Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) Reviews

Wanted something more reliable than your bog standard Sky / Virgin broadband etc, which often 'throttles' in peak times and with A&A we finally got that.
Installation was complete within a few days, there were no hiccups and setting up was easy and done within minutes of plugging the router in.
We have had this a few weeks now and the speeds of the internet, including streaming has been flawless right from the first time we started using it. There is no slow down during peak periods and it caters very nicely for multiple users too.
Highly recommended in my opinion for all round service, speed and quality of broadband.

AAISP came recommended by others in my profession as the best advocates of users' digital rights, no-nonsense support and the ability to use modern protocols like IPv6.

Service has been rock-solid since my VDSL2 connection has been installed and nice little things like reverse and forward DNS for my domain was straightforward. I opted for the 40megabit service as I did not need to run a ton of services or high-bit video streams across my location. I know I could get more if needed.

Thanks so much to the team, especially Alex, Shaun and Ben who I interacted with from the beginning and were kind and patient with all of the questions I had.

I've wanted to move to AAISP for a number of years but the cost has always put me off.

However with the IPBILL and other issues surrounding security / privacy and AAISP's stance on these things I decide it was time to support them by using their services.

I ordered the 1Tb home fibre package. Received about 4 emails instantly with lodgings for the control panel and account management.

Once logged into the control panel I was pleasantly surprised to see the information regarding my order and who was looking into it and when it needed actioning by.

Installation of a new line was scheduled for the following Friday, advised by email and TXT.

Line was installed and activated on fibre. No configuration issues with my connecting my Fritzbox. The AASIP wiki is extremely helpful if you should require it for any guidance.

The night before the line install I wanted to check if the fibre service would be provisioned at the same time. Being out of the normal support hours, I decided to try IRC. I had my query answered with additional information within 30 minutes of asking the question by AAISP support staff. I'd have been waiting that long to get a call answered with my current ISP.

The first thing I noticed over my old fibre connection from plus net was how much more responsive the AASIP connection was. They both connected at about the same speed give or take a few meg (76 down and 18 up).

I then ordered a VOIP service from them from my old line number. The order form had an error on completion but could see my order in the portal, I decide to call to confirm. This would be the first time calling AAISP, call was answered in 3 rings and the gentleman who answered was pleasant and advised he wasn't technical but would try to assist. He answered all my queries and without hesitation. This was followed up with an email confirming my VOIP order.

A couple of days later a migration date was confirmed which was the Friday. Everything went smoothly and as expected. The Fritzbox didn't connect straight away to the VOIP service but it is running a number of VOIP accounts. Removed the AAISP account and recreated it and it connected, so assume it was misconfiguration on my part.

The fibre and VOIP service has both been live and suffered no drops since being configured. Speed is always the same and have not experienced any slowdown at all.

Overall I'm glad i've made the move and was able to keep my number and migrate it to VOIP effortlessly. Customer service is amazing (working in IT I get to speak with many supplies) and AAISP have excelled in this area as well as the technical ability of the people you speak with, no passing around or hanging on the phone.

I would say the only real downside to having AAISP is that other companies (not just ISP's) seem really bad in comparison when it come to customer service.

I'm paying £20 a month more over my previous ISP but am more than happy with paying this for the service I have already received and the features in the control panel for both the fibre connection and VOIP configuration options. Along with supporting them in what they stand for.

I have been with A&A for about 7 months now. Initially I didn't want to be tied to yearly contracts with any of the most used ISPs.

As most of their clients I started off from a BT line. However, due to heavy congestion in peak times (evenings and weekends) the dl speed dropped from 15-16Mbps down to 2-3. I let the guys at A&A know, and in a few weeks I was transferred over to a TalkTalk line, which pulls a stable 14-15 Mbps ALL THE TIME, even peak times.

The support from these guys is, if not perfect, the closest thing to it. I sent an e-mail about an issue, out of normal business hours (was about 19:00 I think). I got a reply and resolved the issue in less than 5 minutes.

We are 2 people in the house. We are both working in normal business hours, 9-17:30. My fiancee streams Netflix, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. I also stream Netflix, Amazon Prime, play MMORPGs, online games and DL the occasional game from Steam or GOG.com. We have 2 PC's, 2 tablets, 2 mobiles. We've never had an issue with 100GBs not being enough, usually there's about 10-15GBs left.

I consider the service pricey, only when compared to special and cashback offers from other ISPs. The service I'm getting costs exactly as much as the VM my neighboor has. Except mine doesn't drop or cutout. Nor do I have to call a call centre to get compensation when I'm not getting the service I pay for. I would recommend to the marketing team of A&A though, to think of alternative marketing campaigns, e.g. affiliate sites like quidco. I think they are very popular with the demographic AAISP appeals to.

Final words; I think that A&A are worth the spend, IF you value quality. If you just want mindless downloading, with the risk of the line being unstable, then go for one of the cheap ones. Me, I couldn't stand it if I came back from work to find the internet down.

TLDR
Peace of mind; quality; not having to call a call center, EVER and arrange everything by e-mail in a matter of minutes; line monitoring vs download limit. Easy choice for me.

Eventually I've moved to another company because of a better deal and the fact that I will be spending less time in the UK now. I still think AAISP are worth the money if you value quality of service and speed.

Iv'e been with AAISP since 2002 and the support from them has always been exemplary.

They offer a great set of services, and are very easy to deal with.

I could go on why this ISP is simply the best but others have already said it. Simply out-standing service - even when things go belly up they'll endeavour to help you... and lets face it, 9 / 10 any problems are not their fault but down to BT / TalkTalk.

Andrews and Arnold provide the best customer support that I have seen.
You get to speak to a real person who knows what they are talking about and gets the job done - even when the issue is caused by a 3rd party supplier.

Professional service and you know that if something goes wrong - even when it is not their issue, (i.e. a user accidentally deleting emails -A&A restored a backup within a very short time and the user was back to work again).

My company's web-shop relies on a VPN link between our hosting company and our office so that stock availability can be checked, and stock allocated when our customers order. At about 22:20 on 23rd Feb, 2016, I received an automated email from one of our servers telling me the VPN had dropped. On investigation I was unable to access any of the servers. I went to the A&A IRC channel and asked if anyone was aware of any problems and, even at this late hour, a staff member replied straight away and helped me localise the problem to within our building. It was too late to do anything about it then, so I set an early alarm for the morning.

When I got to work at about 08:00 my first action was to reboot the modems. Both lines sync'd, but neither would login. So I called the support telephone number and got an answer within two or three rings, and the person who answered helped me trouble-shoot further. He suggested some kind of EMI, and suggested a way of testing, and he was spot on! The PSU in our firewall had failed, nothing in or out of the network. Fortunately the device was supplied by A&A (it's a FireBrick). A&A were able to upload the config of the dead FB (they keep copies for just such eventualities) to a spare I had at home. I collected the spare, plugged it in and we were back up immediately. Including 8 hours asleep, travelling too and from work - twice! - our connection was down less than 12 hours.

A replacement PSU arrived by 10am on the following day and I had my home network back online in less than 36 hours since the problem arose.

I'm amazed at the diagnostic skills, the getting through to an intelligent person immediately, and that help was even available after 10pm.

It's wonderful to get through to someone who doesn't treat you as a moron by starting out with "have you tried turning it off and on again". There was no long drawn out conversation establishing the facts, their support team are really knowledgeable. Whenever I've called they've never kept me talking for more than 5 minutes - and most of that is waiting for BT diagnostics to run.

The swift and efficient resolution to this problem was excellent.

They may not be cheap, but support of this calibre has to be paid for somehow.

I am will make this short. I thought customer service was dead. Not with these guys. BTOpenreach turned up without the modem for the managed install. Called AAISP and spoke with Shaun and told him the issue. Coupe of minutes chatting with me and the engineer and was told they will call me back. Within 5 mins Shaun called back and said because i was not too far away(40mins at least!!) they will send an engineer with the modem and set it up.

Thanks Shaun and AAISP

I decided to make the switch to AAISP at the end of last year as my contract minimum term with Sky ended.

A couple of things initially attracted me to Andrew's and Arnold primarily:
* Good reviews.
* Apparent honesty and clarity surrounding customer data logging/storage etc.
* Multiple IPv6 and a single static IPv4 address as standard.
* And complete freedom to use whatever hardware at my end to connect as possible.

So far my customer experience has been first class.

There are a couple of small cons. Firstly, since my previous ISP, Sky, had me on a full LLU line I had to move my phone line to BT before I could get set up with Andrews and Arnold. For me this wasn't a particular problem as the benefits of moving away from Sky seemed to far outweigh this inconvenience but it did mean I had 10 days with no internet while things got set up. Another result of this setup is that for 12 months I'll have to keep a phone line with BT (as part of the deal with them for moving the line across) which means I'll need to pay a bit more for line rental until the minimum term is over. (I suspect there was probably a way to avoid 12 months with BT but it seemed like the most straight forwards way to get off Sky's unbundled package.)

In terms of the benefits of moving across from Sky things have been very good.

The first (and probably biggest benefit) is that I have much more faith in Andrews and Arnold in looking after my privacy. With Sky I was forced to make use of their Sky Hub to connect to the internet which I never really trusted on my LAN. And then at the other end of the connection Andrews and Arnolds policy's fill me with much more hope that my packet data won't get logged and used without me knowing exactly what's going on. As a result, I have been able to move from a setup where all my traffic was being routed through a VPN service (to bypass Sky's hub and keep my personal data off their network) to running my own modem and router without the VPN. This has resulted in a much more responsive connection and a lower ping, on average.

The second benefit I have noticed since moving to Andrews and Arnold is that my connection seems to be much more reliable. Whilst I have no empirical data to back this up, I did notice that with Sky at peak times streaming iPlayer and other high traffic services was always a bit hit and miss. I suspect Sky might rightly argue this was due to them not being able to shape traffic as effectively but I was on their top plan so I expected a reliable service.

Finally, Andrews and Arnold's communication has been flawless! Their invoicing and billing is better than any other utility I have dealt with before; When I have had customer support questions they have been answered via email the next day without fail in a friendly and informative manner; And their account control panel gives very detailed connection usage information, with supporting controls, which makes managing your bandwidth and debugging connectivity issues straight forwards.

In short I am very impressed with AAISP so far!