Got AOL broadband modem on Fri & been trying to connect ever since !
To start with they hadn't sent me a screen name & password now they think there's a fault on the line. Sending an engineer out within 48 hrs.Not sure if I will race this week as I had to shift my PC into the living room to try it on the main phone socket & until it's sorted don't think I can be arsed to move it back !Spent over 5 hrs on the phone to technical support & they are reslly p*****g me off big time now !

I'm no fan of AOL, but must confess they've got some great broadband deals at the moment. A workmate has been trying to sign up with them for a few weeks, but has been having loads of problems. It would appear as if they've been overrun with new signups since announcing their current offers.

Yay it seems to be working this morning !! will have a play around & move my PC back upstairs later so hopefully be ok to race this week after all.
Looks like they hadn't enabled the line !

Glad to hear it, Neil. Hopefully you will enjoy your first experiences of broadband racing. Or, more likely, everyone else will enjoy your first experiences of broadband racing!

I doubt it it's back offline now came home from work & it won't connect so been on the phone to AOl technical for over an hour tonight & still no joy I'm waiting on BT apparantly.
Not moving my PC until it's online so may have to take provisionals this week :-(

It's sad to hear of these problems for you, unfortunately you're dealing with two of this country's worst companies and it's not something that will easily get solved I fear.

I should be broadband enabled on the 20th of April, but I'm actually giving myself the date of 11th May for connection. That's when my internet month starts and it would be easiest to swap then. The problem is, i'll be sticking with the same company so when I get broadband, my dial up will automatically cease to exist so if BT mess it up, I'm screwed.

Nick, it might be an idea to set up a Pay As You Go dial-up account with someone, just in case. That way you'll still have some form of internet connection even in the worst case scenario.

Neil, sorry to hear you might have to take provisionals. No repeat victory for you at Dover, then.

No repeat victory but hopefully Team Ecosse & Nick will have a strong nights racing & as soon as this is sorted I will be back.If it isn't sorted soon I will have to move my wheel & pedals downstairs until it is, so at least I can race.

Latest on my nightmare is that it appears that BT enabled my line to AOL Platinum Plus Broadband 2mb service instead of AOL Silver 512k. Unfortunately the 2mb service isn't available where I live because I'm too far from the junction which is why I have no signal or when I do get a signal it breaks down. End result is BT have to change it back but can't do it till the 4th of April I just hope that it works after this date as it's been infuriating on the phone going over the same thing time & time again for hours !!
Think I'll put my PC back upstairs & connect it all up so I can race this week on dial up.

That's typical of BT, actually i'll have to watch out for a similar problem next month. I'm about 4 miles from the box, plus because BT are lazy, my line is shared with the house next door. I did want to go for the 1mb option which BT reports my line as capable of taking, but I may go 512k just in case.
Hopefull once it's fixed though you will finally be up and running which is definately a good thing.

It's surprised me how broadband has become so cheap in such a short space of time. The downside to this seems to be that the companies that are offering low priced deals, in particular, are a nightmare to deal with when things go wrong. I guess this comes from having lots of new sign-ups, and spending little on customer service. Kind of inevitable, really.

One of my friends was left without broadband for ages after moving house. He kept being given one reconnection date after another, but it took forever to get things sorted.

I'm starting to wonder if my line is shared with the house next door (in the garden) aswell. The owners of the house I rent built there daughter a house in my garden (all done before I moved in)
So I wouldn't be surprised if this could turn out to be a problem aswell !!

Any update on your broadband woes, Neil?

I shold be getting a speed increase later this month, by all accounts. If I continue to pay Virgin £24.99/month for uncapped, my speed will quadruple. However, by paying £17.99/month it will double, but have a 3Gb limit. I don't think I'd get near this limit, so will probably 'make do' with double speed and cheaper broadband.

Still not working just about to ring them up & give them hell !!

Alan Strang wrote

Any update on your broadband woes, Neil?

I shold be getting a speed increase later this month, by all accounts. If I continue to pay Virgin £24.99/month for uncapped, my speed will quadruple. However, by paying £17.99/month it will double, but have a 3Gb limit. I don't think I'd get near this limit, so will probably 'make do' with double speed and cheaper broadband.

My Dad's been considering getting broadband, and was telling me about some of the deals he's been looking at. Must admit, they make what I'm currently paying look very poor value. Hadn't heard anything about Virgin increasing speeds. Where did you find out about this?

Thanks for the link. Looks as if plans aren't official at the moment. Interesting that some folk on there mention already being on a 1MB service through Virgin, as 512k is the fastest mentioned on virgin.net. Still, this is enough to make me stick with them for the time being.

Right quick update about this disaster I'm having. AOL have said they are going to get BT to ring me up to arrange a time for an engineer to come round & check out what's going wrong with my conection.They said they would ring me between 5 & 6 tonight & guess what ? ..... yes you got it no f****r rang !. I can't be bothered to ring them tonight gonna go out n' get hammered.
PC is back downstairs now until the engineers been so no racing indefinately.Hopefully only be a week or two maximum but no telling with these jokers.

After being lied to about the engineer ringing .I tried cancelling my AOL after being billed £30 for the first month (even tho its £17.99 a month )I can't apparantly because I HAVE A CONTRACT FOR 12 months even tho I don't recieve the service but still have to pay for it !! They told me a supervisor would definately ring me back last night to try & help me out & guess what ?... yep no one rang what a huge surprise.
I rang billing ,cancellations anyone who I could get hold of today & called them everyname under the sun but am still stuck paying for a service that I am not recievng.The whole thing is a total disgrace & I'm thinking of calling citizens advice or watchgdog or bombing AOL headquarters or at least taking someone hostage !!
What ever you do don't use AOL EVER, the free helpline is pointless they are no help whatsoever & just tell you lies to get rid of you.
I would love to get the person responsible by the balls & squeeze as tight as possible if this was a shop I would have dragged the manager over the counter by now that's the trouble with internet organisations no one ever takes responsibility or is accountable for I am totally disillusioned I just want to cancel now & forget about the whole thing for a few months then maybe try BT as at least they might sort there own line out !!

I think it is time you went up Citizens Advice and got them involved. They have a surprising amount of power and can force Aol to pull their finger out of their arses.
I had trouble with AOL at the start of last year for dial up and luckily I was able to cancel, but I just couldn't get on the forum in time to tell you to steer clear.

They rang me up at work today & said a technician will be coming on mon 18th between 8 & 10.30am
they better do as I'm having time off work to wait for the t*****s.
Fingers crossed X

BT engineer came out this morning & ran all kinds of tests & connected his laptop to my phone line & it's absolutely perfect worked first time everytime.He tried my modem which was the same model as his on his laptop & it worked fine swapped all the cabling around & it's all ok.So the only conclusion is that somehow my PC hates the modem they sent me.I tried to ring them & get a different sort sent out but they refuse until they get the BT engineers report.I'm going to borrow my mates modem who has an identical PC & it works fine with wanadoo 1mb tonight & install that hopefully this will work straight off if it sdoesn't then I'm completely fucked as I don't know what to do.It connected & worked for an hour again last night this is so frustrating all AOL kept saying today was well the modem isn't faulty as it worked on his laptop which is no fucking use to me is it grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Right calm down it's now cost me half a day off work aswell which hasn't made me best pleased but at least I know the line is fine so I've got to sort summat out on the PC modem side what I have no idea may even borrow a usb2 pci card & try plugging the modem into that if all else fails.It's going to be a new PC if not which is ridiculous !!

Right done some surfing & found out the BT Voyager 105 modem is a turkey which doesn't work properly with motherboards runnin Via chipsets which basically means I'm screwed by AOL for my free modem.
Tried my mates speedtouch 330 modem which he got free with Wanadoo & it works perfectly so looks like I'm going to have to buy one as AOL only supply the crappy Voyager 105 so thats £30 for no service so far & I will have to shell out another £25 to replace my free modem & I found all this out myself thru trial & error there technical support never came up with this once.You type Bt Voyager 105 problems in google & you will find thousands of people with the same problem I have yet there technical service knows nothing about it.I've tried ringing them up to see if they will send me a speedtouch(no chance the forums say) & if they don't see if I can get a couple of months free I think I deserve it at the very least after over 50 hrs on the phone half a day off work £30 for no service & now a modem to buy. !! but strangely they say they can't authorise this & I need to speak to level 2 technical but it's too busy at the moment that's all I've got all night tonight so I have to try again in the morning.BT supply the same shitty modems so beware if you have a motherboard running via chipsets it seems they dont send enough power to the usb ports to run the modem properly so it keeps hanging all the time if you manage to get online, the speedtouch along with just about any other modem uses less power so is fine.What a joke.

FINALLY.. I think it's sorted new modem came off ebay plugged it in & been online for nearly 3 hours thank f*** for that

Thank god one of us finally has broadband.

BT came out this morning and fixed my phone line after messing it up at the weekend and have dropped a nice bombshell into the bargain. A new 2.5 kilometre line needs putting in before I can get broadband and unless I sign with BT Openworld they're going to charge me £200 for the privilege!
This is despite me paying them £150 3 and a half years ago to install the line for a start, turns out they just joined my phone line to the one next door which takes the piss.