I know this reply is a bit late, but just my thought on this,

I would love to support a smaller provider like A&A, but price is the thing, certainly now with the increase in the cost of living. I did try and support a local wireless network for a couple of years, but they could not cope with the demand and then FTTC came here, so they closed.
I was with Metronet for a while, again a smaller provider, until they sold out to Plusnet.

So yes I like to support smaller providers, but price is the thing and sadly A&A prices are a lot higher than larger providers, not just a little. There is no denying from what I have read that A&A service is fantastic and to be honest they are more for Home office and office broadband where the network have to be ultra reliable. Most home users will go for something cheaper and put up with the bad customer service they normally get Unless they have a load of money.

I don't blame you for going for FTTP, if the price is lower, FTTP, is a more robust service than FTTC.

I never knew that Idnet; Zen or Aquiss was still going.

I have the same problem. I don't want to leave A&A but it looks like I will.

I've been an A&A customer since 2000 - I bought from them some ISDN kit (Lucent Cybergear Gold) and ordered an ISDN line.

As soon as ADSL became available, I've had broadband service from A&A continuously since the end of 2001 - first ADSL (512 Kbps originally and then 2 Mbps), moving on to VDSL and currently Firebrick bonded dual line SoHo::1 (for a total of about 75 Mbps down 14 Mbps up).

I found out recently that Community Fibre will be available in my area soon (they were working last week on a nearby road) meaning symmetric service of 1 Gbps. Unfortunately, Openreach currently show no FTTP plans for my area in the next few years and the CityFibre availability checker says the same.

So despite being 100% happy with A&A for over 20+ years, it looks like I'll end up with only their L2TP service going forward until/unless Openreach or CityFibre becomes available.

Edited by jman (Mon 08-Aug-22 16:22:36)

I currently have AAISP L2TP for a backup connection over Three 5G, which combined costs £26/month.

I'd love to upgrade that to say 100/100 once CityFibre come around, but £37 with a 500G quota is a hard no. Considering I currently balance this alongside my Zen 900 which can pull 180MB/s over Steam between the two, and that doesn't need to go over the L2TP so doesn't eat into that quota.

While 5G is not entirely reliable yet, this is likely to improve over time once they move to a pure 5G solution (it currently uses 4G for upload so its dire). Plus once Vodafone upgrade my area, the mast is closer and covers a smaller footprint so probably will work better.

I can understand having a quota, I can understand charging more, but to do both seems too much. Also the base Home quota should be at least four times the size it currently is. I've already done 545.524 GB on Zen in the past week alone, most of that just updating games on the Xbox.

I'd also much rather the service slow down once you hit the quota, rather than take data from next month. It also doesn't help they have the £100 new install charge when AFAIK no other ISP does this.

AAISP are strange, their L2TP service is reasonably priced IMO, as is their VoIP service (I use both), but their broadband is WAY out there.

Edited by alexatkin (Mon 08-Aug-22 18:10:59)

No one has mentioned A&A's policy of not subscribing to IWF, which is a big plus for me. I like to be treated like an adult.

I'm currently with them for FTTC. While City and Netomnia have been busy laying fibre round here for over a year, Netomnia is the only one currently offering a service, and that is through YouFibre. I'm hoping City will go live soon, and that AAISP will be able to offer a service. Our neighbour is an OR engineer and he says that FTTP is on the way, but I doubt he has any detailed inside knowledge.

In reply to a post by chrisadsl:

No one has mentioned A&A's policy of not subscribing to IWF, which is a big plus for me. I like to be treated like an adult.

I'm currently with them for FTTC. While City and Netomnia have been busy laying fibre round here for over a year, Netomnia is the only one currently offering a service, and that is through YouFibre. I'm hoping City will go live soon, and that AAISP will be able to offer a service. Our neighbour is an OR engineer and he says that FTTP is on the way, but I doubt he has any detailed inside knowledge.

They block other stuff though, as per the law.

(Well Block is a strong word really, they do the bare minimum to comply with the law)

Edited by therioman (Sun 21-Aug-22 20:43:33)

In reply to a post by therioman:

They block other stuff though, as per the law.

(Well Block is a strong word really, they do the bare minimum to comply with the law)

Do they, what exactly do you think they are blocking ?

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by therioman:

They block other stuff though, as per the law.

(Well Block is a strong word really, they do the bare minimum to comply with the law)

Do they, what exactly do you think they are blocking ?

I don't *think* they are, they are - if you use the A&A resolvers they're not resolving some web sites in accordance with the law. It's on the A&A news site..

Ah, I'd missed that.

https://www.aa.net.uk/etc/news/uk-sanctions-law-aa-a...

As I started this thread, an update might be helpful. I have been with Aquiss now for over 4 months. My connection purrs away at 300/40 to all parts of my home via a AVM/Fritz mesh. The only time that I see a speed drop is when a device stubbornly stays connected to a repeater in another room. Even then, the drop is only down to about 200Mbps.

Since I joined Aquiss, my monthly price has been reduced from £49 to £45 in line with its current FTTC offer. I am now in a situation where I pay Aquiss the same price as I did AAISP: the key differences being that I now get 6 times the speed and unlimited downloads.

So far there isn’t much not to like.

Looks like my loyalty to AAISP is about to be tested. Netomnia and City Fibre have both been laying fibre here. Only Netomnia has gone live (via YouFibre). I've been waiting to see if AAISP will sign up with either of them. Finally, they've signed a contract with City in July, but no service yet available. As few weeks ago I registered with YouFibre to get early joiner deals but decided not to go ahead. Now I've received an email asking if they can tempt me: offering their YouFibre 1000 package ((includes You Mesh with the eero) for £25/month (instead of the usual £45) and first 3 months free! (I'd previously said their 500 package was probably more than I'd need). Then I finally found AAISP's FTTP pricing £45 for 150 Mbit/s!! No installation fee, and a symmetric badndwidth. I have until the end of the month to decide. Very tempting. It's actually £10 less than I currently pay for 73 Mbit/s, though I'd probably pay the extra £5 for static IP.