ISP Reviews by kansenji

Well my own experience of The Phone Co-op (NOW CALLED "THE CO-OPERATIVE PHONE & BROADBAND") is the exact opposite of a1972980's.

I have so far been with them (phone & broadband package) for nearly two years and things couldn't be much better. My previous two ISPs were AAISP & XILO, so you can see that I demand the very best quality broadband. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my download speeds (using JD's Auto Speed Tester) are indistinguishable from those of XILO, who provided me with the fastest speeds I'd ever had. That's no surprise really, as XILO & The Phone Co-op both use the I.S.P. MurphX. Of course, the speed you receive is very much down to your telephone exchange set-up, how congested it is at peak times and your distance from it; I am confident though, that no-one else will provide a faster service than The Phone Co-op can.

Migration went smoothly, though communication was by Royal Mail, not email. Set-up was easy using my own router.

UPDATE: Nearly a year ago, my local exchange went LLU when Talk-Talk set up their equipment there. I am now accessing their LLU service via The Co-operative & am very pleased with the much faster download & upload speeds (triple speed downloads & double speed uploads, compared to previously). The speeds are 100% consistent, as they are entirely unaffected by "peak periods", the time of day or the weekends. The changeover was handled expertly by The Co-operative & went very smoothly.

Thieves stole miles of Somerset telephone lines on 25th August 2011, which left much of Somerset & Dorset without broadband for the day. I phoned The Phone Co-op, got an instant reply & they informed me straight away of the BT Outage; so their customer service seems spot-on.

So far, the verdict is: EXCELLENT

ANDREWS & ARNOLD (AAISP) is an EXCELLENT ISP. I have been with ANDREWS & ARNOLD (AAISP) for 19 months. Everything has been superb and I can say that connection, upload & download speeds are much faster than those I had from Freedom2surf, IDNET, Newnet and AllFastAccess. What I also like is that there has been hardly any slowdown in the usual busy periods, with the exception of 9pm to 11pm Mon-Fri, when speeds are erratic. Although the "Peak" allowance packages seem mean, they only apply Mondays to Fridays 9am to 6pm! Any other time, evenings, night-time or on weekends, included usage is massive.

Unfortunately my situation has just changed & my daughters are gobbling up my Peak allowance at an alarming rate, using their new Notebook PCs. I can no longer afford AAISP's packages & have today migrated to XILO, who offer a much more generous Peak allowance of 25GB for £18.99 (though their Off-Peak hours are much shorter.)

I must heap praise on AAISP's migrate away system. I just selected "Leaving AAISP" on their secure website and requested a MAC. Within a few SECONDS I received the MAC by email!

AAISP are definitely amongst the top two or three high quality ISPs in The UK. Let's see if XILO can beat them; they look promising so far.