Broadband Related > ISPs

Alternatives to AAISP

(1/6) > >>

Jon21:
I’m just wondering what alternatives there are to AAISP? I’ve had no issues with A&A since joining them nearly 6 months ago but unfortunately, one of my part time jobs isn’t looking secure at the moment. This may lead to a reduction in income. I probably won’t know for definite for a couple of weeks. The minimum term with A&A finishes next month. I could drop down a tier on the quota system but that’s only going to save me £5 and it wouldn’t be enough of an allowance.

Things I’d like from a potential new ISP:
IPv6. Would seem a backwards step to go with anyone who isn’t providing that now.
Unlimited or a high data allowance
A uncongested network
Up to £45 a month

Uno, Zen, even Sky could be possibilities.

dee.jay:
You could probably negotiate a deal with Sky on their FTTC.

They indeed provide IPv6
Unlimited
Uncongested network - well for me, I can start downloading at any time of day, and in the 6 years I've had FTTC with them, and 10 years I've had some form of connection with Sky, it's always worked at 100% of the line rate speed.
My Sky Fibre Pro has been discounted to £21 a month (£18.99 line rental) £40 a month all in.

However, customer service................. It'll be a vastly different world to AAISP as you are no doubt aware. However, they do fit the criteria.

Weaver:
What about idnet? A clueful outfit.

I would also ask AA for suggestions. It can’t hurt. If you are happy with them you will save some money and be unhappy with someone else, you chose them for a reason. I know what it is like to need to economise, I haven’t worked in many years.

Useless point: One option that might very well make no sense at all is to use their L2TP service. That is something that I have occasionally thought about, but as I said propbably will make no sense for you.

Other things to cut out instead: [Sincere apologies since you have probably looked at all of these already] I cut out Sky satellite TV. That saved us a fortune. I could get rid of the TV license but my wife still watches normal TV over Freesat. What is the deal about line rental currently. Can you get rid of PSTN phone service if you have any and go VoIP with AA or go mobile only? I half-use AA VoIP, in the sense that I do not use it over DSL, AA redirects it to my wife’s mobile phone.

I currently use the traditional ‘units’ tariff, which has no limit. You just get charged for what you download by the byte and you prepurchase a certain amount of download ‘units’ of your choice at a cheaper rate, which is a slight money saver if you are sure you will download more than a certain amount. I always get it wrong and prepurchase too much thus wasting a small amount of money. All uploads are free. I can’t work out how it compares for cost with the new ::1 deals where you do have a download limit.

Weaver:
Another thought: Burakkucat uses TalkTalk and is happy with them, and I think some of our users use TalkTalk Business. They are after all the wholesale carrier that AA uses for a large proportion of their own customers.

Techno people such as me love IPv6. It is after all slower than IPv4, yay. IPv6 could be added separately onto an IPv4-only ISP by the use of a tunnel: eg using AA’s L2TP service over eg TalkTalk or by getting a tunnel from Hurricane Electric. These tunnels free you from censorship, and an L2TP tunnel can even give you back real IPv4 address blocks freedom from NAT and so on. But it is all more hassle and the L2TP service costs money, thus defeating the point.

Really, really whacky idea: [I know it’s a stupid idea] share internet access with an incredibly friendly and trustworthy neighbour if such exists. Share costs. Could use a line of sight rf link, such as the 60GHz Mikrotik device in my recent post. Ubiquity do iirc do outside long range high quality rf kit. That way two or more neighbours could share costs, if the relationship makes it feasible. Can use firewalling and other technologies to keep users apart. (I already do such isolation: friends coming to stay can use the internet in my house but cannot talk to any of my own machines on the wired or wireless LAN. So there are various ways of keeping people separated, using very different methods.)


Final thought: Talk to other AA users on IRC. Use collective brainpower to attack the problem.

jelv:
If you are on Home::1 and paying for more than the 200GB allowance have you looked at gaming the system to save money? If your monthly usage is less than 800GB it can be done.

You are free to swap between the 200GB, 300GB and 2TB every month if you want and you keep your quota bonus. The 300GB option is totally redundant as you can effectively have a 800GB allowance for an average of £7.50 over the cost of the basic 200GB Home::1.
 
This is how you do it:

* Month 1 2TB package: Use 800GB which means you carry over 600GB (half the unused 1.2TB)
* Month 2 200GB package: Starting allowance is 800GB and all is used
* Month 3 back to 2TB and keep repeating.AAISP have confirmed in a post on the TBB forums that this is acceptable.

You may find you can save even more if you need to only be on the 2TB package one month out of three if you have sufficient quota bonus carried over.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page