Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) Reviews

Way better than going through BT

Always helpful and respectful of this female pensioner with very little technical knowledge. They done their best to provide me with the best package for my rural location

Big main ISPs = cheaper and unlimited data allowance but with headaches, problems and the nigh-on impossibility of being able to talk to someone competent to deal with them.

AAISP = a bit more expensive and limited data allowance but with few problems and the ability to talk to someone competent very quickly and easily who can fix issues that may arise. Also, the AAISP guys are straight up. None of this throttled lines nonsense.

So essentially AAISP is like BA to the main providers' Ryanair. If you are happy to be stiffed just so you can save a few extra bucks then by all means go with the main providers.

The adage goes that you can have two out of three when presented with the choice of Good, Fast and Cheap. So lets deal with the elephant in the room as regards A&A... if I had to choose only one ISP to support a heavy diet of Netflix, Sky On Demand, BBC iPlayer and the myriad of other ways to burn through a bandwidth allowance then Andrews & Arnold would not be my first choice. There I've said it and it is the truth, they unashamedly state on their website...

"The second reason, which mainly makes sense with our terabyte services, is to have a high limit but one that deters the really heavy users, i.e. the people that literally use hundreds of times the typical usage. By excluding such customers from these services we can provide a faster and better services to our customers."

So if you need an all you can eat (read cheap) service that has varying levels of goodness and speed or you always use more than 2TB/month or £50/month + line rental seems way to expensive for the aforementioned 2TB then this service isn't for you.

Now my need for VDSL on a 2nd line is very different to my main unlimited connection with Sky Fibre. This 2nd line needs to be faultless and super fast for home working where my bandwidth requirement is not very high. Uses like this are where speed and reliability trump cost. And it is in this area that A&A is peerless among the myriad of consumer ISPs out there.

My scenario is particularly interesting as I transferred a poor lying performing line that had constant drop outs when I was running regular ASDL to A&A after my line was upgraded to super fast 80/20 VDSL. A&A (through the very efficient support team members of Stuart and David) identified through their first class line monitoring that my frequently dropping connection was most likely an actual fault. After previous experience with other big ISPs this was an immediate breath of fresh air. I work in a technical technology job and had given up on ever talking to a real support person at an ISP. And so before I could even think about it I had an engineer visit and replace some wiring in my PCP, transforming my line into one that is rock solid and giving me my maximum bandwidth with minuscule latency 24/7.

In addition to the support staff and the service overall, the web based account and connection admistration tools remind me of enterprise level network tooling. The fact that I get a message when my connection goes down for any reason is brilliant. All of these goodness has a cost that I'm more than willing to pay and you may also think is worth it.

I've been with AAISP since March 2012 and, just having moved house, I had a look around to see what other ISPs are out there. The only reason for the look around is that, as other reviewers have mentioned, AAISP aren't the cheapest (and I'm a cheapskate).

The answer is the same now as it was at beginning of 2012: AAISP are the best.

They're not actually so far beyond the rest in pricing as they were over six years ago, either. AAISP have grown steadily and can now command bigger size discounts from their suppliers.

So there wasn't any real contest: AAISP win out on excellent customer service, knowing what they're doing (are you listening, BT?), communicating easily and naturally with their customers, and providing what you're paying for. Their advice is considered and first rate - and they don't push you towards the most expensive answer.

Excellent.

Been with A@A for about a month and can say it has been an excellent choice. For the previous X years we had been with an award winning ISP but felt to need a change.

We have the very latest ONT BT Fibre to the Home fitted and that gave us not many option (no copper provided). BT or A@A maybe Skype but don't know, A@A being the only people that could supply VOIP, as the standard phone lines could only be tricked into working by Openreach in the exchange (typical BT...)

Yes the cost is a bit higher than BT etc with its discounts but that would soon be negated after the usual contract period ends.

After dealing with the really helpful sales team and making sure I/we wanted to go down the VOIP route we took the plunge - why did we take so long??? Even spoke with Gigaset and a sales manager in Zxkel before final decision who said that A@A know their stuff........they do and stick with their pre-configured router ec.

The service support team is relaxed and very knowledgeable without the usual what is your blood group type GDRP questioning (which is gone to an extreme with most firms now) when you chat to them.

We had an issue with the 5GHz stream from the Zxkel dropping out but after some tweaks a replacement was sent out and the issues have gone. Would prefer an antennae'd router with a bit more style but it is very functional for what we use it for.

We also use VOIP with Gigaset and whilst having used VOIP in a corporate setting before never used in a home setting. After a bit of a learning curve the clarity and ease of use is un-compromised compared to the usual Panasonic BT digital phones.

Speed is the fastest A@A offer and is consistent after having ADSL for the last X years what a joy.

So why have I dropped a star and not made all 10 out of 10.

Service is 9 due to not using this much - so really not known.

Support a 10 well due to knowledge base of products and relaxed approach - could have full weekend cover though.

Speed limited to 10 80down 20up so could be faster if you are a gamer - but for us consistent and fast enough - we have 200GB data limit per month so that and the costs drop value to a 9.

This is really nit picking though and we are really pleased with the route we have taken and not landed with a BT package.

Wouldn't change what we have decided upon and you can upgrade any handsets from the basic one provided.

HIGHLY Recommended

I have recently moved to AAISP from a well-known major telecomms provider who no longer supply what I want - stable broadband (which works as well as possible) in my rural location on the edge of a village , not particularly close to my exchange but not miles away either. I chose the basic "Home" package over copper with an allowance of 200 Gb/month. The entire experience has been excellent from first sales call to a fully working service. OK there was a problem with the first router supplied as part of the package, but the problem was swiftly identified and fixed at no cost to me. I was confident that I was getting appropriate, expert help in spite of my limited technical knowledge

I've been particularly impressed with the way in which my calls with Service have been smoothly and transparently handled by more than one individual engineer - no long catch-up back stories required.

The other aspect of the AAISP service which impresses me is the scope of the meticulously recorded, up-to-date information about my service which is readily available to me at any time online.

It's not the cheapest service (doesn't claim to be) but offers superb value combining stability with speed and first-rate support.

We had an A&A connection on a business number before we moved a few years ago. I had planned to get a second line to the new house for this purpose, so implemented a temporary solution to the existing number (Sky ADSL). Over the years, this moved first to BT Infinity and then Plusnet. as Openreach demanded money with menaces for that second line!

The final straw was Plusnet throttling the connection, to the point where you could almost see each electron going up the wire.

I went back to A&A, with VOIP as well. Over a year later, my only regrets are that I didn't do it earlier and why did I keep the Openreach modem? That was changed to a ZyXel
recently.

The line is stable, speeds are better, all the staff are very responsive and know what they're doing.

Yes, they aren't the cheapest on the block, but you get the service you pay for.

Recommended.

They know what they are doing, provide clear information, respond quickly to support requests and provide a reliable service. What more do you need?

I have been with Andrews & Arnold for ten plus years with two lines running a basic ADSL service. Our rural exchange was recently upgraded to FTTC so I arranged with A&A for both lines to be upgraded to VDSL.

We were away for a while after the lines were upgraded and on our return I noticed that one line was noticeably slower than the other and at times was unstable. I contacted A&A support. After two months and at least seven visits by various Openreach engineers, the problem has finally been solved with several bridge taps on the line from lightning protectors now removed on the last visit from an engineer and a coach and the line is at last stable and as fast as can be expected given my distance from the fibre cabinet.

We would not have arrived at this solution without the persistence of A&A support in chasing BT/Openreach until they took effective action.