Carphone warehouse has bought AOL

[Lagerlout666]

Well i dont know if you know but as a aol customer i have been kept in the know that the carphone warehouse was buying out AOL uk's internet and talk service. Well officially they take over on the first of february and already i have recived a email telling me that they are bring out new rules mainly stopping 24 hour 7 day a week connections, They will be restricting service at peak times to heavy users, and they will be enforcing usage restrictions to allow fair internet access. This is a shock to me as a long user of aol and been very content with the service, i will be contacting them to find out more. As many small business's including my own require a 24 hour connection and penalising small business's will not be a way forward for aol/carphone warehouse. I will keep you informed of how well i get on with stressing my concerns but i can see a change of isp in the air very very soon and the worry will be another 12 month contract with a isp that i have no idea might fall into this catagory of leeching and restricting paying customers.

i have supplyed a snipet from the email and what they have to say on the matter

AOL has also implemented new, positive steps to proactively manage its network. This is to ensure the vast majority of our members get the best possible experience. Please visit AOL Keyword: COS (Conditions of Service) for further information about what steps we are taking.

Which says

Protecting Your Broadband Network

As part of our ongoing commitment to provide reliable and high-quality broadband services, AOL has decided to introduce a Fair Use policy. This enables us to manage the network better and ensure we can continue to deliver the best possible service to our entire subscriber base.

A Fair Use policy means, for example, that we may introduce some form of network management if we feel that specific individuals are abusing their broadband usage beyond a level that would be considered reasonable. For example, using AOL Broadband 24 hours a day, every day, to continuously download large files is not a reasonable use for a residential service.

As another example, we might also manage the AOL Broadband service at peak times to ensure everyone is getting a stable, reliable connection across the whole network. We believe that this policy will help us continue to deliver a high-quality broadband experience and that the vast majority of our broadband subscribers will benefit from the existence of a Fair Use policy.

We welcome feedback and questions on any of these changes - please contact AOLTermsUpdate@aol.com and we will endeavour to answer your queries.

I just really hope that this is just them throwing abit of weight about and trying to scare heavy users to lightening the load,an isnt going to result in the dreaded packet shaping i can feel in my bones.

[SamSeeSam]

It you are not allowed to use a connection 24x7, then what's it's use?

Cheers

[Lagerlout666]

Well technically they advertise a residential service, and they say no residential home should be connected 24 hours a day, im sure they aint looking at their connection statistics properly, or are looking at all the countless routers they have given away free with out a power button like the netgear dg834g that is sat their connected to their service weeks on end.

[GhostShip]

When BT did the same to its customers I changed ISP to BUlldog who now no longer offer the service, BT do however now have a business user unlimited package, so although a cause for concern ther is a light at the end of the tunnel if your worried.

[KM]

erm, from the AOL signup page:

Unlimited downloads and unlimited time online

meaning they can not impose such restrictions no matter how much they want to until your 12 month contact is up at the minimum (after that they could offer to renew a different contact however)

they have enough lawyers there to know that if they even tried it they would end up with a lot of legal problems (especially with how many customers they have - every single one of which would count as an individual case)

other ISPs that have done it (such as BT) had to do it very slowly and not start actually enforcing anything until long after changing the advertising and all of the users initial contract periods were over

[Lagerlout666]

Well KM well done, i read threw you post and decided to run off and check my emails see see what their reply was, i originally sent

--- Original Message ---
From: tiny
Received: 01-04-2007 8:26 AM Asia/Calcutta
To: AOLTermsUpdate@aol.com
Subject:Change of conditions
 After reading threw you new terms and conditions i would like to point out that i am very disstressed by a few things that you have to say.
As the owner of a small business i have been using aol for my internet access for the last 2 years, i host a small web server and run a link between other clients allowing disscussion and updates between my employee's. Now i would like to stress that in 2 years i have never recived a complaint about my computer being online 24 hours a day 7 days a week but reading your new terms of conditions you state that you will be pro activley stopping this type of use. Now as a customer i am affraid that this service that i have come to trust and rely upon heavily is starting to step down the road of removing my rights to freely use the internet as i see fit, and i also wonder if you are going to go down the road of packet shaping like the poor users i know in america.
  Now please restore my faith back in aol and reasure me that i am not going to find my small business being penalised for not being able to have high priced business lines installed that i really dont need; an my web pages and software suddenly wont be restricted, as i do pay for the top price line that you provide and have done since my first order nearly 3 years ago

And their reply to this was almost as if Km had read my mails (Let it be known i dont think he can and to say such would leave legalBLAH)

Dear Member,

Thanks for contacting AOL. It's our aim to help you get the best possible online experience, and you can get further assistance at any time from Live Help, and the dedicated Help Channel. In response to your earlier query I hope you find the following information useful.

With reference to your query regarding Unlimited access we would like to inform you that there are still no set limits on the amount of data you may download and upload on your AOL service in your 12 month contract. This is purely about introducing a Fair Use policy to protect the network.

However,if you have still any further queries please feel free to contact us.
 
If you require any further help, please feel free to visit our online support at AOL Keyword: Help. This offers full information on all aspects of your AOL account, with answers to the most frequently asked questions and links to other helpful resources.
 

So for now seems im ok, and seen as BT busniess is only a few quid more no doubt i may go down that road.