You might think that all ISPs are the same but they're not. Consider a superior ISP that will give you great service and free gifts for signing up. Stop and think for a minute. Just how happy are you with your current Internet Service Provider? Are you having any trouble logging on? Do you ... Read review
Advantages: good content, no logon problems Disadvantages: slow mail server
...covers BT (at £9.99) and LineOne (at £5), and gives me unlimited off peak access. This means you could easily spend 200 hours a month online without worrying about the cost. Other access packages are also available. What’s more if you sign up now you can choose a CD-Rom valued at up to £30, and get a £5 voucher for amazon. (You might want to see my article on amazon.) A separate promotion through ipoints will give you 50 ipoints and a holiday ... more
You might think that all ISPs are the same but they're not. Consider a superior ISP that will give you great service and free gifts for signing up. Stop and think for a minute. Just how happy are you with your current Internet Service Provider? Are you having any trouble logging on? Do you fail three or four times before you get through? Is the portal content dull as ditchwater? Ever get the feeling all they want is your money, and once they have it they don’t want to know? How about trying an ISP that will give you a free CD-Rom and a £5 amazon voucher just for joining?
Of course you want quality as well, and that is what you get with LineOne. Since signing up in January I have been online virtually every day, often logging on four or five times a night. I have never failed to be connected first time. When you get online you find an interesting portal page with current news items, financial information etc. There are a series of links to separate pages covering Sport, Shopping, Money, Travel, Entertainment, Games, Kids, Learning, Motoring, Lifestyles, Business and Technology. You can set your preferences to open in any one of these sections. The content is good and detailed and is updated at least daily. There is also a Communities section full of discussion groups and news groups.
Navigation is easy. The layout is straightforward and everything is intuitive. The speed of loading new pages is generally good with the exception of the mail page. This is the major let down of LineOne. It is a web based mail page with is slow and cumbersome to operate. If having web mail suits you because you are always on the move then fine, but for the rest of us it is a drag. The only possible advantage it offers is an instant messenger, which is handy if you use that sort of thing – I don’t. So basically I don’t really rate the email option. There are better web based email providers available if that’s what you want. The good news is that if you don’t like it then it is dead easy to replace it with Outlook Express (if you already have it – and who doesn’t?). If you’re not very good at adjusting options and settings you just need to follow the step by step instructions in the really useful online Help section to guide you through it.
The cost of this quality service is ridiculously low – I have signed up as part of the BT Surf Together package. My phone bill is charged £14.99 p/m, which covers BT (at £9.99) and LineOne (at £5), and gives me unlimited off peak access. This means you could easily spend 200 hours a month online without worrying about the cost. Other access packages are also available. What’s more if you sign up now you can choose a CD-Rom valued at up to £30, and get a £5 voucher for amazon. (You might want to see my article on amazon.) A separate promotion through ipoints will give you 50 ipoints and a holiday voucher for £350. If you are considering a change of ISP this is the time to make it and LineOne is the one to choose.
Advantages: a satisfying and loving realtionship Disadvantages: 50p per minute helpline costs
...options, but I plumped for LineOne SurfTime, because of the twinkle in it's eyes.
For a first date I had a look at the LineOne website to see whether me and LineOne were suited, and I have to say we hit it off pretty well. LineOne said that if I joined SurfTime they would give me a £5 Amazon voucher and a CD-ROM (The Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia). LineOne said the encyclopedia was worth £29.99, but that seems a shallow boast. LineOne also tried ... ...still wasn't sure and maybe LineOne could phone me in a couple of days.
The next day I got an e-mail from LineOne, asking me to commit myself to a relationship. Here's a transcript of the letter:
Dear Jonathan,
What can I, LineOne, offer you? 1. I will give you 5 free e-mail addresses, although admittedly these are quite slow and tedious to use, so you're probably best off using another e-mail provider.
2. I will give you 50MB of web space.
...
jonathancowley 18.07.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Lineone
Advantages: none Disadvantages: good chance of getting caught
...settings had been
changed to Lineone but no information about the special dialler box. This took a call to Lineone
to be told the offer
had expired three weeks previously , which i find annoying as the magazine was only issued
eighteen days previous to
my call ,this is something Lineone could easily posted on their web pages but chose not to.
consequentially catching
prospective clients .
This practice is devious to say the least as lots ...
mikegold 10.08.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Lineone
Advantages: reliable service Disadvantages: suffers occasional disconnections
Lineone have provided me so far with a trouble free service and offer a very competitive deal. I am on the unlimited weekend and off peak tariff and apart from the odd disconnection has been trouble free.
I 've read a lot of the reports on Ciao about Lineone and they are taking some stick over the quip debacle.
But don't let that cloud the issue.
Regarding the disconnection thing . Let's be honest how many ISP's provide a totally 100 percent trouble ... ...trying to make is Ok Lineone are not perfect but is anything ?
We must compare like with like to get a fair comparison and with me so far ( touch wood ) everything has been fine.
I nearly always get through initially at the first time of asking even at so called busy times and the company have always answered my questions quickly within two days even at weekends.
For me this is impressive .
Perhaps they are not as glamorous as some ISP's but ...
Gardenex 08.02.2001 (16.02.2001)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Lineone
Advantages: Good connection speed, pretty reliable Disadvantages: Poor customer support, impossible to cancel Surftime over the phone, 50p per minute tech support
...get BT (who part own LineOne & also Quip), to collect the money via your phone bill. £5.99 goes to BT for the Surtime Evening & Weekend package and £4.00 goes to Lineone as a service subscription fee.
The first few months of Surftime were great. However, just after Christmas, BTInternet announced their new deal, based on FRIACO, which offered true unmetered calls for a flat fee. Great, I thought, and signed up almost immediately.
Once I had confirmed ... ...I had to cancel the Lineone fee, through Lineone. I telephoned Lineone customer support and heres a transcription.
ME - I'd like to cancel my Lineone account please.
LINEONE - Ok, but you can only cancel your Lineone Surftime account via e-mail.
ME - What? Why can't you do it over the phone?
LINEONE - We don't have the facilities to cancel Surftime accounts.
ME - (Incredulous) All right then can I have the e-mail address please?
LINEONE - surftime-query@lineone.net
...
cjkace 21.03.2001 (17.05.2001)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Lineone
Advantages: 50 free ipoints for signing up Disadvantages: Terrible service,Terrible customer support, the worst ISP I've used
Lineone offer local call rate access (who wants that!) which is totally free or lineone surftime meaning free internet calls at offpeak times(evenings,weekends) for a fee of £10 a month with peak access only charged at 1p a minute.
I subscribed to their surftime package as I'd got pretty sick of hearing engaged tones on IC24 and X-Stream, the monthly fee of £10 sounded OK but the service is laughable - Lineone reserve the right to terminate your ... ...for "the rental of the lineone surftime service" and a further £25 for "exchange line and linebox" - I haven't used any linebox and I haven't exchanged any lines. This is the worst experience I've had with any ISP and certainly the most costly, the ONLY useful thing about Lineone is that you'll get 50 free ipoints and discount vouchers for signing up. ...
sheez 14.03.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Lineone
Service poor, Customer Service unreliable, constantly changing terms and conditions, sign-up promotional material does not reflect ongoing problems (*)
good value for money unmetered 24hours a day, £15 of free phone calls for BT customers in non-NTL area
technical support at £1/min, response to e-mails is slow, communication between departments & customer service is poor, almost impossible to leave/en (*)
