line. Virgin are cable

 

[flango]

depends on the contracts Sky have with BT in relation to placing or renting equipment in exchanges, Low volume areas also make it uneconomic for Sky so they don't bother, took our village 18 months after launch to get Sky BB and then max speed is still only 2 mbps.

Virgin also run some services over the BT copper network depending on location, but most of it is cable on Fibre optics

 

[ringway]

AOL are AWFUL, very bad.
However they are a long way behind TALK TALK who are incredibly bad.

I did a 140 mile round trip to try and sort out my mother in laws b/band and agreed a time on a Sunday with talk talk to call them to sort out the problem. I hung on the phone for 35 minutes and then they put down the phone. I got through again though.... and they did the same again after 40 minutes, and then they were closed

02 are superb, and very reasonable too, especially if you have an 02 mobile

 

[IanA2]

AOL are AWFUL, very bad.
However they are a long way behind TALK TALK who are incredibly bad.

I did a 140 mile round trip to try and sort out my mother in laws b/band and agreed a time on a Sunday with talk talk to call them to sort out the problem. I hung on the phone for 35 minutes and then they put down the phone. I got through again though.... and they did the same again after 40 minutes, and then they were closed

02 are superb, and very reasonable too, especially if you have an 02 mobile

I thought Talk Talk and AOL were one and the same? Maybe not. Certainly AOL is Carphone Warehouse these days....

I'm afraid I live in the middle of no-where, one of the last places to get BB, and I would be grateful if my 5mb connection ever managed that speed.
Talk of 20+ speeds make me dizzy

I think it's their silence which is the most infuriating, the boards are redhot, one guy has managed to speak to an AOL bod who told him the problem is a result of the satellite crash. What ever the reason I think they are going to lose the customers they are not currently providing, permanently.

 

[Antharro]

Do they mail you? Do they put a notice on their boards? Do they answer their phones? Nope.

This is exactly the reason I'm with PlusNet. They may get a slating from time to time for when they screw up, but at least when something goes wrong, they post it up on a few places;
- Service status website
- Automated phone system (for major problems)
- Service status newsgroups
- Customer service forums

However, o2 also have a good overall reputation, and I very nearly switched to them recently when they said they could offer 16Mb on my 3-4Mb line! I'm a believer of you get what you pay for. There's a reason why Zen Internet and EntaNet constantly rate as some of the best ISPs in the country. They both cost a lot of money!

I won't touch BT Internet with a bargepole, or an extension on one or anything similar. I've spent extended periods of time on the phone to their "help" line and let's just say I would rather do something very unpleasant than do that again...

 

[IanA2]

Update


"System Status
Friday, 13 February 2009
23:10

Please be aware of a major network issue affecting AOL Broadband members. Work is on-going to resolve issues as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience"

Add to that I finally got an mail addy for the customer complaints manager and wrote:

"My service has now been disrupted for three days, in itself this is irritating, but what is more irritating is that it took me so long to find out that it was a provider problem and not a local hard/software problem.

This irritation has been somewhat exacerbated by the complete lack of information from AOL and the quite extraordinary response from one of your representatives when I did manage to get hold of someone. In terms, I was told there was no problem!!!

You may find it helpful to have a look at the boards, it might help you see the depth of feeling this problem is creating. I have been a customer for many years, but I have to say if this is not resolved soon I will be going elswhere.

I would be grateful if you could give me an indication of when you expect services to return to normal.

Thank you."

Guess what....no response.

 

[kth286]

I have only ever had one small problem with AOL in 8 years.

Working fine down here in Berkshire this week, even though we did loose electricity one day.

 

[AANDYY]

O2 are good. I do alot of P2P

 

[grober]

PlusNet are owned by BT retail! http://www.plus.net/features/news/plans2007.shtml

 

[Antharro]

PlusNet are owned by BT retail! http://www.plus.net/features/news/plans2007.shtml

Correct, and I have never denied it. I think I have even said that myself in other threads. However, while they are owned by BT retail, they are not run by BT retail, which is a VERY good thing.

PlusNet acquired another ISP called Force9 some years ago, and with that acquisition they gained a number of VERY competent people. Force9 has always been aimed at the enthusiast end of the market, not the mainstream, so they had techies who knew what they were talking about and who appreciated that their users knew what they were talking about.

After the acquisition with PN, the F9 people were merged into the now larger organisation, but they are still there. And it's those people, and decent management, who make PN a great and very open ISP.

I have never heard of another ISP who interacts with its customers as much as PN does - user forums, customer focus groups, customer-led action groups who take on the customer feedback and report it back to PN, service status newsgroups, webpages and phone lines, information on how the support phone lines are handling calls that day, average waiting times etc, complete online account management for pretty much everything including usage, package upgrades and troubleshooting, etc, etc, etc.