Northern Ireland, Rural Exchange - AOL User

butterflymum

Sticking this in Northern Ireland board, as interested to know if any local AOL broadband users here, especially if on a rural exchange, have been having any problems of late?

I've been with them for years, same rural location throughout, but this past few months, service has been dreadful to say the least, with constant dropped connections etc. Have run telephone line check, modem diagnostic and network diagnostic, and all seem fine. No recent equipment changes and all connections etc seem ok.

yorkie98

Try swapping your ADSL filter, sometimes these degrade otherwise it sounds like an external line issue and a call to tech support will be needed. All line tests that you would be able to do would be from a voice perspective, the ISP will be able to run much more detailed tests from a broadband perspective.

sandraann

I'm in a rural location and aol has worked really well for us recently.My only issue is that the router only covers a very small part of the house and when i purchased another router aol always used that as an excuse for any issues i had.I would also have liked them to be a bit more honest about major outage issues rather than telling me it was due to me using a router they hadn't supplied.
Recently it has been good so i'd agree with the comments of the previous poster.

yorkie98

sandraann wrote: »

I'm in a rural location and aol has worked really well for us recently.My only issue is that the router only covers a very small part of the house and when i purchased another router aol always used that as an excuse for any issues i had.I would also have liked them to be a bit more honest about major outage issues rather than telling me it was due to me using a router they hadn't supplied.
Recently it has been good so i'd agree with the comments of the previous poster.

Poor wireless coverage is usually a frequency occupancy issue, changing the wireless channel cures poor coverage in 99% of cases.
The rason your new router worked better was simply that it was defaulted to a different wireless channel from the AOL one.

butterflymum

Thanks for input from you both.....yes, I was planning to purchase new filters to check if they were the problem, but thought I would post first to gauge folks experience locally.

I had been reading TalkTalk forums (AOL is a part of Talk Talk albeit does not have similar forums for itself) and noticed that almost on a daily basis recently, lots of folks were posting with similar experiences to mine regarding dropped connections etc. Many had, like me, gone through various checks of their equipment, connections, etc, and I just thought it odd that, despite so many posts with similar issues, they were all being looked at on individual basis. Now, I could be wide of the mark, but I find it hard to imagine so many folks having filter or such problems over the same timescale, and did think it was more likely to be an ISP issue instead. As most of those posting on the TalkTalk forum seemed to be from the mainland, I was therefore keen to see if folks here, especially those on rural exchanges, were having similar issues. The forum board in question being:

http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=37

where as I say, a quick glance of even just the past week or two worth of posts, would suggest an awful lot of folks are have very similar problems at the same time which, in most cases, are being blamed on their equipment, rather than an ISP issue.

PS
Just thought I would say, sandrann, if you continue with wireless issues, have you thought of using homeplugs instead of or as an alternative when wireless plays up? We chose not to have wireless at home and have found homeplugs to be a great alternative.

thetope

i live in a rural exchange that has no LLU providers and until this week was with AOL. since the beginning of the year the service has dropped in speed from a maximum of about 1.5mb to 512k. the service was also dropping quite frequently with the "speedtouch' router page coming up. however, our exchange got upgraded to bt infinity so we switched this week. now getting almost 40mb/s and paying less than we paid AOL. can't recommend it highly enough!

butterflymum

Interesting, thanks. Was reading an advert about the new BT Infinity in NI....must check out the situation with our exchange.

yorkie98

The rollout of Fibre boradband in NI is being paid for by the assembly and as such is happening at a much faster rate than in the rest of the UK.
A very large part of NI is already running and the rest will be following soon. There are several sites which can tell you if you can get it, be careful though, you'll need to do a number check as even if your exchange shows as enabled, your local cabinet also needs to be enabled.
If you see (or have seen) a company called KN Network Services digging near your local BT cabinet and installing a bigger green cabinet nearby, then it's coming soon.

The most up to date list of NI enabled exchanges I can find is below, but remember, this does not mean that every cabinet connected to these exchanges is necessarily enabled yet.

Aghalee, Ahoghill, Annaghmore, Antrim, Ardglass, Armagh, Aughnacloy, Ballycastle, Ballyclare, Ballygowan, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Ballynahinch, Ballyronan, Ballysillan, Ballywalter, Banbridge, Bangor NI, Belfast Balmoral, Belfast City, Bessbrook, Bready, Brook Hall, Bushmills, Campsie, Carrickfergus, Carryduff, Castlederg, Castlereagh, Castlerock, Castlewellan, Claudy, Coagh, Coleraine, Cookstown, Cregagh, Cross, Crossgar, Dervock, Donaghadee, Donaghmore, Downpatrick, Dromara, Dundonald, Dungannon, Dungiven, Eglinton, Enniskillen, Feeny, Fivemiletown, Fortwilliam, Garvagh, Gilford, Glengormley, Helens Bay, Hillsborough, Irvinestown, Keady, Kells, Kilkeel, Killeavy, Kilrea, Kircubbin, Larne, Limavady, Lisbellaw, Lisburn, Londonderry, Lurgan, Maghera, Magherafelt, Malone, Markethill, Maze, Millisle, Moira, Moy, Newcastle, Newry, Newtonstewart, Newtownards, Omagh, Ormeau, Portadown, Portaferry, Portavogie, Portglenone, Portrush, Portstewart, Randalstown, Rasharkin, Richhill, Rostrevor, Saintfield, Sion Mills, Stormont, Strabane, Swatragh, Tandragee, Templepatrick, Toomebridge, Waringstown, Warrenpoint, Waterside, Whiteabbey, Whitehead.

thetope

i've posted this before and i found it to be much more accurate than bt's own race to infinity website about when and where cabinets are being upgraded when i was waiting for ours to finally be ready

have a look at http://www.fasterbroadbandni.com/ (click the purple "find more about the cabinet rollout" button further down the page)

(courtesy of poster Sandlake on the BT infinity thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...light=infinity )

for example, my exchange isn't on the list that yorkie's posted above

yorkie98

I Knew there was a better NI specific site with much more info but it was bookmarked on my old PC, thanks for bringing this back to me.

butterflymum

Firstly, thanks, yorkie.......although I had checked BT infinity website after sandraan reminded me about it, and frustratingly my exchange was not one of those that appeared on their list as being up and running (or your list) and it also said it was not on planned roll-out in coming 6 months, I did remember seeing the company you mentioned working at our local cabinet, so...., and thank you thetope...... I have now checked the fasterbroadbandni site and low and behold, our cabinet is ready! So I will be looking into the pros and cons of switching provider (and, of course, the costs).

Afterthought:

the fasterbroadbandni site talks about business users, and says as a result of project there may be benefits to domestic/residential users but this is not guaranteed..........maybe this is why the btinfinity website gives a different list.... .....would be annoying if only businesses near the cabinet could make use of the service, rather than private individuals.