aol

[tris-]

how can they afford to give away free laptops? they must cost a couple hundred each, and their service costs fuck all, so surely theyre making a loss?

 

[Aoami]

Dunno, but their internet isn't as bad as it used to be either.

 

[Lamp]

Microsoft are looking to acquire AOL
Should fetch them a few quid

(Heard it on the BBC news)

 

[soze]

I might have to change bank accounts because of aol. When my card got scammed AOL was one of the charges and despite the card being destroyed AOL are still charging me. My Bank say they can't stop it so unless Visa can i will either have to swap accounts or keep paying them.

And they were useless about it so i would never touch them even with a free laptop.

 

[Bahumat]

I heard you had to agree to their broadband services for a year or 2...so they'll get you some way or another.

Nothing is ever free

 

[Sharma]

The laptops aren't half bad!

The AOL service these days is a lot better than what NTL ever actually offered us! Granted speeds up and down like a whore's knickers sometimes but compared to NTL who have regular outages, HORRIBLE customer service (I swear to god every single person I talked to, didn't know wtf they were on about and told ME I was wrong!).

My dad's using the laptop now for all his work stuff and hasn't had a complaint really.

Also tris, they aren't necessarily losing money if they have a deal with dell for marketing purposes since a larger installed user base for dell = PROFIT!

Subtle advertising, there's money in it for both sides..

/edit: You need to have been on for a year already in order to get the offer iirc..

 

[ileks]

Dunno about AoL, but avoid BT internet. They throttle my connection at around 7pm-12pm, so i can't even watch something on youtube torrents cap at 10kb/s too.
Anyone else on a different provider get this?

 

[Laddey]

Dunno about AoL, but avoid BT internet. They throttle my connection at around 7pm-12pm, so i can't even watch something on youtube torrents cap at 10kb/s too.
Anyone else on a different provider get this?

Yeh im on virgin and i'm lucky if i get 20kb/s during the day, after 8pm gmt i can get up to 200kb/s on a decent seeded/tracked torrent

 

[Jeros]

heh wow, people running aol and vista on dell computers must be bread and butter for computer support types

 

[Chronictank]

how can they afford to give away free laptops? they must cost a couple hundred each, and their service costs fuck all, so surely theyre making a loss?

minimum 12 month contracts, £20 p month = £240
plus revenue from the enforced browser (which most people dont know how to turn off) etc..

laptop is worth £100-£150, they will make their money back/profit

 

[Litmus]

Yeh im on virgin and i'm lucky if i get 20kb/s during the day, after 8pm gmt i can get up to 200kb/s on a decent seeded/tracked torrent

I dont understand that, im on ntl too and never get any speed decrease what ever the time... always around about 2mb/sec max depending on the host.

Do you dl alot of stuff? like 3gb a day, because that will take you over their "fare useage" thing and they will cap your connection... even still you should get more then 20k/sec(i still get 500k/sec when caped)

 

[Chronictank]

Yeh im on virgin and i'm lucky if i get 20kb/s during the day, after 8pm gmt i can get up to 200kb/s on a decent seeded/tracked torrent

they traffic shape, all peer to peer traffic gets throttled
also be careful about downloading torrents on virgin, aparently they cancel subscriptions if you have been downloading illegal stuff on a 3 strike system

 

[Laddey]

I dont understand that, im on ntl too and never get any speed decrease what ever the time... always around about 2mb/sec max depending on the host.

Do you dl alot of stuff? like 3gb a day, because that will take you over their "fare useage" thing and they will cap your connection... even still you should get more then 20k/sec(i still get 500k/sec when caped)

Fuck knows why, i've been dowloading something which is around 2gb, it has over 100 seeds and im lucky if i get over 20kb/s on it. I havn't a clue why, i've been doing loads of shit to adjust it like encrypting stuff so they wont cap it. Vista sux for torrents i hear.

they traffic shape, all peer to peer traffic gets throttled
also be careful about downloading torrents on virgin, aparently they cancel subscriptions if you have been downloading illegal stuff on a 3 strike system

Yeh i also heard that, virgin seems a pile of shite anyway they would give me an excuse to move ISP's if they banned me.

 

[Golena]

We live in the UK, therefore our internet sucks!

 

[Sharma]

plus revenue from the enforced browser (which most people dont know how to turn off) etc..

While this is largely true, for the most part people don't know that you can just plug the modem in and then the computer and it generally works out of the box.

It's a shame they don't say this mind, would save them and the customers a *lot* of headaches.

 

[Sharma]

they traffic shape, all peer to peer traffic gets throttled
also be careful about downloading torrents on virgin, aparently they cancel subscriptions if you have been downloading illegal stuff on a 3 strike system

While offering usenet subscriptions instead!

Irony at it's best!

 

[Calaen]

Yeh i also heard that, virgin seems a pile of shite anyway they would give me an excuse to move ISP's if they banned me.

I have been with virgin for 7 years not a bad word to say about them, when I had problems it was dealt with in a timely fashion and I was compensated with free months if ever there was a major loss of service.

I have also been downloading torrents for years and I have never had any warning at all.

 

[Marc]

AOL Are wankers I would never ever use them again. Joanna Lumley can kiss my hairy arse.

 

[Raven]

I have been with virgin for 7 years not a bad word to say about them, when I had problems it was dealt with in a timely fashion and I was compensated with free months if ever there was a major loss of service.

I have also been downloading torrents for years and I have never had any warning at all.

Same, or well, had them before I moved to an area that they don't cover. got 3 months once as compensation for them fucking up our installation when we moved. They said three times an engineer would be coming out all three times they didn't turn up, three days off work wasted.

 

[Aoami]

Same as anywhere though, you stay a customer long enough and they start to treat you like a King!

 

[Binky the Bomb]

At one stage all I thought AOL did was make shiney beer coasters. Apparently, they also provide internet access. Learning is fun.