Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) Reviews

I've used AAISP for about a month and a half, and I'm very impressed.

- As a user, I get a very comprehensive control panel, including some outstanding quality monitoring graphs which make fault analysis a lot easier. I can even run several line tests myself, before contacting support, and I can add my own notes to the graphs so that AAISP can see what's going on at my end.

- This control panel also shows me what AAISP are doing (and plan to do). I can see their planned tasks, and I can see what's happening.

- There has been a fault on our line for years (before we signed up for AAISP), and ADSL was completely unusable with previous ISPs. We have just got FTTC in the area, and even though the fault was technically with BT's phone line, AAISP were quite willing to pursue matters in case BT couldn't (or wouldn't) fix the phone line.

- When the line drops, they (optionally) send me a text message. For those running servers and suchlike, this could be very useful indeed. (Note that the connection hasn't dropped since BT fixed our phone line.)

- Their policy of openness and neutrality, and their sensible approach to internet behaviour is appealing. There are several details in other reviews and on AAISP's website so I won't repeat them here.

If you're considering AAISP, there are a couple of things to be aware of:

- The cost appears slightly higher than other ISPs, but it is money well spent. BT (and the like) may offer a lower price for an apparently similar service, but the facilities and support that AAISP provide are well worth the money. Users with very high bandwidth requirements may find the price rather high, but unless you regularly download several hundred GB per month it is unlikely to be a problem. (Their "Home::1" package has no concept of peak and off-peak hours.)

- I don't know how suited they would be for non-technical users. I like that they present a lot of information, but this might put some people off. Of course, there are _loads_ of other ISPs for people who don't want to see the technical stuff, and very few for those who do, so I wouldn't want AAISP to change this.

Overall, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend AAISP. After years of dealing with other ISPs, it is very refreshing to speak to a support department who don't just read a turn-it-off-and-on-again script. Real technical support is very accessible, too. (They even have an IRC channel.)

Switched other from BT Infinity as I was tired of their abusive price rises every 6 months as well as all the issues with the so bad BT Home Hub.

Neutrality, no filtering, fixed IP and of course IPv6 were my requirements. AAISP does all this very well and the geeky way. What a pleasure to talk with a team who understands the Internet, and who also understands that you, the customer, have a similar level of knowledge.

No more stupid customer services questions/actions aimed at non specialist end users.

Thank you AAISP, you get a 10/10 on all boxes and it's always a pleasure to exchange with your staff.

That's what we use at work. I decided to go with AAISP at my new home too, despite the slightly higher cost.

Being on the techy side of usership, I really value their attitude to IPv6, PGP, net neutrality. Using the services of such an ISP is not only a way to get connected to the Internet, it's a political statement on what the Internet is and should remain: http://www.aa.net.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html

I was moving to an area where I knew the broadband would be slow so I needed a technically literate ISP to deal efficiently with any technical issues in getting the fastest possible speed from the line. Particularly AA offer 'line bonding' if necessary, where two lines can be used together to double the speed.

My first contact with AA was with Victoria in Sales. As advertised, support is based in the UK and staffed by intelligent humans, not some telephone 'operative' going through a totally useless crib sheet for answers with no intelligence applied to the process whatsoever ('have you tried turning it off and on again' etc. etc.). Victoria was excellent. Clear and knowledgeable answers to all my questions. She made a note of everything we talked about so she could remember who I was and exactly what I needed when I called back a couple of weeks later to place my order when the line became available. Well done Victoria, showing how customer service should be done for all companies. Sadly few manage it.

Order was processed with extreme efficiency, with text messages all along to keep me informed of progress which was very reassuring. Telephone line (I ordered 'broadband only' line from AA) came up on the same day the old line was ceased, and broadband was available several days earlier than had been predicted by AA. I got the feeling that AA have direct access to the BT hierarchy and systems.

Prediction of speed from BT online was around 2Mb, but by going in at the master socket I can get nearly 4Mb and rock solid so really chuffed that this was at the very top end of my expectations. So far full speed seems to be available at any time of day. Line bonding may not be necessary, but will see how BBC iPlayer etc performs on my TV when I get a chance to connect it up.

The only downside is the limit to bandwidth on the Home 1 package is not quite generous enough to forget about it completely, but I can live with that if the service is of the highest quality which so far it appears to be. In any case AA make it extremely easy to monitor your usage, as simply going to their website home page gives a readout of remaining bandwidth without needing to log-in. it works out at just over 3Gb per day which should be enough I would think.

In summary, I cannot recommend AA highly enough if you don't mind paying that bit extra for a premium service. Personally I think its well worth it if my experience so far is anything to go by.

After several good years with FAST I decided to go to AAISP for my new FTTC service. FAST's prices for FTTC were higher and the reviews for AAISP were decisive - and the minimum contract is only 6 months on the Home 1 package compared to the 12 months of most other ISPs! The FTTC installation today went without a hitch.
I wanted to carry on using my existing router (Billion BIPAC 7800N) instead of using the supplied Technicolor one, so after initially getting connected with the Technicolor I rang Customer Services and was answered without delay by someone who was very helpful in answering a couple of set up questions. I was up and running with the BIPAC as soon as I had set it up, with better wifi coverage than the Technicolor but no noticeable change in speed.
I'm getting a very good speed (37 Meg as opposed to the 3 Meg I got with ADSL LLU from FAST) and there are plenty of controls to tweak the settings - probably too many for me as I am not a techie.
So far I am really happy with my decision to go with AAISP.

I've just got FTTC locally in our area after a two year wait. I had a really good relationship with Fast who provided me with great customer service and support throughout my time with them. But they couldn't match e cost of the AAISP package so I switched.

Signing up was easy.. A quick call helped decide on which particular option was best for our probable use.

A few days later the new router arrived preconfigured with a useful little card attached to the bottom with our details No fuss.

The BT Openreach install was ordered and occurred on time and I got regular text updates on progress. A quick call to support to just make. Sure it was all ok and again some text updates to tell me the order was all complete.

Billing is equally straigtforward with really clear invoicing.

We've now been using it a couple of weeks and the speeds are excellent even on wifi.

Simple, straightforward with really helpful services that are spot on. Believe the ratings.

Living as I do in the Kielder forest about two squilion miles from the exchange internet speeds are poor and I have just come away from the post office as connection was like Morse code.
These guys are great, fastest speed ever in twenty years over the last three days I have been with them, box arrived quick and just plug and play for internet. Have to spend an extra £3.60 for a domain name to do email, this was a bit daunting for me but managed to get a mailbox set up on my wives windows machine, my new mac I have given up on trying the email set up so have set up a gmail account and nothing could be simpler on the mac. Phoned help and they were help but still could not get the mac email running,not the fault of the isp or mac but me as approaching retirement. You pay a lot more for this but aaisp can be likened to chauffeur driven limousine when most of the rest are public transport. Help is only in office hours but what good is 24 hour coverage if the people on the other end are not IT professionals and then all they do is send BT round (again and again)
Well shall stick with this lot if it continues to stay like this as it will aid my health I'm sure.

So far, so good. A&A provide a quality service. The connection is consistent & I've yet to have any issues - that said, I've only been using them for a few days. They are rather more expensive than competing ISPs, but I feel like you pay a premium for the high quality of customer support & mercifully straight-forward interactions.

I am slightly dismayed by the fact that I appear to be paying £7 a month more than I think I agreed to. This may be an oversight on my part, but it does put a dampener on things.

Overall, happy enough at present. Depending on how things go in the coming months I might come back and update this.

I'm an IT professional who has been in the industy for nearly a decade and I've mostly used Cable connections provided by NTL/Virgin Media and then more recently BT Infinity VDSL2 (FTTC).

After numerous issues with BT Infinity Business and lots of pondering, I decided to move to AAISP where their website sold me on their competency and all the associated benefits of internet connections geared up for geeks.

I ended up going for the FTTC 80/20 connection with them and later purchasing an additional ADSL2+ connection over the Talk Talk backhaul network to offer some form of redundancy.

The installation of both connections was seamless and communication was good during this period. I have had a few issues with the FTTC connection which eventually turned out to be underground cabling issues which Openreach identified and resolved. These had been issues outstanding for months before joining AAISP and then with AAISP as well. They had sent out a couple of Openreach engineers to investigate the issue but unfortunately it was intermittent so difficult for the engineer to diagnose. I was pretty persistent with AAISP in trying to get this issue resolved so was regularly on to them with statistics from my end and diagnosis' I had done. The support are mostly very helpful however on occassion I felt as if they were trying to pull the wool over my eyes a bit as one support engineer offered capped my data rate on their end to try resolve an issue which was clearly down to Openreach's cabling. I understand Openreach can be very difficult to deal with but I was a little disappointed to have someone try fool me in this way when I knew full well what the problem was.

Suffice to say, all other experiences with their support have been efficient and knowledgeable. I would recommend them over *any* other UK ISP despite the price.

Pros:

Excellent control panel
Very useful graph data
Technical people

Cons:

Openreach (not AAISP's fault)
No API for their control panel as yet

Glad to be back with AAISP, left six months ago after moving in with the girlfriend. Sadly she had BT infinity as its cheap :s and aaaaaawful.


Sales were very helpful and accounts too with reinstating my dd. Did not get the chance to talk to support yet but i guess that's a good thing :)