Change line rental from BT to AOL - problems?

[niftyfifty]

Had a phone call from AOL (current ISP) today offering the chance to take my phone line rental from BT to them. I currently have broadband & free calls with AOL but pay line rental to BT. Has anyone done this? Any problems? Every time I tell anyone I'm with AOL they pull a face! Any experiences or views would be welcome please.

Only thing I'd check is whether you lock into having line rental from AOL for a long time and whether they represent best value, for phone calls, broadband, and now line rental.

I'm pretty sure AOL UK was sold to someone like Carphone Warehouse and they have had lots of critics over the years, including over zealous sales people, telling lies like claiming they own Plusnet (an ISP which BT owns, but does some alternative deals to BT and has support staff in Sheffield, not half way around the world).

A lot depends on how happy you are with AOL - one thing I'd certainly recommend it getting yourself a Google Mail (www.gmail.com) account.

It's a general point, but the longer someone stays with an ISP and uses an ISP-based e-mail address, the less likely they are to move if there's a better deal as they will be worried about all the people knowing their ISP mail address.

Perhaps have a look at ThinkBroadband.com (they have a forum) and ISPreview.co.uk (but as always, the majority of comments will be the result of complaints about a service, not singing praises).

You may find out a bit more about AOL though, including current 'niggles'.

One downside of moving line rental is that you sometimes get delays when reporting a fault. I know that in theory BT Openreach should give exactly the same priority to BT as to any other line rental firm, but you have no way of knowing exactly when your voice line problem is actually reported to Openreach.

Also check if you have some of the services like Caller Display, as some firms charge more for it (or charge a fee per item you use, whereas BT bundles a number of services for a lower fee). I currently only use Caller Display and get it free with "BT Privacy" but some companies do charge for it (and BT would if I had not requested their Privacy option - they do require me to make a couple of calls per month for it to stay free, and I do that with my 'included' weekend calls).

Check pricing carefully. I considered switching line rental to O2 but having looked at my typical voice line usage, it would have cost more than BT once out of the introductory period.

I would also maybe give BT a call and see what they can offer you if you are thinking of leaving as there are a few deals around at the moment.

Would you care to expand on that, please, PCJ ?

BT have some deals shown in their Price List which hardly get mentioned to the public, like free connection of a phone line (saved 124.99) if one agrees contract of 18 months.

(That was a deal that started last year with end date in June, but then extended to end Sept. and finally to end of January this year.)

One final point for niftyfifty - if you get a 'sorry you are leaving us' type letter from BT, then you've been "slammed" (request has been made to switch you, without you planning this, where a sales agent claims you agreed). If you get such a letter, complain, complain, complain...

First tell BT you had not planned to switch, then contact AOL to query it. Be aware that as they're part of a bigger group, it may be someone else (eg in TalkTalk) that has been over zealous, so start by enquiring whether they have requested a switch of line rental from BT, and carry on with investigating, depending on what they say...

Thanks for all your comments & advice.

The reduction in line rental if I go with AOL is only about 50p per month, although they're promising an upgrade in speed and extending my free calls to 0845 & 0870 numbers.

I'm a bit concerned about not being able to get through to report any fault on the phone line. AOL operate through call centres in India and I've had experience of hanging on for eternity and then not really being satisfied with the explanation I've been given for the problem.

I've had a look at the sites NetworkGuy suggested - thank you - but as you say, a lot of comments are from people who have a complaint rather than those who are happy. Why do you recommen a Google mail account? As you can probably tell, I'm not very well up on these things!

AOL are supposed to be ringing me back later - he was all set to sign me up yesterday but I said I needed time to think! - think I may not answer the phone until I've had a bit more time

Thanks again for your comments.

How can they promise you an increase in speed? - I take it you mean broadband speed.
The physical line won't change. It's the copper line which slows the connection the most (in my view) so whilst they will connect you to their equipment at the exchange, if your line has a high loss, then it will still have that same high loss. It's not as though AOL will be putting you in a new cable.
As you already use them for broadband ADSL, switching to LLU I can't see making a difference to line speed.
What's your view NetworkGuy? Would being on LLU really make a difference to line speed?

There is a product called Line Rental Saver
here

I also believe but would need to check that if you sign up to a new contract then you won't have to endure the october price increase but I will check.

Sorry I meant October price change

Main reason for suggesting a Google Mail account is that it's free, and has plenty of capacity (so if some friend sends you 50 photos from a holiday, it will cope easily). But more to the point, if you ever decided to switch ISP, you would not be in a position to have to then start telling people about your new e-mail address. It's enough to stop people leaving.

In my case, after having a mail address for 8 years, the ISP was taken over (bought) and I lost it in weeks without any control over the matter. So I went to a commercial e-mail service (Runbox.com) and have tried others too (but GMail is pretty good at filing spam away in a folder, has oodles of space, unlike one other account I paid for which has about 50 MB total, and is FREE).

Regarding speed ... They could switch you from "up to 8 Mbps" to "up to 16 Mbps" or "up to 24 Mbps", I guess. There can be improvements if they switch from older BT kit to newer LLU kit, but there are few guarantees.

If you have run any speed tests, or know your router connection stats, it is possible to give a better idea about whether the speed would be higher afterwards, but if it is fast enough at present, it's really a way to lock you in for a while, so they cannot lose you to BT or some other ISP.

If you go to www.SamKnows.com and find your exchange (or give the first 7 digits of your phone number, including the '0') then it may be more easy to determine what AOL can offer for people on your exchange. Whether you see an improvement depends on distance from the exchange - anything under 1.5 km can see more of an improvement than further away.

A look at the graph online here may show just how much/little the speed can increase... Further away, even if the maximum speed (with ADSL 2+) is 24 Mbps, the user sees minimal improvement.

Don't worry if this all seems like hot air, niftyfifty, but the point is there's not really a big guarantee of seeing higher speeds (unless your speed is at the upper end of the range already!)

Regarding the graph - that should really be "above 3 km" (the figures on the graph are 1.0, 2.0, etc, but the "." is almost invisible to me).

Am beginning to feel pretty embarrassed now about how little I actually do know about the subject! I have no idea what ADSL and LLU mean - so you can understand how an AOL/PC salesman could be able to convince me that something is in my best interest .... I also don't know what speed I'm currently on (or supposed to be on!) although I'm sure it's in the gumph they sent me somewhere. It's quick enough for me - most of the time -although I imagine people who are more knowledgeable than me might think otherwise.

I did understand the explanation about the Google mail account though NetworkGuy and will definitely look into that.

And the Line Rental Saver PCJ - thank you.

I sometimes ask one of the IT people in work about different things (I'm off at the moment, hence posting here) but like I said, once I mention my ISP they all pull faces & say I should move elsewhere. By the way, they still haven't rung me back thankfully!

Don't feel embarrassed - it's a bit too geeky for many people until they are trying to work out why downloading something on iPlayer takes them 10 hours while a friend gets the same download in 3!

Years ago, and perhaps behind the 'pulling faces', AOL users had a reputation for being a teeny bit thick. When there was some argument online, a number of them would say "Yeah, Me too!" to support a particular view (without justifying their thinking).

It may be a bit of that, and that AOL went in a different direction to most every other ISP - AOL has always had its own 'connection' software and 'browser'. I've seen web sites which are really nasty and say "If you are on AOL then your browser doesn't work on this site" (no hint at why, or tip that a user can try Firefox or some other browser). Also that getting AOL software off your PC can be 'troublesome', so many just avoided all those dozens of PC magazine cover CDs from AOL (or used them as bird scarers, coffee mats, etc).

I've only known two people with AOL and both were having connection or software problems, one had been on the phone 4 or 5 times before asking me (as a neighbour) to check he was doing things correctly (he had a USB modem at the time). The AOL guy in India gave up in the end and said customer must contact his software supplier (ie Microsoft). I lent him a router and fortunately everything was working again after he had had 72 hours of no connection and nightmare conversations!

I wish I had a neighbour like you then! I haven't had many problems to be honest, and I get all my phone calls (except 0845 & 0870) in with the price of the broadband, which is why I've stayed with them.

You used to be able to contact them via a live chat which I found useful but they seem to have stopped that. The last contact I've had with them, regarding a so-called 'critical security alert' that's been going on for months, the only advice they gave me was to ignore it! Not very impressed with that (and it's still happening).

Regarding speed, I really only use it for emails, MN, and a bit of on-line shopping. Don't download any music or films or anything, so I suppose that's why it's OK for me. Although sometimes it does seem to be running slow and I can get where I want to go faster going to AOL through Google than direct through AOL!!!

I think I'm going to leave everything as it is for now, keep the line rental with BT, and spend some time comparing the different deals etc. Or is that just burying my head in the sand ...

No, not at all. Indeed, the more they might try to pressure, the firmer you can be to stick with things as they are.

It certainly leaves you in a better position should you wish to switch from AOL in the next year or two (though if all seems well, there's no particular need to do so).