In Early 2013, with the news that our SDSL lines had just over a year before they would be withdrawn, and with the growing inter-branch traffic and reliability issues becoming a issue to our EntaNet supplied services, PHC started the process of looking for a new ISP to service our (at the time) 4 branches and 3 Directors Homes.

A&A were shortlisted for a number of reasons; they offered a high quality service (their reputation within the industry for doggedly chasing BT on issues is well known), as well as being very flexible in terms of what they offered due to being relatively small (boutique, if you will!). We spent some time discussing the options with not just A&A but several other providers, before boiling it down based upon our knowledge of how they worked and the service offered.

Price was a factor, but we were also conscious that we wanted a provider who could actually get BT to deliver what was promised. Our experience with Enta was that while we couldn’t fault their network, it was always the last mile that provided the biggest problems.

Thankfully, at the time, FTTC became available at our two main locations (Bristol & Cardiff) so we chose to install A&A’s Office::1 product at both locations with Bonded 80/20 FTTC in Bristol, and Bonded 40/10 in Cardiff. Our other locations received A&A’s Units based tariffs, and one Director’s home was also migrated from a FTTC. We staged our rollout of the new services over a number of months, to avoid problems with BT and where possible installed the new service on a second line. Shortly after switching the last line over in Mid 2013, we opened a new branch in Swindon, and had a new circuit installed there also.

We also took the decision to have every line managed by A&A with their broadband only phone line option, as this provided us with a single point of contact when it comes to our broadband needs. Our experiences with BT have been appalling since (a number of mistakes made by them including leaving a branch with no phones for over 2 weeks due to an ISDN migration issue, and configuration issues on another new install ISDN that caused us a lot of headaches) but when it’s come to our broadband lines, we’ve been very happy leaving them with A&A, despite BT’s attempts to poach them back!

Visibility and control of the lines is outstanding, the control panel provided by A&A allows me total visibility of the lines at a glance, and we can see when things have lost sync or gone offline. I get text messages when lines go Up/Down, which is handy, and our broadband availability in our Bristol & Cardiff branches has been near on 100% for the last year. As our business grows, A&A’s offerings will grow with it, and we’re confident that we made the right decision going with them. We’re now a year and a half down the line, and would definitely recommend them to others (and frequently do!).