Perfect 0845 access (freeola.com)

Member Name: pickles

Product:	freeola.com
Date:	16/07/01 (376 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free, Fully Featured, Fast

Disadvantages: None

www.freeola.com
I went through a number of 0845 access, 'Pay as you go' style ISPs when I first got connected, when these services were only just popping up, Freeserve being the first.
These days there are 100s, if not 1000s of services which charge no subscription fee, with your time online being charged at local rate through your phone bill. This is obviously great for light Internet users who don't want to spend hours chatting, downloading MP3s or reading long jokes. For those who just want to send/receive email and check the odd web-site, this service will obviously work out cheaper than services with no phone bills, but charging a monthly fee for off-peak, or 24/7 access.
The trouble is, with these services being so easy for companies to offer, many places offer them without adding any extras and providing bad customer service or speed.
FreeOla however, are one company that have set out to offer a real service, and succeeded. As well as being able to have as many email addresses as you like, you can access newsgroups through their servers and host a website with them. The meaning of their name is Free OnLine Access by the way.
Email is POP/SMTP access only, so there’s no webmail service, but that does keep your mail securely. You can access the POP (receiving) mail on any connection, but you have to be dialled up to FreeOla to access the SMTP (sending) function.
The 'classmail' email service is one of the great attractions of FreeOla. If you don't want fred@freeola.com as an email address then that's where this is great, as you can choose over 1000 domains (the bit after the @). There are a great range of ideas, with sports (arsenelfans.com, blackbelts.co.uk), jobs (ukretailers.com, bondgirls.co.uk), music (jazzfans.co.uk, hendrixfans.co.uk) just plain daft (zombies.co.uk, theworldslongestemailaddress.co.uk) and plenty more functional ones.
These are particularly useful if you wish to use the UNLIMIT
ED web space available. For FTP access to your space, you must again be dialled up to FreeOla, also you can only use the web-space on one name per account. So if your email address is fred@freeola.com, your web address will be www.fred.freeola.com, but if you also register fred@catlovers.co.uk, you will not be able have www.fred.catlovers.co.uk as a separate site. What will happen is that when you upload your space you will be able to view the site using any address, but you cannot have separate content on separate addresses. Of course the simple remedy to this is sign up for two accounts, so the user number you are assigned is different.
Newsgroup access is pretty standard, using NNTP through an email program. As with the other services, you need to be dialled up to FreeOla to access it, and the program will need your number and password.
Needless to say, you can get connected first time every time, you don't get cut off, and if any parts of the service are down, you can see what's happening on a 'network status' page.

Basically FreeOla offers all the services you’d expect from an old style, paid for service, but without ever paying FreeOla a penny. If local rate acces is what you need, then FreeOla is what you need.

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