AOL UK and Throttling

[Skembear]

Been on the phone to Ireland aol uk with a guy called Trevor from 1:00pm untill 2:30pm, a full hour and a half, rattled off all the information I had gathered and everything I had done with regards to the oal mass problems from mid august till now, felt like alan shaw going off on one on boston legal, poor guy couldnt get a word in and when he did was shot down, a rabbit in the headlights sprund to mind.

He said "i'm sorry there is nothing I can really say or suggest that you havent already tried or eliminated other than to contact me when you are experiencing the fluctuations in line speed", an hour and a half to come to that conclusion.

mentioned the throttling system they have in place and he said there was no system that he knew of, told him I had been informed previously that there is a system in place and he put me on hold, came back and said "spoke to a colleague and yes there is a system in place that recognizes torrent packets and throttles it to make it fair to everyone as per fair usage policy". asked him why AOL feel it necessary to police users activities, when I purchase gas, electricity or water I am free to do with those utilities as I see fit and as such my broadband being a service I am paying for should be treated as such. he said that "they (all isp's) are under great pressure from outside influence (presumably MAFFIA) to restrict the sharing of copyrighted media and there is nothing they can do"

told him that was unnaceptable and whether or not I use a torrent client should be of no consequence to anyone who isnt paying for the service I am being provided with and the contract I signed up for has been bastardised to such an extent that it surely can not be called a contract. Was told that "the attitude from upstairs is if anyone complains or is unhappy with the new service they can go elsewhere"

the proposed acquisition of Tiscali the 4th largest UK isp will make AOL the UK's biggest provider and as such would give them the power to do whatever they see fit for their own personal gains and to hell with the customer.

Still have 12 months left on my contract but he said that I can have the next few months free and after that time if i'm still not happy with the service he will give me a MAC with no penalties, also got him to send me a free router, I know its not that but just wanted to squeeze them for anything before I get my mac, bugger wouldnt give me a free laptop though LOL.

Looks like protocol encryption needs to be looked at again, or some geek god out there producing an alternative, if it doesnt work with aol then i'm sure others will follow, a previous post has stated that the throttling kicks in from 5:00pm until 11:30pm so the scheduler would be a good solution to use, but he told me that there is no specific throttle times and it kicks in as soon as it recognises torrents being down or uploaded. I have tried using the scheduler but speeds rarely go above 10kbps

In conclusion

1. AOL restrict users activities

2. The use of a torrent client is now useless

2. Speeds fluctuate wildly throughout the day as per their FUP

3. 1.5 million new users are set to join the network once the acquisition of Tiscali is finalised

4. Get your MAC and move elsewhere

[The_Nephilim]

what is a MAC?? Ya they have Restricted Bandwidth usahe here on Comcast in the US Eastern. Guess I will NOT be able to host any Servers now??

Like I told the Guy on the Phone as Comcast had said it is ONLY 1% that Actually Abuse the Bandwidth (Torrent Users) well I said Fire them

[Skembear]

Your MAC is a Migration Activation Code, so you can move to another isp