Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) Reviews

I've been signed up to AAISP for two weeks. I moved into a property with a stopped line. AAISP took care of getting it activated.

There communication is excellent and they keep you updated along the way though every step of the setup process.

Getting connected was simple. Aftercare was personal, phone call and personal email form a human.

I really recommend these guys!

Just moved to A&A and, despite giving 5% of my line speed over to VoIP calls, the internet speeds are still faster compared to BT Business. Pings have improved from 16ms to 8ms and the support team is excellent.

AAISP provide unfiltered, at-cost commodity internet and telephony services with excellent technical support for people who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty with technology. It's not the cheapest but you pay for a better quality of service all round. They are the middle-man on your side: they battle on your behalf with BT Openreach to keep you online, and with HM Government's ministers to keep the Internet free and functional.

Before AAISP I was with Eclipse, then Plusnet, then Be Unlimited (now Sky.) By way of example, say you want to buy a table. Be/Sky is a bit like Argos. You'll get something with four legs that holds your beer level and 28 inches above the floor and it'll be just fine. It probably won't fall apart but they ban some types of beer and will complain at you if you drink too much.

Some ISPs are a bit more techy. It's like going to Ikea. You have some satisfaction in being able to put the table together yourself. It's kind of configurable and once you've bought it they leave you alone.

AAISP is like going to B&Q. They sell some flat pack tables that are solid and will last but more importantly they'll sell you tools, screws and timber and help you build your own. You make the furniture you want with the professional support of a company that knows everything about the trade.

The Internet connection (on DSL and on the phone) is completely unfiltered. If that wasn't enough AAISP and Adrian Kennard, their Managing Director, are also politically active trying to ensure it will remain unfiltered.

They separate your technical accounts from your billing accounts which is incredibly useful if you manage multiple sites, though it's also a overly complex if you are just a single household with a single broadband connection.

The telephony services are amazing -- I have multiple custom public and private numbers that route to VOIP accounts connected to a pair of handsets (a smartphone and a much cheaper disposable handset) and software telephones. I have call blocking, outgoing caller ID adjustments, and secure IMAP based voicemail and call logging. Phone logs are, of course, available online as well as in machine readable XML.

My bills from AAISP are quite complicated. Going back to the DIY analogy: instead of a receipt saying "1 table" I have a long list that shows every plank, screw and hammer because I pay for a box of bits that together handle my home internet connection and telephony. While there's a downside in that the bills are complicated the upside is I can do things no other ISP lets me do! A monthly bill typically lists the following:

* Internet connection at 1 site:
* Physical layer: a PSTN copper phone line
* Data layer: the FTTC connection
* Network layer: the "Home::1" product
* Charge for increased speed to 80/20Mbps
* Charge for quota increase to 200GB/mo
* Broadband router (free, but listed for accounting purposes)

* Telephony:
* 3x phone number registrations + VOIP accounts
* 8x inactive phone number reservations
* 3x SIM cards
* Voice and SMS traffic on the SIM cards
* Voice traffic on the VOIP accounts

* Other accounts:
* Domain registration and DNS service
* IMAP account
* Charge for increased IMAP quota

In summary: I am incredibly satisfied with AAISP and would recommend them in a heartbeat to anyone who embraces technology.

Fantastic service, went above and beyond to help us get the line in, highly recommended

I originally came to AAISP after wanting a fixed IP and having suffered connectivity problems with the previous ISP. AAISP helped me sort out the line and get the best performance possible. I recently updated to FTTC which was a painless process.

I was originally a little concerned by the download limit, but I've never used much over 40GB in a month.

On the rare occasion I've had to phone tech support, the staff have always been helpful, knowledgeable and able to quickly resolve the problem.

Full review here: www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/showthread.php/33941-Review-Superb-ISP-let-down-by-tight-download-limits

Fantastic ISP with proper UK technical support by people who really know what they’re talking about.

Great for a technical user like me, especially with the flexible online control panel where virtually every setting relating to my line could be configured. IPv6 as standard and lots of other useful technical services can be purchased.

No internet censorship / site blocking.

Expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Reluctantly left due to tight download limits. 100GB for £25/month for the standard Home::1 service not tenable nowadays as single modern game download of 65GB can put one over the limit. Can be topped up or more paid up front, but it soon empties your wallet. Hope AAISP can offer more in the future.

So, if you want great customer service and tech support, plus are a light user who can live within tight download limits, then I can highly recommend them and rate them 9/10.

Great customer service - you can reach staff on IRC, where there's a very helpful community, as well. Here's finally an ISP that don't talk down to you, support real operating systems such as linux, and don't try to solve problems by telling you to "turn it off and on again".

Can't get FTTC for another 32 years, so asked Andrews and Arnold to arrange for 3 bonded lines. They handled all the messy details with BT and eventually, due to OpenReach not planning efficiently, I now have 3 bonded and balanced connections. Not FTTC but at least now we can stream HD movies and all the other little things the modern internet is for.

AAISP is not the cheapest ISP, but as I asked for just copper lines I don't have to pay for 3 landline rentals I won't use, which halves the cost and they spread the data allowance (which can be anything you want, i'm running 200GB per month) across all the lines.

The user diagnostics is very impressive too, if you're into that (I am). The only issue is late night contention at BT wholesale, but A&A will move any or all of my lines to another backhaul provider if I want.

Been 3 weeks, very happy so far.

My first impressions of this ISP were positive. Sales staff who were polite, knowledgeable and not pushy. Right from the start I knew I was talking to a real person and he treated me like a real person. The transfer from Virgin was seamless (to be fair to Virgin they gave me my MAC without making a fuss) and pretty quick. My requirement to use my own ADSL modem rather than theirs was accommodated without a fuss.

Day 1 was not good. I arrived home from work to no service at all. Nothing. It was Friday evening before a bank holiday! I tried everything I could think of then sent an SMS to their service department, not expecting a response. Surprisingly I got one and over the next few hours we exchanged message after message as he tried to work out the problem. He worked until 11pm, then we called it a day. The following morning the service team was at it again at 8am. To cut the story short, the problem was not, I repeat NOT the fault of AAISP but was a BT Openreach problem. It was sorted out by supper time on Saturday after the involvement of the company MD no less! Service since then has been fast and reliable.

I have since upgraded to FTTC which was a painless process. Speed is very fast and reliable!

AAISP is not the cheapest ISP but if you want excellent customer service and a flexible range of options as well as a person you can talk to who knows what he or she is talking about, this is the one for you.

Have always tried to be with an ISP whom caters for a more premium user and was with PlusNet (untill BT bought them) then Easynet (until Sky bought them) then BT wooed me with FTTC.
Started out as getting 75Mb throughput and was syncing at nearly 80Mb however speed started to fall over the next year probably due to crosstalk to about a 70Mb sync.
Early this year i lost 10-15Mb over a few days and BT refused to accept there was a fault and refused to send anybody to fix it.
Decided to leave BT and after reading about AAISP as well as out mutual hatred for BT/Openreach i decided to switch.
All went well and the transfer was very smooth.
After switching they team at AAISP badgered BT with frequent line tests. Within a week i had an appointment with Openreach. Technician came out and found a joint box on my pole had lost its cover and was full of water. This and a few other bad joints were repaired and im back to nearly 70Mb sync/65Mb throuhgput so a great effort from the AAISP team in getting Openreach to find and fix my faults.

Its been a while since i was on a usage plan so i had no idea how much i actually downloaded. They only count downloads towards domestic usage and not uploads.
nearly one month in i think i will upgrade to their 200Gb/month tariff at £10pm extra as opposed to PAYG topups in 50Gb lots as it looks like ill regularly be over 100Gb.

Ignoring the issue from BT, i find the latency and page load times to be significantly faster from AAISP over BT. Ping times are generally 30-40ms vs 80+ with BT which makes VOIP more natural.

It is expensive but you really do get what you pay for.