Anyone Know A Good UK IS Provider? Annoyed AOL User Requests One.

Second Life itself causes a heavy download rate. Estimates vary, but, on average, I think you need to allow something in the order of 100Mb to 150Mb download per hour of SL.

If your download limited is capped at, say, 10Gb then you have approximately 3 hours a day on SL before next months' bandwidth will be throttled.

And ofc, this does not include any other web usage, nor does it include any uploads you do (which are counted towards your 'download' limit).

I am with Talk Talk and had the log in problem on Tuesday (30/9). What I dont understand with all of this is.....

I couldnt log in to SL with my main account....and the SL website was very slow but I DID get into my account there. But I COULD log in to SL as my alt...straight away as normal...from the same PC with the same connection 2 minutes after trying with my main one.....

Other family members also logged in as normal with their accounts using the same broadband connection.

Now I know I am in SL much more than they are...but would an ISP monitor the length of time a particular user is on a particular site? Rather than a particular IP address.....my main account and alt must run from the same IP address if they are on the same PC? I think?

So if its an ISP problem then why was it most of the log ins worked from our house except one? I dont understand how it all works but it kind of tells me it is a problem with where the accounts are held at Linden Labs. And maybe because in the relative scheme of things there arent actually that many of us with the problem then Lindens cant be bothered to sort it out?

To wash their hands of the problem is disgraceful though - whoever is at fault.....we are their customers and we all pay alot of fees to them every month.....I would expect some sort of liaison between Linden Labs and the ISPs - a bit of pressure from a big company might be more productive than a lot of random phonecalls from irate and stressed out users.

One thing I have got - and I will try it IF I cant log in at any time - is a Mobile Broadband USB modem on the 3 Network. I dont know if they are affiliated in any way with AOL but it will be worth a try to see if it works with that if it doesnt with TalkTalk - I will keep you all posted.

Oh and another thing I have done.....as soon as you manage to log in ....uncheck your 'log me out after 30 minutes inactivity' box......and stay logged in.....then see if it throws you out in the evening....touch wood mine didnt and I was logged in all day yesterday.....

Best of luck everyone........I know how you are feeling......

I have not had any throttling on BT Option 3 and download in the region of 50 to 70Gb a month.

However, I can imagine if someone is 24/7 downloading films, P2P, music etc...especially if it is suspected that it is commercial rather than domestic, then BT would throttle.

For my own interest I'd be interested in reading the links you are refering to, as my renewal is in 6 months or so and I'd like to be prepared.

Very few UK ISP's are offering a service where they will not throttle your service under some circumstance or another. The BT Option 3 seemed to me at the time to be the best choice, and I haven't had a reason so far to think otherwise. Fingers-crossed.

I refuse to phone AOL but I did speak to someone in the live chat help section just a few minutes ago. I did ask directly about capping the line but he assures me that the problem is due to the recent issues SL solved and it is nothing to do with AOL though the problem has been reported to their techs who are trying to find a way to fix the log in issues.

I wasn't impressed though when he asked me if I had checked the SL status page first for issues!!!!!!

I told him I hope he is right because if the problem continues I'll be signing up to a new ISP very soon because this is not acceptable. I am not convinced it isn't line capping but maybe a threat to leave helped. If not I will leave even if I still can't log into SL in the evenings I don't make false threats and like to make a stand where possible.

Well it isn't evening yet and I'm having the same problem. Stuck at "logging in..." Is anyone else on Virgin broadband having a problem with it? Or am I special?

Do Linden read these posts and reply to them? A response of some sort on this would be great. I may play the "free" version of SL, and many would think I have no right to complain over something I get for free, but I have spent a lot of money playing this game. Each time I upload money I am paying to play the game.

I have a business to run in Second Life, and if I can't even get online to do anything, then what is the point? I'm still not a happy bunny.

Hi again, having probs again 2.30 pm GNT logging in - I kicked my router a few times and have ow managed to get in. Rang AOL this moring asked them to check about capping on downloads and they assured me this was not the case and told me to keep unplugigng my router if i have any more probs...ppppft!

I went out for a few hours real world and when I got back I was able to again log in as this morning-this time at 4.10pm UK time. It's now 8pm UK time and I am still logged in but that is because I didn't dare log log out. I have however noticed a very big drop in performance since 6pm UK time.

So we both contacted AOL and got told different things. No huge surprise there then! I shall change ISP if this continues though because I'd rather AOL lost a customer than got away with this capping if it is peak time capping.

As I mentioned above, it took 2 months (and *many* phone calls) before AOL UK came clean and admitted to throttling my line.

They eventually admitted it after I sent them a spreadsheet detailing broadband speed tests taken four times a day over 2 weeks:

5:55pm - consistantly a good connection
6:05pm - consistantly a poor connection
11:55pm - consistantly a poor connection
12:05am - consistantly a good connection

Up until that point they had waffled and mis-informed and mis-lead....

See

http://www.speedtest.net/

for a quick and easy speed test. Note, however, that using this facility will go against your monthly download allowance..

Found the Watchdog link posted earlier very useful. It seems just a few weeks ago Sky broadband stopped their "Fair use policy" on the max line. Gotta have Sky Digital tv to be able to use it, but I have that. And works out cheaper than what I'm paying now. Hmmm, tempting...

Anybody have good or bad things to say about Sky broadband?

Am playing SL okay tonight. But maybe its because I logged in earlier this afternoon. And like stated before, I'm not logging out just in case! lol

I am not very figure savvy-but here are the results from the speed test I just took. I'll take another sometime during tomorow morning and then compare the two.

DL = 504 KBS
UL = 121 KBS

I am still in SL but as I said I too logged in this afternoon before any capping time might have kicked in-hopefully I'll remain in until I wish to log out and not crash out.

I sadly don't have Sky and I can't really afford one of their TV packages. Do some research and if they are a pretty good ISP then it might be worth switching.

For the purposes of this test, only the DownLoad speed is important.

512Kbs = Half-a-Mega Byte, and is the AOL UK throttle speed (last I talked to them on this)

Your test gave a DN of 504Kbs (slightly lower than the throttle speed), which would indicate your line is being throttled (assuming ofc that you are paying for a broadband of more than half-mega).

If the speed jumps up tommorrow, then it looks increasingly likely that your line is being throttled, but only a series of speed tests could prove it conclusively.

I dont know anything about the SKY package, sorry.

The only reason I can think of for AOL having choaked my line is because over the last few weeks due to a faulty VCR I have been watching some programs on the BBC iplayer.

Clearly the fact I have been a customer of theirs for the last five years at least means nothing. Due to their slyness regarding this matter I still plan to change ISP as I pay for AOL Broadband Gold and I am clearly now not getting it. And invest in a new VCR (the lowest priced one-I am on a budget like many) so this issue doesn't arise again with whoever I decide to move to.

Edit:
Having just had a closer look at the options available on BT and noticed that the BT Option 3 does in fact have the Fair Useage Policy in place. They do for all their broadband packages including those classed as unlimited.

And for the record at 12.28am UK time I did another speedcheck and here is the comparrison:

9.30pm DL speed 504 KBS
12.28am DL speed 1920 KBS

Really those two tests speak volumes and tell me all I need to know.

BT's Option 3 Fair Usage policy does seem to be applied fairly sensibly - I usually run SL for 6-8 hours per day and it's never caused them to cap me, even with quite a bit of downloading video, streaming music, etc, on top of SL. Speed is generally reasonably close to the advertised as well, and I've had very few problems.

The customer service has been fairly good on the rare occassions I've needed it. Only problems have been with getting it set up in the first place, at my old address it took 4 weeks for them to get the router to me, at my current address it took 3 weeks for them to turn on the line (but it was a new build which their database said didn't exist).

There's quite a lot of stuff on the internet suggesting BT are not very good as an ISP - I think a lot of this is historical, we had a lot of problems at work when we switched to BT 4-5 years ago, but in the last 2-3 years they seem to have got things working much better.

Thank you very much for the info Wulfric. I used to be with BT before AOL back when I was on dial up and most of the time found them to provide quite a good service. At least with BT they are up front about the fact they use the Fair Useage Policy where as AOL are not. The guy I talked to tried to blame anything except AOL and avoided answering when I asked the direct question of are you capping my line during peak times?

I'm away this weekend but will set about changing over to BT when I return and be much more careful about what I do on line in future. I now have no trust in AOL at all. If I didn't use SL it wouldn't matter but being locked out of it during my evenings matters a lot.

Until a month ago I was waith Virgin and noticed that at 4pm every day my connection speed took a dive at one stage it was slower than dial up! Virgin were so very helpful when i reached breaking point and called them (not!) agreeing with my speed test readings they advised that I needed to go to to the BT website and use the 'official' BT connection speed tester which would officially log my dire connection speeds. Only trouble was that the connection was so bad the BT web page would not load!!!! (gets out his copy of Catch 22).

Anyway what the nice folk at Virgin forgot to tell me was that hidden away on their website was a page advising of their line throttling policy which when i eventually discovered this stated that from 4pm each day to 10/11pm they would 'spread the load' amongst users.

I have now changed ISP's and decided to pay a little more and got a Business connection package with matched my virgin one (ie unlimited and up to 8meg) but with the added advantage of a lower line connection of 20 to 1 rather than 50 to 1 users for domestic customers. As a consequence i get a constant 6400kps upload speed 24 hours a day and SL has never been so easy to use (when its not having its own difficulties!)

However, it hacks me off that I have had to do this having not got the expected service that I assumed i was paying for with Virgin, and that they seemed to be keeoing quiet about their throttling activities.

Yep. this is my experience too.

I know from previous UK ISP thread's that both Wulfric & I are heavy internet users (by domestic standards), with lots of hours on SL per day & other internet download activities. That neither of us have so far been throttled using BT Option 3 should be encouraging...But who knows what policy changes may occur in the future...

When I signed up for Option 3, BT assured me that the "Fair Usage Policy" was only in place on Option 3 to guard against commercial organisations purchasing this option rather than a proper business line. So far this appears to the true...

Regardless, rest assured that BT Option 3 it is a hellva lot better than the rubbish that AOL UK are serving out to their UK customers....

At least your problem is sorted out Billy though I agree you shouldn't have to pay for a buisness account just to get the service you expected and were paying for from Virgin. If I could afford such an account I too would get a buisness one but it would be out of my price range.

Thank you again Debbie. I shall read all through the BT stuff again and give them a call to start the ball rolling. As you said the service has to be far better than AOL-and at least they tell the truth if they do it!

I highly recommend them. Ditch AOL who are absolutely useless. Freedom to Surf is owned by Tiscali but are run as an independent franchise and are a great bunch of people. Talk to them about what package to take and don't worry about the limits - they have a real Fair Usage Policy and will not penalise you for going over like some do. You will notce such a difference in download speeds with F2S compared with the 'unlimited' usage providers.

if you do join up then can you tell them the user 'alisonraimes' recommended you.

Thank you very much for the info. I have obtained my MAC code from AOL and will now have a good look and think at the options available over the next couple of days before I sign up for a new provider.

But rest assured it's bye bye AOHell!

I am in the UK and use AOL and have not had a problem.I am logged in 24/7 almost, using various alts ,and sleek.I wonder if it is more a region location problem.I am in a small low population fishing village and as far as I know the only person here using AOL.Seems strange.

AOL may well not believe you are a high user and therefore have not choaked your line as they have mine and maybe others who use SL. I am currently logged into the game and pray I do not crash because once again my speed is so poor (it became vastly reduced at 6pm) I will not be able to log back in)