AOL Broadband 11/08/2008 (AOL Broadband)

Member Name: tomgibbes

Product:	AOL Broadband
Date:	11/08/08 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap, good speeds, I have had no speed reduction (fairly heavy user), message boards for help

Disadvantages: software rubbish, reputation from other reviewers as poor

I have been with AOL since the days of dialup. I am currently on the AOL silver package. This is an old package but for £14.99 I get 2 megabit speeds and "unlimited" usage.

I live approximately 1km from my phone exchange. On AOL's 2 megabit package, I get 2.1 megabits download speed. This exceeds the speed I am paying for. I tested my speed with www.speedtest.net.

The reliability of AOL broadband also seems good to me. I used to get connection drops often, however I have since bought a new modem (netgear DG834G) and I have never had a problem since. Therefore I believe my problems were caused by my old modem.

AOL provides you with the opportunity to host email addresses with them. The email addresses seem very good and I am yet to run out of space even with thousands of stored mail. The mail can be accessed from AOL's website or from their software. The software AOL provides is free and allows access to email and general web browsing. In my experience it is rubbish and should be avoided. It makes even the fastest PCs slow down. The browsing is also pretty slow compared to Firefox etc. AOL also have other services like message boards, this is very helpful if you have any problems with your broadband as there are users on the message boards often willing to help.

Unlimited broadband is never unlimited and if you have ever searched for broadband providers you will have most likely heard of the speed reducing etc when one goes over the "fair use policy" for how much you can download. AOL is an ISP that has earned itself a reputation as one of the bad guys when it comes to reducing your speed. However I have never experience throttling of my internet connection. I am by no means a light user either. I will download 60-100 GB of data a month. The connection often slows slightly at peak time but this is only 0.2 megabits or so, this is caused by the large amount of people signed on, not the ISP.

In conclusion I have to say that AOL has built up a reputation for being a poor ISP. I am not saying the people with these stories are liars but I have never had any problems with my internet connection whilst I have been a member of AOL.

Summary: Seems good to me.