AOL Broadband

...made. I have been with AOL for about five years now and the thought of changing ISP and the mammoth chore of telling everybody I have a new email address was really not an option. Also I have been fairly pleased with my time at AOL, of course there have been problems but I am sure most people have the occasional glitch with their ISP. So an upgrade from my AOL dial up account was my choice and I set about putting my thought into action two weeks ...
...the standard dial up rate. AOL have also just launched a double fast 1MB broadband service that is twenty times faster than dial up access and twice as fast as normal broadband access, this costs £34.99 a month but as I am just learning to walk rather than run in the broadband arena I see no need to strap on roller skates as well. It is worth saying that all of the equipment in the AOL broadband pack, such as modem and filters, is completely free; ... more

I’m not sure if it was just me, but my old 56k dial up Internet connection seemed to be getting slower and slower at the tail end of last year. Maybe it was because Internet use is constantly rising in popularity thus putting a strain on web sites and the speed at which they load. Whatever the reason, something had to be done; I was spending more time waiting for sites to appear than I was actually looking at them. I was aware that my local telephone exchange had been updated to enable Broadband in the spring of 2003 so there was nothing stopping me from taking the plunge into super fast Internet use, so that is exactly what I did.

Now virtually every Internet service provider (ISP) offers a broadband package to complement the tradition dial up service, and for me there was very little choice to be made. I have been with AOL for about five years now and the thought of changing ISP and the mammoth chore of telling everybody I have a new email address was really not an option. Also I have been fairly pleased with my time at AOL, of course there have been problems but I am sure most people have the occasional glitch with their ISP. So an upgrade from my AOL dial up account was my choice and I set about putting my thought into action two weeks before Christmas.

The cost of AOL broadband is about average in this sector for the service, £27.99 a month is the cost compared to £15.99 for the standard dial up rate. AOL have also just launched a double fast 1MB broadband service that is twenty times faster than dial up access and twice as fast as normal broadband access, this costs £34.99 a month but as I am just learning to walk rather than run in the broadband arena I see no need to strap on roller skates as well. It is worth saying that all of the equipment in the AOL broadband pack, such as modem and filters, is completely free; yes you have to sign up for a minimum of twelve months but I believe this is standard across the board, and after the twelve month contract is up you keep the modem as your own. With a cooling off period of twenty days when you first sign up to the service the risks are minimal. However, you do need to have a credit card to sign up with AOL which could prove troublesome to some, and I think if I had the choice myself I would rather pay by direct debit, but this is not an option at present.

Whether you already use AOL as your ISP or not the process for signing up to their broadband service is virtually the same. Once you decide to sign up, you are asked to enter your postcode into an availability checker to make sure you live in an area that is broadband enabled. If you do not, AOL will note your interest in broadband and keep you informed of developments and when you can expect to have your local telephone exchange broadband enabled. If like me, you live in an enabled area AOL will congratulate you and take you to a page for you to sign up to their broadband service. One click on the sign up now button is all that is required to put the AOL wheels in motion, a terms and conditions page is displayed for you to read and tick if you are happy with the contents, and a brief timetable is displayed telling you what is going to happen and when it can be expected to happen.

And then you just sit back and wait, AOL put a time of ten days from sign up to completion of the process and that was spot on in my case. The first thing that happens is that AOL contact your local telephone exchange to request tests and enablement of the line, this action is free and has no effect on your telephone line quality. Around six days after signing up for AOL broadband I received an email from AOL explaining that my telephone line had been tested and broadband enabled, and that my AOL broadband pack was now being sent to me. Four days later the postman delivered the pack, which had to be signed for, to an excited me. The pack contained a BT Voyager 100 ADSL USB Modem, three filters, and all the wires required to connect my computer to a life of broadband. The latest version of the AOL software, version 8, was also included, with the added software for AOL broadband incorporated into it. Nestling in the bottom of the delivered pack was a Scooby Doo DVD, a DVD of Friends and a Missy Elliot CD; all part of a promotion in which you get them all free if you sign up before 31st December 2003, although I would probably not have chosen these freebies if I had had the choice it is always nice to get something for nought, and the Scooby Doo DVD made a nice extra stocking filler for my niece.

So with all of the requisite parts to turn my computer into a speedy broadband machine I set about the task in hand. The instructions included in the pack are full and detailed, if a little simple, and the software CD told me exactly the same instructions so there is little danger of getting things wrong. The first job is to place a little filter box on every phone socket in the house. Basically, the filter boxes separate the signal into voice and data as it travels along the phone line, meaning that Internet and normal telephone use can be enjoyed at the same time. However, every telephone must be plugged into a filter box for the whole operation to work, but with three filters included in the AOL pack and the cost of them being no more than a few pounds, it is inexpensive to go and buy extra if you have more than three phone sockets in your house.

Next, the instructions ask you to plug the modem into a spare USB port on your computer and run the software on the included CD. I use Windows XP on my PC and the operating system found the new modem automatically and set about installing it using the drivers on the CD, if you have an earlier version of Windows or indeed another operating system altogether the instructions are present to ensure smooth installation. If you are new to AOL the whole AOL internet software will also be installed at this time, but as I am an existing customer my already installed software was simply upgraded to enable broadband connection. And that is pretty much all of the installation process taken care of, you have to plug in the wires to the modem at one end and the broadband filter at the other but that is it. New AOL users will now have to set up an account and choose a screen name and email address, as well as entering their credit card details. All I had to do was restart my computer and sign on in the usual way, all of my email addresses, password, address book and personal filing cabinet were intact and just as I had left them, the only way I could see that I had the broadband version of AOL was on the sign on screen where it told me my location was Home – Broadband.

So on with the fun, sign in took a matter of seconds and I was off and running with my brand new super fast internet connection. And boy is it fast! I clicked down my favourites list to test out the pace of loading on my tried and trusted websites, I do my banking online and the website was notoriously slow to load on my old dial up connection, but as soon as I pressed the mouse button the page was there on the screen before I had even released the pressure on my finger, Wow. Like a child with a new toy I played happily for hours, downloading large files that I didn’t really need just because I could. I found some decent web sites for film trailers and signed up to watch video highlights of my beloved Ipswich Town FC, I had truly arrived in broadband heaven.

But was my new connection safe and secure? Protection and safety is always an issue on the internet, and with an “always on” broadband connection the risk of attack from unscrupulous individuals is increased. With this in mind AOL have provided free McAfee firewall software for download for all of its broadband users. This download takes about two minutes to complete and is straight forward to install. Once installed the firewall asks the users permission every time a program, application or website tries to use the internet for any purpose. Depending on whether you want the said program or website to run on your computer you can either block access or enable full access as needs be, a very handy feature for reducing unsolicited pop ups and the like.

I use my computer for a lot of music and video downloading, and the download speeds I am enjoying with AOL broadband make this a far more pleasurable pursuit than in the bad old days of dial up. The best speed I have encountered so far is around 70 kbs (kilo bytes per second) which roughly translates to a 1MB file being downloaded in about fifteen seconds, and I can certainly live with those speeds. More typically though the connection balances out at about 50 kbs for downloads and 30 kbs for uploads, more than adequate for most needs. It is worth noting though that the speed you can expect will only be as good as the website or program you are using. An example being that I use P2P (Peer to Peer) download sites where users open up their hard-drives to share files. If a person has a file you want but they are only using a dial up connection it does not matter how fast your connection is as the speed will be limited by the slower upload speed from the dial up user. This problem is becoming rarer all the time though thanks to more and more people using broadband.

AOL has always been feature heavy with many channels and websites to visit and this is improved upon with broadband. Music videos can be watched while AOL radio features dozens of internet based radio stations counting for every possible taste. Because AOL is now conglomerated with Time Warner all of the latest Warner television shows and films are catered for with trailers and snippets. Add to this the ability to watch BBC News 24 updates on screen and sport highlights from around the globe and the exclusive content AOL provides looks very attractive indeed. Top this off with a free 24 hour helpline if you ever have any problems with your connection and it looks like AOL have thought of everything.

It’s the full five stars from me, I have had nothing but enjoyment from my AOL broadband connection, although I realise I have only had it for two weeks everything from set up to connection was smooth and easy, and that is surely all anybody wants when they are dipping their toe into the broadband market.
 

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