AOL coming to Ireland?

Butternutz

Hi all first time posting on this forum, I thought this was a little curious if you select this link http://www.aol.ie/ it says that AOL will be coming to ireland this Year.
Does anyone know anything about this ?

AlmightyCushion

Cool. More competition is always a good thing.

BaconZombie

I have a AOL Ireland setup floppy somewhere..... back from the days of 9600bps dial-up

NullZer0

Butternutz wrote:

Hi all first time posting on this forum, I thought this was a little curious if you select this link http://www.aol.ie/ it says that AOL will be coming to ireland this Year.
Does anyone know anything about this ?

AOL aren't compatible with Mac is what I hear!
Is this true?

Mountjoy Mugger

Hmm... Dilemma.

To leave Smart and join AOL...

Nody

Knowing some of the people who has worked for AoL (UK) (or had their service) all I can say is if you think you had problems leaving Esat BT or getting through to NTL was hard you're in for a whole new level of fun (my favorite AoL was US one though where a friend in the end had the cancellation department in India admitting that they did not have the right to cancel accounts!) .

NullZer0

Nody wrote:

Knowing some of the people who has worked for AoL (UK) (or had their service) all I can say is if you think you had problems leaving Esat BT or getting through to NTL was hard you're in for a whole new level of fun (my favorite AoL was US one though where a friend in the end had the cancellation department in India admitting that they did not have the right to cancel accounts!) .

Just when I thought things here could get worse!

watty

AOL used to be a Walled Garden, not real Internet (pay more for less). Once Broadband arrived, no point to it.

What can they do in Ireland other than resell eircom?

AlmightyCushion

watty wrote:

AOL used to be a Walled Garden, not real Internet (pay more for less). Once Broadband arrived, no point to it.

What can they do in Ireland other than resell eircom?

They could unbundle exchanges.

carrotcake

Could, but won't, I'd say. Although it would be very nice.

god's toy

Hope they come in with a really low price to wake up the BB comp in Ireland!

stanley1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfEZWFBhxH4

JTMan

The Car Phone Warehouse now own the AOL brand over here. CPW have long talked about launching broadband in Ireland to complement their Talk Talk offering. Heres betting that it will not be as good value as the bundled package they offer in the UK.

carrotcake

That reminds me, right now in the UK they're giving away free laptops if you sign a 24 month contract with them. Not a bad deal!

BuffyBot

watty wrote:

AOL used to be a Walled Garden, not real Internet (pay more for less). Once Broadband arrived, no point to it.

What can they do in Ireland other than resell eircom?

It's hasn't been a walled garden for more than a decade...

AOL won't be launching broadband here. Since they sold their connection business in the UK to Carphone Warehouse (not, the brand however - CPW just have a license to use it), AOL itself has been focussing on becoming a content business. If CPW launch broadband here, it'll be under the TalkTalk brand and not AOL.

aol.ie is just going to be a portal (check out aol.it for a similar holding site and aol.nl for a idea of whats to come) containing webmail, Instant Messenger etc, AOL Video etc.

highlydebased

Pity. I'd love to see them operate in Ireland.

However aol.ie does says ..."...soon you will be able to enjoy AOL products and services" etc

Cabaal

iRock wrote:

AOL aren't compatible with Mac is what I hear!
Is this true?

AOL has always worked with Macs both with and without the software on ADSL, it was just a matter of AOL offering support to customers wishing to do so

AOL is unlikely to launch as an ISP in Ireland imho, however it is likely to launch as a content provider of news, e-mail etc like it has already in other country's...ala http://www.aol.nl/.

As already mentioned, CPW now own AOL Broadband within the UK as reported in the news back in 2006/early 2007 and given that TalkTalk is established as a brand within Ireland it is more likely they will expand there operations outside of dialup to include ADSL...of course all of this is speculation and it may or maynot ever happen.

As for aol.ie, its been saying coming soon for well over 12 months as far as I know and in fact it used to be the site for AOL in Waterford which now links to http://www.waterfordcentre.com/,

watty

AlmightyCushion wrote:

They could unbundle exchanges.

Due to cost structure that also is an illusion of competition. I don't think anyone actually makes money out of LLU in Ireland.

Unless eircom is split into network and retail with no connection, better regulation and lower prices for LLU, there is no real DSL competition. Only eircom makes money out of it.

CptSternn

AOL is evil. Think about all the broadband issues people complain about here. Then double it and you have AOL.

With all the issues people are reporting here with broadband, it's no wonder they are coming here - they will fit right in...

lucernarian

Digiweb had a press release mentioning plans to start using LLU months back, but I've heard nothing since. Other than that, I don't think LLU has been even talked of being expanded in this country for a year or more.

BT's speed announcement is something, but only if you live in Dublin or its suburbs.

Cabaal

CptSternn wrote:

AOL is evil. Think about all the broadband issues people complain about here. Then double it and you have AOL.

With all the issues people are reporting here with broadband, it's no wonder they are coming here - they will fit right in...

Of course the same could be said for many ISP's, its all relative depending on how you speak to and what ISP they use.

Of course alot of people base there views on AOL purely on the "AOL Sux" stuff on the net which is based on America On-Line and not what was AOL Europe (AOL France, UK, Germany),

People forget the while the letters AOL are used the services offered were very different in Europe,

ven0m

AOL had customers in Ireland (albeit a few) as far back as 8 years ago, when their UK customer service was based in ireland - but I think you had to dial up into an AOL Globalnet node in Dublin (their node was wactually in eastpoint at the time). They never really advertised the service in Ireland, but they didn't turn away irish customers willing to pay the extortionate amounts for globalnet access.

ven0m

iRock wrote:

AOL aren't compatible with Mac is what I hear!
Is this true?

AOL software on the Mac was super dodgy, & it was because it had problems with the compression technology AOL deployed, & the fact evertime an AOLart update occured, it usually crashed the friggin client. Top that off with the fact the mail aspect of the AOL client for mac was bogey .... this problem existing in version 3, version 4 for mac was a VAST improvement (but didn't solve the AOLart issues until 4.5 as I remember) .... but their stuff now seems fairly decent & fairly stable (as stable as AOL software will be - haven't used it in a few years!!!)

Cabaal

ven0m, versions 3, 4 and 4.5 go back a long way on the Mac, last version for classic was AOL 5.0.

Since 2001 its been AOL for OSX which uses the gecko rendering engine (also used by Firefox),

bungholio

well to be completely honest ill give them a chance to prove themselves be4 i come to any conclusion of whether they are ****e or not

note: I see ppl playing from the USA using aol bb on my gameservers with 49ms ping times? that is darn good and better that a lot of local providers i have seen

the_syco

watty wrote:

What can they do in Ireland other than resell eircom?

Make Eircom look like they've their sh|t together?

ven0m

Cabaal wrote:

ven0m, versions 3, 4 and 4.5 go back a long way on the Mac, last version for classic was AOL 5.0.

Since 2001 its been AOL for OSX which uses the gecko rendering engine (also used by Firefox),

I remember when AOL bought Netscape & said it'd be a long way off using the Netscape rendering engine, because of contractual agreements with M$. But it made perfect sense for the Mac client, cos IE on a Mac was gik anyways!!!!!

spannerotoole

Aol are pretty Dire when it comes to broadband, for example, they will not allow a VPN Connection at certain times, They do work with macs, but it's not supported, although why anyone would use a mac is beyond me...
Sure they look pretty but they crash when you do anything useful on it.

The modem is just a standard router, If you have a working Ethernet cable then it should work fine. Same goes for Linux, BSD, Syallable et al.

Cabaal

sigh
lets not drag up 12 month old threads!
DIE ZOMBIE THREAD DIE!

locked