Surely its "Small-monthly-ch arge-serve" (Freeserve)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Freeserve
Date:	13/01/01 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, fairly good service

Disadvantages: Sometimes: hard to connect, slow, unstable connections

I’ve been online for a few years now, and I’ve tried about 4 internet service providers (ISP’s) in that time, but I’ve always come back to Freeserve.

Is this because they are an excellent company who provide an excellent service? Well, back in the days when they were “free” and we were all slaves to the might of the phone companies every month or quarter, I have to say that I’ve had no problems with them whatsoever.

I did try AOL briefly (about 2 days), and then I tried BT Internet (because they were one of the first to offer “unlimited” surfing at a small monthly cost – at the time £9.99) and they were quite good as well.

Now I have to say at this time, I was quite happy with both services (BT and Freeserve) but I wouldn’t have said that either service was head and shoulders above the other.

I went back to Freeserve because at the time, BT had started offering the SurfTime packages, and using that with Freeserve was cheaper than using the BT Internet one, and I had the added incentive of keeping the Freeserve e-mail address which everyone already had, and I wouldn’t have to give a new one out to everyone again.

At the start everything was grand… easy connections, good speeds etc. just like old times. But then, once the SurfTime packages started getting popular, I found it harder and harder to connect to Freeserve, never mind connect first time. Sometimes, it was well over an hour before I was getting connected, and then to add to the frustration, I was being disconnected before I’d even downloaded any of my mail!

Since Freeserve have stopped some heavy users from using their account, the service has gotten better, but it’s still not at the level it was at this time last year (Jan 2000). Sometimes it can take a while to get connected, and yes, sometimes the connection drops out after less than 5 minutes, leaving you redialli
ng for another 20 mins to get a connection, and sometimes the connection speeds aren’t that great.

But, overall, for the paltry sum I’m paying every month, I’m quite happy with the service, especially seeing as Freeserve seem to be doing something about it (although a recent newsletter in my inbox states that they’re re-opening bookings for unlimited accounts again…)

There are two problems I have with this serve though, and this may seem like nit picking really, but…

1) Any queries I’ve had have not been answered by email customer service – is this a ploy to make me phone them at £1 / min? I usually get replies back after a few days that say “Sorry this dept. can’t handle that question…” No mention of passing it onto someone who can – you have to take your chances with another of their email addresses. (Note: Don’t switch on delivery receipts while sending mail to Freeserve – you end up getting about 8 back from 1 mail as it gets passed around)

2) I’m currently sending e-mails all over the world looking for information on travelling etc. but the e-mail server clocks are not timestamping my incoming mail with the right time, so I have no idea when mail is being delivered, and I hope that my outgoing mail is being timestamped properly.

But overall, it’s a good service, provides fair value for money, and could be improved.

Summary: