Also considering AAISP

I'm looking to drop Plusnet as soon as I can - Everyone has limits and I'm rapidly coming to mine.

I'm by no means a large user - under 8Gb peak (for me that's currently 16:00 - 00:00) and a total under 50Gb and that's both up and downloading. I think that I should be able to get that under 5Gb as I'm at work 08:30 - 17:00 and only use my main machine during the day via RDP for an external IP connection whilst at work - testing email, websites etc.

I currently have 2 domains with my ISP. 1 is in use for email, websites and DNS on my machines, the other is for a basic website and associated email. I currently use my ISP's email, but as you've heard recently that's none too reliable, so will be running my mail server shortly. I'm also looking to run my own DNS too.

I've also currently got a 8 IP block, but I'd like a 16 block. How easy is it to get a 16 block?

What's the migration cost? New Max lines show as 49:99, is it the same for migrating in?
EDIT: Found It.

Does A&A have a place for me??

Edited by deleted (Wed 19-Jul-06 23:19:23)

I exited Plusnet immediately they started LLUing customers without notification.

Provided you can keep your peak (08:00-18:00) download down ( also don't forget AAISP does not measure upload against your allowance). So far I've found it easier than expected.

"How easy is it to get a 16 block?" Just request it when you signup.

"Does A&A have a place for me??" Sounds like it.

What's the charge / penalty for going over on peak? I see a mention of "top-up" but not on cost. Do they just bill that to your card, or add it to your following bill.

If you don't "top up" do you just get no connectivity during peak hours?

As for the 16 IP's, do A&A make you jump through hoops for them?
Zen used to hand out up to 16 if you asked, Plusnet gave me 8 but I had to justify it and fill out RIPE justification forms and such like.

Edited by deleted (Wed 19-Jul-06 23:22:31)

to echo normanb

im on a 3GB daytime cap
i find it easy .. .tbh im not in the country most of the time lol

but the cap-less evening tx is brill

ive got 64 ips just for the asking and very useful it is too
the 1-4-64 ip set up i have is most logical and straight forward

their tech support is even better than zen ...and thats saying something!!!!

tbh if you can keep within the 8am - 6pm caps .. A&A is a no brainer

like all isp's they can have their occasional boggle ... disconnects etc
but tbh ive never seen an isp to have such a grip on BT's balls and squeeze them so tightly that they get things done in a fraction of the time that other isp's manage ... its brill!!!!!!

Well 16 IP's would suit me for my current plans, but leaves nothing spare in it - I've max my current 8, and have to swap suff around at the moment.

As for having a grip on BT, I think Plusnet are doing a great job there already. :-/
11 weeks to find out why I've not had a single delta report, and 9 days so far of investigation when I asked for my SNR Margin to be upped to 9db in the DLM!!

What am I going to lose from PN??
240mins a month of SIP-> PSTN calls. Well kinda, as it's not working more often than it is. The free DNS hosting of my 2 domains - geez, I'll pay a few extra quid until I get my name servers live.
The 200Mb of webspace - well I use about 3-4Mb at most, and I can't even rely on that working day to day.
The random dropping of PPP sessions, the catch all email address (mines blackholed now anyways), the constantly changing T&C's, the risk of being LLU'd without my knowledge, the massive packetloss I keeep reporting on 2 specific gateways along with the poor throughputs. The ability to talk to a CSC agent that doesn't tell me "It looks OK to me" or "reboot your router and wait 20 mins and call back if it's still a problem" despite that fact that you ARE calling back as you HAVE rebooted and IT IS still a problem!!

Rant over I think.

Just trying to sort out the best time to give 30 days notice - luckily I'm not too far from the start of my billing cycle - and to request my MAC.

Lastly, I'm not familar with 1-4-64. I've never come across this before. Can you explain?
I
've just got a straight 8 IP block at present, network - router - 5 usable - broadcast.
I was hoping to get similar but with a 16 or 32 block.
My current plan is like this with my 5 publics being translated 1-1 on the ISA box. However, I've recently had a PIX515E come my way (handy as I want to ditch my MS certifications for Cisco) that can run in transparent mode so if I could give all my boxes publics IP's but filtered by the PIX for safety I'd be laughing!

Edited by deleted (Thu 20-Jul-06 01:10:44)

You can carry over 10GB of over-usage and slowly get rid of it if you do manage to go over one month.

IP's just need to be asked for, an /28 (16 IP's) isn't a problem. You don't need to fill out RIPE forms etc.

The peak hours are only 8am to 6pm Monday - Friday, all upload and anything outside those hours isn't counted.

The tech support is fantastic, too.

1-4-64 or in your case would be 1-4-16 ips

static routing

youre given a zyxel router by A&A already preconfigured
plug in and go ... its as easy as that
you hang your own (ethernet/broadband) router off that also with static routes
the way things were supposed to be done

1 wan ip on zyxel
4 ips on the lan ... network broadcast and _router_ with a spare from the 4 for an ip on the zyxel lan side
ie for YOUR router

your router's wan ip.... the last from the group of 4 on the _lan_ on the zyxel the spare one from above
with the 16 ips on the lan side of your router ... again network broadcast _router_ and 13 spare for use on your lan

as i say static routes
no nat
no pptp
no ppoa to mess with (thats done in the zyxel)
no sip spoof
no dhcp spoof

just plain old working properly routing
it sounds more complicated than it actually is!

In reply to:

---

I've just got a straight 8 IP block at present, network - router - 5 usable - broadcast.
I was hoping to get similar but with a 16 or 32 block.
My current plan is like this with my 5 publics being translated 1-1 on the ISA box. However, I've recently had a PIX515E come my way (handy as I want to ditch my MS certifications for Cisco) that can run in transparent mode so if I could give all my boxes publics IP's but filtered by the PIX for safety I'd be laughing!

---

Basically, A&A can route you an /30 (a block of 4 IP's), as well as your /28 or /27 for your network.

Your ADSL router (with NAT turned off) has one IP from the /30 on it's LAN port, and the PIX has the other on it's WAN port. Then, you use your larger IP block on the LAN side of the PIX.

This is similar to my setup (I have an /29 because I have two lines bonded though) with a FireBrick.

You get full control over reverse DNS for all of your IP's too.

Edited by PCFreak (Thu 20-Jul-06 08:50:01)

Right!! I understand now.

I've never come across this type of connectivity before. I've only seen a single router, with the same IP on WAN and LAN side and the rest of the IP's LAN side.

This is why I have my current plan for the firewall using 1 public on it's to be doing 1-1 LAT for the remaining 4 usable addresses and everything else NAT'd.

Then when the PIX came along, you can do layer 2 filtering so I was just going to give everything a public IP, the routers address as the gateway and let the PIX do the routing / filtering it needed - Now I'm not so sure!

MAC obtained - order submitted - SMS confirmation of order (I'm liking it already, but I am easily pleased!!)

well done on a choice well made
look forward to seeing you on the irc

All I gotta do know is work out what to do with all my spare IP's, get my existing domain names moved over, and get my rDNS setup.

We currently have our home workers on BT Business Broadband, but I caught my boss looking over my shoulder, then later on he was looking at the CUG pages making notes.

Mass migration of 50-odd accounts maybe???

In reply to:

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We currently have our home workers on BT Business Broadband, but I caught my boss looking over my shoulder, then later on he was looking at the CUG pages making notes.

Mass migration of 50-odd accounts maybe???

---

heh!

it can be contagious! and I know you've already made your choice but I second everything everyone's said so far. top dollar over here. irc can get a little.. disturbing at times though... (i'll not mention anything about BT engineers wearing tea towels!)



Just kidding! Hope to see you on IRC anyway, let us know how you get on here if not.

Jon

Did anyone mention that A&A are hidiously unreliable? :-p

only the other day we suffered the effects of a ddos
but after a short while it was sorted by the staff and after a quick restart of the router service was all back to normal

i leave the country for weeks at a time and know with full confidence that things will be sorted in short shrift should there be any boggle

even with zen i used to have to get ppl to come to the house and restart my routers for me, usually the day after i left for 6-8 weeks, you cant imagine how stressful that is when youre 1600km away in another country

these days i dont give it a second's thought

sure its irritating not to be able to get ones email or reach ones servers for a short while, irritating that some script kidding numptie takes it upon themselves to generate a ddos but i do rest easy in the knowledge that a skillful dedicated and caring team work to ameliorate any effects quickly and efficiently

now im the first to recommend zen
or was ...
they [zen] can only dream about the personal preference and monitor portal that A&A provide, giving total view and control over ones connection, any combination of ips FREE, dns and rdns right there for your own editing, the staff at A&A even changed my username on request!!!! to jzaw of course this sort of personal service is unsurpassed in my experience

the capping on A&A connections wont suit everyone but they suit me very well at this time
oh its uncapped offpeak and at the w/e

to put it briefly id swap the type of unreliability that A&A exhibits for the type of unreliability exhibited by any of the other isp's out there ... mysterious unfathomable issues reliant on a non existent cooperation from BT to resolve ...

bras stuck at 512k .... see if your isp can spank BT's bottom and get it fixed quicker than A&A
want to chat instantly without telephone menu's and for free with your tech support ... try your isp's irc,
oh thats right ... they dont have one .... A&A do

gimmie another isp ? no thanks! gimmie A&A!!

signed ... a fanboy

Define "hidiously unreliable"

Have they lost 700Gb of EU's email?
Have they swapped to usage based charging and then stuffed up measuring your usage?
Do they terminate your PPP session at least once a day?
Have they left calls raised to them outstanding for 11 weeks without a hint of resolution?
Have they consistantly broken functionality of their website?
Have the added new services that have been intermittant from day 1?
Do they shape packets based on what appears to be a random formula?
Have they had faulty gateways that drop packets and severely slow your speeds down for months, despite being told by so many people, and failed to sort them?
Does DNS resoultion die several times a week?
Do their webservers run to a crawl more often than not?
Do their phone systems send you round the houses and then cut you off?
If you don;t get kicked off does it take up to 2 hours for them to actually answer the phone?
Does it take several days for them to answer email/tickets?

No?? Well I think I'll take my chances then ;-)

> Define "hidiously unreliable"

Unreliable connectivity with several periods of up to an hour with no or limited connectivity.

There are lots of plus points of being with AA but you should at least be aware of the problems before you join.

I've been with them a couple of months, I can't comment on too much as I only use them for connectivity, but they seem like a damned good ISP. I always get the impression they're techies first and a business second, IYSWIM.

As Xela says, they do seem to suffer more than other ISPs when DDOS attacks occur, it's annoying when it does happen but little things like the IRC channel means you tend to have an idea what's going on (assuming of course that you can get there).

if by several you mean once every two months or so
sure
but it all came back up with no intervention from me
that simply wasnt happening with zen and certainly not with plusnet and even less so with freeserve as my previous isps

"No?? Well I think I'll take my chances then"

Maybe not but they are substantially (over 50%) more expensive for my light user needs than my current provider(s), and none of the list you post have affected me (yet ).

So I'll take my chances too, and for the time being A+A aren't getting my money. Which is a shame for all concerned

[edit: layout]

Edited by c_j (Sat 22-Jul-06 14:16:51)

I think AAISP are one of the best examples of how usage patterns effect the price you pay. I probably use 25-45gb a month and I'd expected that by coming here I'd be paying more, but because almost all of my usage is off-peak I ended up saving a (whopping) pound a month and pay

Cost isn't a issue for me as I don't pay for it.
Over the last 4 weeks I've spend over 12 hours queuing on the telephone, all during the day to at 4p/min it's cost me over 1 months line rental in calls alone.

I'm the same. My current 'peak' usage at worst was 8gb. But that is 4pm to midnight - the time I use it the most, and that included uploads too.

Now that peak time is entirely when I'm at work, so will be limited to a few hours of RDP, and the downloading in that respect is not much more than a few kb/s, I should be easily able to stay under a couple of GB. If that's the case, I'll drop my tariff.

Thanks Xela.

I'm not expecting an ISP to maintain a 100% uptime record, that unrealistic.
But it's about finding someone better than where I am now, which it would clearly seem I have.

I've not just made my decision overnight. I've been considering A&A for some time now, and now that my 12 month contract is up I see even less reason to say where I am.

thing is that if something does mess up on your connection, ifyou can get on the internet at all theres the irc
and youll always find someone to help you through some issue ... if not the staff themselves

sometimes if its a big fsck up then you wont be the only one in the same boat and the usual answer from other users on the channel will be ... we know ... lets all just sit back while its fixed

re tariffs ive managed to modify my use to bulk tx at eve and night ... works for me
last month i came in at 900MB peak this month its currently at 1.5GB but still well under the 3GB i buy in

AA have many strong points. One of those is a 30 day contract so, if you decide they blow, leaving is eeeasy.

That was my big mistake with PLusnet. I went from monthly telelworker account to dial-up whilst I moved house, then back to a yearly contract. Then came CBC and the rest is history.

how common are these ddos attacks that drop connectivity, right now I am very seriously considering a&a since nildram are not been helpful on my adsl problems but am worried I will end up with a even more unstable connection.

http://aaisp.blogspot.com/ has 99.999% of outtages (and http://aaisp-planned.blogspot.com) , and the newsgroup, and the IRC channel.

Edited by TechnoGoat (Sun 23-Jul-06 02:55:49)

thanks its good they seem to post even if a 15 second outage.

Yep, I wouldn't touch AAISP for those reasons, they have so many outages, router issues, supposed DDOS attacks etc it's unreal.

Oh yeah, and I find the attitude generally flippant from certain staffers.

Edited by therioman (Sun 23-Jul-06 19:30:04)

for me whats important is not that they do or do not have outages
or whether the outages are related my line or not

but HOW they recover from them and to a certain extent how quickly

worth every penny for me and defo destressed me totally

I think the main problem is, that they report every little outtage, when other ISP's wouldn't even bother noting a 15 second drop, you probably would just think it was a slow DNS lookup or similar too. When did you last see plusnets' status update for a 15 second outtage?

what stopped me from ordering right now is that my friend on a&a is pinging out a scary amount of times and we are also plotting his connection from various smokeping graphs and some of them have very dodgy looking latency jumps.

regarding his dropouts he always says to me he is messing with his connection tho so it pobably isnt down to a&a all the time.

Has he spoken to AAISP about it?

Some of their CQM graphs are downright scary with the amount of info they show, so if there were a problem between them and him I'd be surprised if they've not got a record of it.

his feedback of a&a is very good, he says they have done everything he said with regards to his line.

In reply to:

---

1 wan ip on zyxel
4 ips on the lan ... network broadcast and _router_ with a spare from the 4 for an ip on the zyxel lan side
ie for YOUR router

your router's wan ip.... the last from the group of 4 on the _lan_ on the zyxel the spare one from above
with the 16 ips on the lan side of your router ... again network broadcast _router_ and 13 spare for use on your lan

---

So for 1-4-16 to work, does an ISP need to provide a /30 routing in addition to a /28 block? Else where are the 4 IPs for Zyxel coming from?

Also how does one cope with two modem/routers, eg: if one modem/router is provided by A&A say Zyxel that is setup ready to connect via PPPOA, and one already has another modem/router to cope with the /28 block, does this other router have to be set to transparent bridging?

In reply to:

---

So for 1-4-16 to work, does an ISP need to provide a /30 routing in addition to a /28 block?

---

Yes, and this is what A&A does.

In reply to:

---

Also how does one cope with two modem/routers, eg: if one modem/router is provided by A&A say Zyxel that is setup ready to connect via PPPOA, and one already has another modem/router to cope with the /28 block, does this other router have to be set to transparent bridging?

In reply to:

---

Provided the second router is a router (2 ethernet interfaces) or a firewall than all is OK.
You use the second router to ...... well do routing between your /30 and your /28 or /27.
If your second router is an ADSL router (1 adsl interface and 1 ethernet interface) then it's not going to work.

In reply to:

---

If your second router is an ADSL router (1 adsl interface and 1 ethernet interface) then it's not going to work.

---

I see. I was hoping to try that on my ST 585, with transparent bridging, but it's a bit of a pain to set it up for T/B. In any case I do have some DSL routers that I may use. (Don't the DSL routers basically emlploy NAT mode?)

What, in your view, is the benefit of using 1-4-16, rather than the plain 13 IPs out of just the one ADSL router? I can see one benefit, that the first router (having /30 routing block), has all the safety features eg firewall etc, and the second router with /28 block is then free to do the job, and perhaps easier to configure and maintain. Any other benefits? Cheers

You don't have to have a 1-4-16/32, you can have a 1-16/32 if you like.

However, if you have a hardware firewall that doesn't work on layer-2, then you really need to the /30 and use it as 1-4-16/32

In reply to:

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You don't have to have a 1-4-16/32

---

Yes I know...

I just like to add something/anything interesting to my very limited knowledge, and perhaps try it out on one of a few ADSL connections that I run/manage.

Grab yourself a cheap hardware firewall, or if you really brave an old PC with 2 NICS and a linux distro and let rip.

I'm using it as a learning experience too.

In reply to:

---

Grab yourself a cheap hardware firewall, or if you really brave an old PC with 2 NICS and a linux distro and let rip.

---

Oh but I do have a couple of PCs and a laptop, all running SlackWare. Been there long ago ( being brave that is .. ), but I wouldn't go that route yet. For this particular exercise, I'd like to give some old hardware eg: dsl routers, or/and ADSL routers, that have been lying dormant for a while, a try. Failing that, an old H/W firewall, as you say.

?????????

i have had uptimes in excess of 2 months with aaisp, with every other isp i have been with i was lucky to get a few days, every isp has its problems but the one thing i hate from the other 4 isp i have been with is that they take the pi55 when it comes to customer service, if something goes wrong i want my isp to tell me whats gone wrong with out charging me a fortune in phone calls.

well since I have logged into a&a the 1st day I have had none of these apperent problems so far so good for me

I'm also escaping.. in my case from Bulldog, who are a complete bunch of... Currently paying

Edited by TonyHoyle (Tue 19-Sep-06 20:35:51)

Don't forget that you can carry over excess usage into the next month (up to 10GB). So if you only need to "fetch something from MSDN" occassional that might cover it.

I work from home and use far less than 5GB during peak times, without even thinking about it. That includes quite heavy use of VoIP etc. too.

I was looking at Zen too, but I decided on A&A.

"reasonable technical support". I'm not sure where you heard that from.
Talking to guys that actually answer the phones when they ring, know what they are talking about and know how to fix it there and then? Also, IRC support (even as late as 10pm if you catch someone in there). "Excellent Technical Support" is more like it.
Also, accounts support via IRC is outstanding too. I had an issue in regards to something, and not only did they sort it out in one go (the mistake was mine, not theirs) they did it in less than 3 mins!!

As for the peak/off peak thing. I used to be a 8-10Gb month peak user (+40Gb off peak) on Plusnet. I'm at work during the peak period for A&A but I remote in and still do some downloading of files and stuff and my usage has not even hit 1Gb/month peak.
Because of this I transfered from Max5Standard to Max2Premium and now I enjoy 832K upload for the same price, and I'm still safe in the knowledge that I've got a 10Gb buffer should I even need it.

Zen maybe cheaper, it depends on your projected usage, and the reason why you don't hear about good reviews of A&A is that we all keep quiet so we don't get hoardes of people joining - it's almost like a secret society ;-)

Edited by deleted (Wed 20-Sep-06 11:25:04)

You've given the game away then... I'll probably join when my line comes through. I probably need to talk to them about how soon I can get the order in to minimise downtime.

FWIW when I migrated to them I put in my Mac code on the Tuesday morning and was migrated on Friday. I've no idea why it should vary between ISPs but AA do seem to be one of the quickest wrt migrations.

From bulldog it's no such luck. You have to give them a months notice and also tell BT to grab your line back (BT can do this before the month is up). Then you have a clean line, and you can get ADSL installed which officially takes 5 working days.

I've been waiting for LLU migration to happen for months but Ofcom don't seem to be in any hurry so I have to do it the hard way..

OK the order is in.. "Excellent techincal support" sells it

You wont regret it, but even if you do (?!?!?) you are only tied in for a month at a time.