Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) Reviews

I've been a happy customer of Andrews and Arnold ("AAISP") for many years.

During that time, I have had a number of changes in circumstance (moving house, upgrading to VDSL, and most recently upgrading to FTTP) and in all cases they have provided an exemplary service that has made the move as seamless as possible (literally seamless in the case of the move from VDSL to FTTP - I unplugged my router from the VDSL line, and plugged it in to the FTTP line).

The self-service tools that they provide e.g. for monitoring line quality are fantastic and as far as I'm aware, no mainstream ISP does this.

There have been a number of problems over the years: faults on the BT line, multiple faulty OpenReach modems and one instance of a problem of my own making. In each case I was able to contact a member of A&A's technical support team (not a call centre) who provided assistance and coordinated where BT/OpenReach needed to come and fix the fault.

I think the base cost for A&A works out a bit more expensive than the cheaper ISPs, but I think this is justified by the very low contention (I've never noticed an "evening slowdown") and high quality technical support.

Although AA have some positive features, I'm underwhelmed by their shoddy approach to website security and customer service.
1. Regarding web security: according to Qualys ssllabs, the website aa.net.uk is using software which hasn't been patched since 2018 i.e they use NGINX 1.14.2, the latest version is 1.21.6. During the intervening period 2018 to current Nginx have issued numerous security vulnerabilities which AA have apparently failed to patch.
2. Customer Service: According to the PR on their website, AA offer unparalleled support services. However, that's contradicted within their contract; which states: "We pride ourselves in offering excellent customer service, but ... its not a contractual term".
3. AA have a knowledgbase which amongst other things provides support for 3rd party devices. In many cases the device info is many years outdated and frankly is useless. When contacted, their support team offers negligable assistance.
All in All, AA need to improve their services.

There have been some setup problems ( faulty kit ). Their sales and tech support have been excellent.
I sent in a low priority ticket asking for some info on a Sat night, expecting an answer Mon or Tues which was fine for what I needed and a representative replied and sent the info within a few mins. I felt guilty for disturbing her Sat evening.
The moral of this is, when you submit a ticket even a not important / routine ticket they answer quickly.
Excellent, but as a customer we must respect them when we raise a ticket.

I've been through a few ISPs (NTL - Virgin, Vispa, Origin, ... can't remember all). AAISP have to be the best especially for support and service. The few pounds extra compared to others is well worth it.

Got all I wanted here, FTTP, IPv6 and VoIP with my old landline number ported over. And folk with the time to help me understand. I'm well pleased.

(If you don't know already all landline telephones in the UK are due to be made VoIP in 4 years time. Openreach are taking the current copper telephone cables out of service.)

I can only reiterate what the other reviews on here have mentioned. A&A were incredible in helping me get connected. I'm amazed I've never heard of them before. They are excellent and I can not recommend them enough!

After an exceptionally painful experience with BT during lockdown, A&A were a breeze to deal with. Got through within minutes and speaking to Michael actually felt human and real for once. Real as it should be when speaking to someone over the phone. I didn't have to speak to random untrained agents, being put on hold, listening to scripted generic responses, constantly being transferred around in a call centre everytime.

Michael at A&A helped me navigate the minefield of installing a new line with Openreach and within weeks I was up and running! It was a site to behold, 3 Openreach vans, one being a cherry picker, 4 engineers, my building looked like a construction site!

Avoid any large corporations such as BT, they are all about mass numbers and profits. With the amount of negative reviews here I’m surprised they are still allowed to operate. They should be thoroughly investigated due to mal-practice and their catastrophic failures.

A&A are absolutely amazing and will LISTEN to your individual circumstance. Can't recommend them enough!

Honest and communicative about my order and transparent about what they provide. A world of difference from my previous ISP. I’ve now moved to their FTTP Home 160Mbps service which has been flawless, looking forward to them launching their higher speed options.

I have now moved to their Home 1 FTTP service & continue to be extremely pleased with all aspects. My 2016 review is quoted below.
'The connection is consistently fast and stable and service superb from dedicated truthful individuals within a company that allows them be so.
Having dealt with AAISP for some years over a VOIP number and SIP2SIM for a local charity , my own SIP2SIMs and later a BT Business Broadband Voice number ported in, I knew that they could be trusted with the next phase of my escape from BT. This was to take over BT residential line, port the number to VOIP and take over BT Business Broadband ADSL upgrading to FTTC. This went very smoothly as AAISP are adept at dealing with vagaries of BT systems and even make detailed progress track-able on their control pages.
Keeping numbers without interruption was essential and achieved as expected.
It is extremely reassuring to know that help, should it be needed, is available quickly and directly avoiding call-centres, scripts and marketing-speak.'

To overcome the limitations of CG-NAT IP provision on EE's 4G network, I use Andrews and Arnold's L2TP service. This gives me a fixed IP address which allows me to port forward to a home server.
The service is priced fairly in my view and has been rock solid both in speed and connection reliability.
Customer service is rather clunky. Much of the self service is accessed by two separate login portals, which themselves are different to the connection details for the L2TP service. Thankfully a lot of the service "just works" which means the extra time taken to reset my password for each forgotten login, is minimal!
My overall impression is that this is a service run by geeks for geeks and focusses on value and performance over pretty CS portals. That is fine by me.

AAISP are definitely the best ISP out there if you need solid dependability and reliability. Their sales and support teams, all of whom know their entire systems inside out, are more than happy to get stuck into any problem or request you could possibly send them.

I recently moved house and was reminded again exactly why I choose to stay with AAISP. The ability to overlap line installs between new and old house was absolutely vital, allowing me to plan my move so much better.

At the new house BT continually cancelled install appointments, but sales were able to pin them down to an expedited date. Support staff were happy to put my new line onto an additional account temporarily so I could test and make sure everything was working, before my equipment got moved across.

Definitely the best choice I could ever have made for such a vital service, could you imagine trying to do any of that with BT?!

Having used AAISP at multiple rural sites I would consider them one of the elite ISPs. Yes they're more expensive than your budget provider, but you get what you pay for. If you have a problem they'll promptly do what they can to resolve it.

Have we had faults and downtime, yes, plenty. The vast majority due to the ageing Openreach copper network. For this A&A provide bonding. While a fault on one line is resolved you can keep working. Even inherited complex faults have eventually been resolved by A&A thanks to their comprehensive line monitoring and persistence with Openreach. All without having to chase them or spend ages trying to get through to someone for updates. They provide effective, prompt, support via email as well as phone.

Paying for simple can be absolutely worth it when a service is important to your ability to conduct business.

A&A aren't for everyone but I'd have wasted a lot more of my life if they didn't exist.