Networks Is this offer too good to be true?

Earlier today, I got a call form a saleperson from an ADSL company who gave me the usual sales blurb about a connection that is "five times as fast and twics as cheap" (I've got a 1024 subscription for 30E/month, and they were offering 5MB for 14,90).

Not expecting much, I asked whether I could keep my current AOL e-mail addresses, and they replied I could.

The AOL service has seemed rather expensive, and I don't know whether I'll be able to tell the difference between this and the 5MB connection, but the price could be interesting.

The comany seemed trustwothy enough(they advertise on TV), so in breif, would it be possible to keep my AOL e-mail adresses and my router if I change ISPs?

Thanks,

aka.

 

I'm sure you could keep your router, as long as it is a standard router and not some special one just for AOL use, and as long as you own it and you're not leasing it. As for keeping your AOL e-mail addresses, you can change your AOL plan from one where they provide you with the internet to a BYOA plan, which is a 'bring your own access' plan. I don't know how much it is in the UK but here in the states I think its $8 a month and you can use all the AOL features, but you have a different ISP.

 

Yes, it's a standard router, and I'll see what I can find about the "BYOA plan".

 

You should be able to keep your email addresses, i still use email accounts from a old 56k account i had with lineone. the question is why would you want to keep a AOL email address?

 

Because I have newsletters sent to it. I knew I should have said something about not attacking AOL....

 

I still keep AOL for my green soda screen name...

I've had that puppy since 1996, and if i cancel my service i'll lose the screen name for 6 months, in which case it becomes public again, and knowing my luck some asshat will register it seconds before i do after those 6 months.

 

Back in 2002, I cancelled my AOL account. However, before I had done so, I already created an AIM sn from my AOL sn. I used AIM at the same time as AOL and was still able to use it after I cancelled my subscription. So... unless they drastically changed the rules... if you create an AIM sn based on your AOL sn, and then cancel AOL, nobody will be able to steal your screenname.

I doubt that they updated the AIM registration process so that you couldn't do this.

 

I don't believe that the same screenname can be used for aim and aol since for the instant messenger it can't tell the difference, so I don't believe you can create an aim screen name as an aol screen name. becase then when you would instant message a name it would send it to both people if they were on.

 

I had AOL for a few years. I use it no longer. I have had AIM for a few years too. I still use. My usage of the two services overlap for a total of about two years or so.

As you can see, you CAN create an AIM screenname using your aol screenname. Once it's created, you can use AIM even if you have aol no longer. While I wouldn't bet my life on it, I am highly confident that you can do this. And yea... when I ran both services at the same time, odd things happened. Recently, I ran aim on two computers with the same sn running. Aim warns you that you have two instances but any message sent to you is sent to both instances.




EDIT: The screenshot I first took was way too distorted b/c I cropped it in MS Paint. So... I took a new screenshot with my posted comments in the background and cropped the screenshot with a different program. As a result, you see text from this post appear in the image itself.

 

It's not one of these ISPs that has only a certain amount of data you're allowed to download per month is it?

 

i know you can use aim w/ an aol screen name (thats what i do now...well trillian at least.) I dont ahve any of that garbage AOHell Software on my computer, but they said that if i cancel AOL then the "green soda" screen name in general would get locked off for 6 months.

 

I'm pretty sure that your screenname would be locked out of aol. I was under the impression that if you cancel your aol account, they give you 6 month period where noone else can claim your sn as their own. After 6 months, if you don't return to aol, someone else creating a sn can take your sn for themselves. If you have that sn with aim, then it's forever yours. A lot of my friends have dropped aol in the past, and we all have the same sns as we've had since around 1997-98.

 

But can you use it for e-mail as well as IM?

I asked them that and they said it wasn't.

Thanks to all.

 

ACTUALLY... now you can. They just implemented a new service that you can automatically get a free email adress yourscreenname@aim.com. Well, you have to enable it, but the point is that yes you can use it for email as well as IM. Bear in mind that the interface has some ads in it to facilitate its free nature so if you're going to change your email addy anyways (from @aol.com to @aim.com), you might as well get something better such as a gmail account.

 

I've already got various other e-mail accounts(including some from Gmail), and I would prefer to keep the @aol.com address because that is where e-mails already get sent. I don't want to go through the process of infoming everyone of a new address.

 

That's fine. I was just answering your question. I thought your intention was to change to sn@aim.com or add the additional email account which is something I wouldn't recommend, so I suggested alternatives. AOL isn't good for my purposes, but it's perfectly adequate for the needs of other people.

I sound biased in my previous comments but I'm just trying to argue over what is or is not possible.

 

I think AOL has a more "professional" feeling than a free e-mail account.

^ ^ No worries.​

 

I haven't seen the aol interface for a few versions now, but I assume it's true. Their free email account is loaded with ads and seems unsightly. I'm liking gmail's interface though, although I've been using outlook express and thunderbird so I guess webmail layout is trivial to me. If only aol hadn't left me with a bad aftertaste back when I used them for dialup.