Forum Topic

AOl in Ealing

I was without my AOL broadband connection for 30 hours from mid-afternoon on Tuesday. When I rang tech support they said it had been a 'catastrophic' failure of the cables and emergency repairs were being done. When I tried to ask if the repair would get rid of the intermittent problems Ive been having for the past month, the man just talked over me so I couldn't get a word in edgeways. Did everyone else in Ealing have this outage as I don't really believe a word they tell me any more?

Susan Kelly ● 6762d20 Comments

I had sky internet problems about that time.  Fortunately my neice was staying over so she talked to sky and they directed her to the reset button on the black box.  Everything's been allright since then. Very often if the TV or something goes all funny, just by switching everything off at the mains seems to make it work again.  Spooky.

Barbara Yerolemou ● 6761d

I've noticed a few strange interuptions with my computer recently - I'm with Tiscali.

Gerry Tan ● 6761d

We were told exactly the same by AOL yesterday and, like you, I don't believe a word they say any more.  In this case maybe they were actually telling the truth.But with regard to the usual terrible speeds and intermitant service we've had enough and are changing internet provider.

Jane Salisbury ● 6761d

Susan, i told you to Dump Aol on the W4 site.Have Virgin now and is so Fast,well Pleased..

Hugh Telford ● 6761d

I was asking about this specific incident, Hugh, but I may well do just that.

Susan Kelly ● 6761d

We too were affected Tuesday before last for 2 days and couldn't get online. Couldn't find a phone number for AOL that worked anymore so my other half ended up going back into the office to talk to the AOL help online. They had the cheek to say they had emailed us about the problem. EMAIL??? Did they not understand we wouldn't get the email saying our service was down, as we couldn't get online as their rubbish service was down!!! Genius!Anyway same story about a server failure, but miraculously after alot of argueing they eventually talked us through changing some settings on the router, to pick up the teporary server they were using and were advised we would have no more probs. Suprise, suprise, come Tuesday this week again no service. Eventually found someone who had a valid number for them, then Spoke to half of India in their various call centres, who only speak as per the script no matter what question you ask!!! Anyway told me it would be fixed in 2 hours... 2 hours later.... it would be fixed in another 2 hours. 4 hours later.... they said why didn't I try again in 4 hours - by this point it would have been 3 am. Now theres nothing like a nice convienient Internet service is there!!!Spoke to someone today, who eventually said they would refund our bill for the service "as a goodwill guesture".... ARRRGGHHHH!!!!! NO they didn't provide me with a service and couldn't even tell me when it would be back. Anyway he then took great pride in teling me that 4,452 aol customers in my area were also suffering the same problem. How wonderful - at least I don't feel persecuted, they are rubbish to everyone!!

Becky Coverdale ● 6760d

Beckey,put Aol in the serch box on W4,

Hugh Telford ● 6760d

I've got Bulldog Broadband. It worked fine all week! In fact it always works fine! Lucky me

Simon Measures ● 6760d

Hugh, again, this thread is (supposed to be) about a specific incident which affected Ealing mid-week. My understanding that is that the problem didn't occur in Chiswick.

Susan Kelly ● 6759d

You could have fooled me darling..it was going all the time for me at THE LOCAL EXCHANG in Chiswick..

Hugh Telford ● 6759d

I'm talking about the 30-hour outage that started last Tuesday afternoon, Hugh. Surely you'd already switched to Virgin by then? I simply want to know if other people in Ealing were given the same explanation by AWOl that I was For That Specific Day & Time.

Susan Kelly ● 6759d

Ref. " But with regard to the usual terrible speeds and intermitant service we've had enough and are changing internet provider. "          xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx        In the past few months they have changed the server from America to Europe, for obvious reasons, since when I have experienced all sorts of problems. Lots of AOL facilities I had, are no longer available, such as Computer Check-up. And I operate at 2 addresses and the problems caused for that have been rather traumatic.As I have told AoL several times, if all my records etc etc were not with AoL, I would have transferred ere now.

Tony Price ● 6759d

I notice that with Tiscali as well...I think it's just being Tiscali though.

Luke Stedman ● 6757d

Susan, Susan, you don't expect us to keep to the point do you?  You started a lovely thread enabling us to vent our pent up feelings about broadband providers and problems generally.  I for one am everso grateful.

Barbara Yerolemou ● 6755d

You haven't told us what Exchange you are on Susan, that is the area code. If you live in the Southern half of Ealing, itsquite likely that you are on one of W4's units, which I think Hugh was trying to get over.

Colin Vaughan ● 6755d

I'm on the 567 exchange. I called a friend on the 994 exchange on the day of the great outage and she had a connection. So no, I'm not on a W4 exchange.

Susan Kelly ● 6755d

Susan,      It seems that the BT Voyager 190 modem can be problematical after about a year due to overheating and substitution with a Netgear Wireless router such as the DG834GT is advisable.      The other problem  for longterm subscribers paying for a good standard AOL internet is the Carphone Talk Talk merger and subsequent package with inclusive internet being offered to phone subscribers and squeezing the servers with resulting lower speeds and cut-offs.

Robert Darke ● 6552d

Re  The other problem  for longterm subscribers paying for a good standard AOL internet is the Carphone Talk Talk merger and subsequent package with inclusive internet being offered to phone subscribers and squeezing the servers with resulting lower speeds and cut-offs.             xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx        Tell me about it. When the AoL server was  moved from America to GB, there were such problems  that I spent hours on the phone, one call being in excess of 1 hr. I tried my best not to get annoyed with the persons on the other end of the phone as it was / is not THEIR fault. AoL managed to muck up 2 of my machines and now they have increased the monthly  price by 25%. If all my " records " were not with them, I would be off like a shot but don't forget their HO is in OUR part of London, so even a visit is possible? I have had to write to the C E O. The software they use I am told is no good and there still are problems. 

Tony Price ● 6552d

Haven't actually had any problems since the original posting back in March, guys.

Susan Kelly ● 6552d

AOL used to use a non-standard data connection setup which caused havoc with a friend's connection. This was changed to match the BT standard, giving more connection problems until adjusted. I checked again recently after more problems, and the details had been changed again. Go to the AOL website and look for the setup information that they provide for Mac users. The Mac OS-X is based on Free Open Source Software (BSD) and requires the correct information rather than some weird M$ fudge.

Chris Bell ● 6550d