From DSL to AOL.

[Philadelphia Eagle]

tmbsgrl wrote: We switched back to AOL a few nights ago.. We had the internet hooked to our cable line. It made our computer Way too slow. Aol is a lot better. Seems wierd to say. lol We had nothing but problems with our old provider. Does anyone else have this same problem? I always thought DSL Broadband was better.


Hi there - I hope I understand you correctly.

AOL is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and DSL Broadband is a method of connecting you to the internet. As such, they are quite different things.

You can use AOL (or any other ISP) either by connecting to the internet via a dial-up modem or by using Broadband which is much faster.

Are you now using your phone line to operate DSL rather than your cable connection?

Your choice of ISP should make no difference in terms of connection speed.

It's the type of connection you use which make the difference e.g. dial-up, DSL etc.

Hope that clarifies it a bit for you.

[john8pies]

AOL should be a half decent ISP considering the size of it and the number of employees. That said if you order Broadband from it you`ll get the box and have to set it up yourself, and any queries go via a Call Centre in India!

[Philadelphia Eagle]

John - your info may be correct for UK but it is inaccurate for here in the USA

[Philadelphia Eagle]

Hi Tmbsgrl - I also use AOL Version 9.0SE and am very happy with their service.

You can connect your computer to AOL either by dial-up modem or by using one of the Broadband services (DSL being one).

If you use a Broadband connection your AOL will operate very much faster than by using a dial-up modem.

AOL's on screen and off-screen help centers offer very good levels of service as you've found.

[Philadelphia Eagle]

One disadvantage which you may encounter in not havivg a Broadband connection to operate your AOL provider (apart from the relative slowness of a dial-up modem) is that some periodic updates which AOL will send electronically to your computer cannot be successfully loaded without a Broadband connection.

Particularly vunerable are updates to the video graphics card, most of which require a high speed connection.

Regards.

[Hawke]

Hmm...did your connection or your COMPUTER slow down while you were connected to cable internet? If your entire computer slowed down, then you probably have spyware/adware on your computer, or it could even have been co-opted by malicious software and turned into a "zombie" computer.

[Philadelphia Eagle]

Guys - What I can't understand is how tmbsgrl's computer appears to be working faster on dial-up than on Broadband!

Perhaps corruption is the reason as Hawke suggests and yet if it is why didn't it slow down using dial-up?.

I also get software problems from time to time with AOL but none too serious as yet.