FOR AOL USERS!
@ General (English) forum

Hi everyone!

Thought some of you would find this interesting.

About two years ago I was on a 4mb AOL internet connection. Now i'm quite aware that many people have problems with AOL - especially connection and download speeds, but what really bugged me at the time was that neither me, nor anyone who I knew could work out what the problem was/with AOL.

For example, I tried to connect to a UK server on css, my ping was 50+, and 45 was the lowest I could ever get! This really got on my nerves as connections to EU countries were sometimes even better than UK connections! Intent on finding the reason for this, I did a bit of research and ended up downloading a few technical programs that have the ability to trace connections from my computer to a server (either that be a website or a gaming server). As most of you probably know, when we connect to something, we don't make direct connection straight from A-B, we have to bypass many servers or "hops" along the way, and in gaming, if one of these is fucked, then your ping to a server, even down your road, could be in excess of 100.

So I decided to do a trace to a nearby server, only to find out that instead of a few connections around my area and then to the destination, the connection went from (put simply) "Home - London - Devon - New York - Dublin - Leamington (Warwickshire) - Destination".

So yeah, AOL had sent my connection right around the world before I connected to down my street, hence my 50 ping connection. After a bit more research I also discovered that AOL had spent a lot of money into getting a super-fast fibre connection so UK and American servers could connect faster.

I was really annoyed that AOL had told me that my connection was bad due to my router, when even after I had spent £60 on a new one the problem remained the same.
So..

I called up AOL, which happened to be one of their numerous Indian based help centers, the man on the phone was clueless and didn't speak a word of english, and I could have sworn that I heard his dog in the background at one point, but yeah, he didn't have a clue what i was on about so he passed me directly up to his supervisor, who's english was slightly better, but she too, was clueless about internet. In the end I managed to speak to somebody who was of higher level, and who was english thank god. After the long conversation with him, he didn't believe me, and he said "okay, if you download this screen viewer client I can see your monitor and tell you what your program s telling you" - so, to prove my point, I did. After he watched the connection bounce back from America, his first reply was "This program is bugged" - I laughed and told him that there is no way it could be bugged, and it certainly can't lie about where a connection is going.. he had no answer, other than "I recommend you stop using programs like this as I do believe they are illegal" - I kinda believed him on this, even though he was chatting pure bullshit which I have now found out, so I just went along with his story and agreed with him, just in case there was any slight risk of getting prosecuted etc.

I had a conversation with somebody who worked for BT today, he was playing css lol, and he said that AOL lie about a lot of things, but he said that the reasons AOL would connect you to America first is so that the lines they use over there would show High traffic and that the owners would get paid more.. he also said that connections like the one I explained do occur if AOL have too high traffic in a certain area of England.

So yeah. Basically, for all those that have a shit AOL connection or can't download at fast speeds, the reason is, you're connecting to America first (along AOL's very very expensive high capacity fibre line..)

Now i'm on Virgin 20mb, have connection speeds of lowest 7-8 ping and after re-doing the test today, found out that finally, America is nothing to do with me. My advice to all those that have a crap AOL connection, change provider, it's the only way !

Ed Gordon // edZy-- Posted 1 month ago: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:04:00 +0100

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