Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) Broadband, Full Fibre and Reviews UK

AAISP were excellent! Managed to help with all kinds of openreach issues. 3 stars due to depending on openreach, who are useless

## Andrews & Arnold — 2500/2500 XGS-PON I’ve been with Andrews & Arnold (AAISP) before, and after a rather frustrating experience with my previous ISP, I decided about six weeks ago that I wanted to move back. I ordered a 2500/2500 XGS-PON service, with the intention of having it installed around the time my existing contract expired. From the very beginning, the experience with AAISP has been excellent. I’ve mainly been dealing with Steph, who has been absolutely wonderful throughout the whole process. Her emails are always cheerful and friendly, and we’ve developed a nice little bit of banter along the way. It sounds like a small thing, but after dealing with large ISPs where communication can feel very transactional, it’s genuinely refreshing to deal with someone who is so down to earth and pleasant. Steph arranged the new line for me to coincide with the end of my existing contract. The 29th August wasn’t possible because it fell on a Saturday, which was expected, but AAISP offered the 28th instead, so everything was arranged well in advance. There was one small hiccup during the process where I received some rather confusing messages from my existing ISP. Under the newer One Touch Switch (OTS) process, AAISP should essentially be able to handle the transfer between providers without me having to get involved, so I contacted Steph to make sure everything was actually progressing as it should. She was straight on it. She chased things up, looked into why I hadn’t received the expected notification and reassured me that everything was being dealt with. A couple of days later, I received the confirmation from my old ISP that the service was indeed transferring away, which was a good reassurance that everything was on track. Yesterday, with the installation having been arranged nearly six weeks earlier, I dropped Steph another quick email just to make sure everything was still going ahead today. As usual, she was her cheerful self and checked the CityFibre system for me, confirming that everything was looking good. Then today arrived. Two CityFibre engineers turned up and got straight to work. I already knew there was a good chance that my existing ONT would need to be moved, as the newer XGS-PON ONTs are physically larger, and mine was mounted quite close to the wall. Sure enough, it needed moving slightly. They drilled a couple of new holes, installed the new ONT and had the whole thing completed remarkably quickly. I think they were here for around 15 minutes in total. Once everything was connected, they explained that the ONT would self-provision and should be online within around 15 minutes. No sitting around for 30+ minutes while someone has to phone through and manually push a configuration, which I remember being part of the process in years gone by. They also gave me a mobile number and said that if I had any problems after they left, I could text them. I thought that was a particularly nice touch. They left, I waited for the service to come up, and sure enough, my router came online without any issues. Obviously, the first thing I did was run a speed test. Wow. I ordered a 2500/2500 service and was seeing around 2300/2300 Mbps in both directions. I tried several different Speedtest endpoints just to make sure I wasn’t seeing some kind of unusually good result from a single server, and the results were consistently around the same mark. Exactly what I was hoping for. I know people often say that a 2.5Gbps connection is more of a gimmick than anything else, and realistically, for normal internet use, it probably is. But I’ve already noticed the difference coming from a 900/900 service. I did some patching across a few Macs shortly after the line came online, and transfers that previously took a noticeable amount of time were suddenly over almost before I’d had time to think about them. It’s certainly not something I *need*, but it is rather nice to have! Most importantly, though, the entire migration has just been completely painless. The order was placed, the installation was arranged, the transfer was coordinated, the CityFibre engineers arrived when expected, the ONT was installed, and the service provisioned itself. I haven’t had to contact technical support because, so far, there simply hasn’t been a reason to. Obviously, I can’t comment on AAISP’s technical support from this particular experience because I haven’t needed to use it yet. But based on the level of communication and support I’ve received throughout the ordering and installation process, I have no reason to expect anything other than the same standard. A particular shout-out has to go to Steph. Her friendly, down-to-earth and genuinely pleasant approach has made the whole process feel much more personal than you normally get when dealing with an ISP. I genuinely feel like I’m dealing with people rather than a faceless company, even if technically I’m not part of the AAISP family! Six weeks from placing the order to having a fully working 2500/2500 service, with everything going exactly as planned. So far, AAISP have absolutely nailed it. And yes, I’m very happy to be back.

Very Good. Help it's there at the end of a phone. Or within 24 hours by email. Unlike my old ISP which took 10-14 days to reply,

I honestly don’t know why I didn’t switch to Andrew’s & Arnold sooner. If I hadn’t mentioned my frustration with my previous provider to a friend, I probably would never have discovered them. The switch was completely seamless from start to finish. What really sets A&A apart is the customer support, you speak to knowledgeable people who actually know what they’re talking about, not an outsourced help desk or an endless maze of automated phone menus just to reach a real person. I only wish I’d found Andrew’s & Arnold years ago. Highly recommended!

Great support, no waiting in queues for ever and real people to talk to.

A&A is run by competent people that know how a network works, and listen to their customer. If you are technically inclined, they work with you to troubleshoot issues. When I subscribed to their service they went above and beyond to chase OpenReach and find an early and convenient slot for the fibre installation.

AAISP were v. helpful. Managed to get delayed openreach FTTP install brought forward when duct layers turned up a month early!

It is staffed by real people not screen reading zombies

Fine. 100%/ Steady as ever.

very good if expensive