ISP Reviews by kansenji

I have just migrated from AAISP, whose services I enjoyed for 19 months; a very good ISP they are too. I had experienced much faster download speeds with AAISP than I had experienced with all other ISPs, including NewNet and IDNET. My only grumble was that speeds had recently reduced between about 8pm and midnight.

I migrated to UNO Broadband on 22nd March 2010, solely because my needs had changed & I require significantly more daytime, Peak Period usage. That was putting AAISP beyond my financial means.

I was very pleased to receive my AAISP MAC within seconds of requesting it & even more pleased when migration happened in three working days!

What I did NOT expect though, was the instant & consistent increase in download speeds that I am getting with UNO. I was getting about 5500kbps at best, with AAISP & I am getting more than 6200kbps with UNO, virtually all the time, with NO significant slowdown at any time at all.

I messed up my DNS settings on my PC & had to telephone Scott in UNO support so that I could get online. He answered within two rings and sorted me out in about 20 seconds; now that is what I call EXCELLENT.

EDIT 26th July 2011:
I regret that the need to reduce telephone & ISP costs (again) mean that I am migrating to The Phone Co-op's all-in-one package. I must thank XILO/UNO for sending me my MAC within a couple of minutes of me requesting it & also I must thank them for an EXCELLENT SERVICE over the past 16 months. If things go pear-shaped at The Phone Co-op, I'll be back!

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.