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AAISP L2TP Service (UK)
Hi
With all the changes going on in the UK around ISP logging and lock down of various sites etc I have been thinking about making my internet connection a little more obscure. I'm not sure I need a full VPN, but it is an option, so would welcome UK suggestions. AAISP have a good reputation for not filtering and being a stand up company for privacy, with a good reputation.
Their fibre broadband is still pricey and given my home internet usage (approximately 750Gb a month) but they have an L2TP service that looks interesting.
TL;DR has anyone used AAISP L2TP service?
Thanks
Michael
Comments
How would they handover this L2TP to you ? If not via physical wire at a DC I don't see any reason for them to not give you the same, or even 50% smaller limits.
This is the service http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-l2tp.html £10 for 1Tb
Their fibre residential service for 1Tb is £60 per month. I currently have unlimited fibre from another provider for £30 per month, so not an insignificant difference.
Ah, this is only a VPN to their network so you can use their routing, not an actual L2TP handover that they offer on broadbands.
Yes.
You can as well take a VPS somewhere in the London and create your own VPN server there. I suppose that will be cheaper.
I guess that's an option, what kind of spec would I need to do it? I am guessing around the 1Gb memory mark and 100Mbps connection.
They are about the only independent none outsourced, human driven isp in the uk now, when you call you get answered by a technically competent human being, that is what you pay for with them, and that is what things really cost in the uk if you want to do them properly.
Yep. AS62240, our network is very well peered in the UK. We have a few Customers here, out of those we are aware of (if I missed you, please don't be offended, PM me and I'll make sure to include you next time!)
@AnthonySmith above, @AlexanderM, @AlexBarakov, @QuadHost
They should be happy to deliver some great quality service at a competitive price. Perhaps even help you out with setting it up for a small fee.
And the craziest thing is, it does not even have to be in London, might as well pick some country with a free non-censored and non-tracked Internet.
Where would you suggest?
That happens to pass through the entire fibre network in the UK if he lives there. Good try ;-). I'm not starting this discussion here, it's completely off topic.
London will usually give the best average latency when routing through VPN from the UK.
__
I think that's what attracted me to it. I do run my own VPSes all over, and run VPNs between them and my office. I guess the AA independence and a relatively minor cost seemed like the best of both worlds. If my daughter didn't use so much YouTube then I would move my fibre...
Well keep in mind its all BT Backbone anyway, even if it is un-bundled, so I just opted for a cheap fttc and a good 4g package together and a router that auto fails over to mobile networks if the fttc drops and it comes in cheaper than AAISP
I live in Northumberland if its windy the exchange dies, if it rains the exchange dies, if someone called bob leans over a bit on the 3rd tuesday of the month.... the exchange dies.
So while I would like AAISP, they really dont give me any advantage, I have learned that no mater how much you shout at an ISP.. BT dont work any faster than they have too which is always slower than any human expects.
I would rather just save the stress and have a fail over, I have not smashed a single phone on the wall since doing this about 3 years ago.
If you want to test out the network: http://lg1.inceptionhosting.com anyone using clouvider Enfield will give similar results so you have plenty of choice.
you are not going to get any fibre service for £30 a month, what you probably have is VDSL which is copper.
I'm in Norfolk so have similar issues. Thankfully fibre was rolled out and I've gone from <0.5Mbps to 78Mbps. The ADSL was unstable and although it runs over the same copper the FTTC is far more stable. I don't pay alot for my broadband and that is the only advantage of using a bigger ISP. The disadvantage is that they have started rolling out website blocking and proxying for things like YouTube. I don't like this so was looking for an alternative. I guess I see part of the cost of the AA solution as backing a cause as well as getting me something I need. Perhaps a VPS is a better idea.
Thanks for your thoughts all! Keep them coming!
Yes the service is copper. It is FTTC, which is a VDSL service. It is relatively, incorrectly, referred to fibre in the UK thou. FTTP isnt really being rolled out yet. Having said that if I was in a Virgin Media are I could have HFC which is even closer to true FTTH.
I'm not really sure how this information helps though?
because it's unreliable, it's worth spending a little more with A&A and having something more reliable
All the VDSL/ADSL run across the BT infrastructure, unless the local loop is unbundled (which it isn't at my exchange) pretty much the only this your supplier is doing is some of the backhaul and radius.
So in my case moving to A&A wouldn't really offer any more reliability
Not true. Once backhauled it's then routed through your provider autonomous system. Whether it will improve stuff or not depends on where the problem is. Is it any part of the backhaul or is it the Internet routing and saturation to the Internet.
Fair point. As I said the problem with the ISP is the site blocking and proxying. Hence looking at the L2TP or VPS option to VPN my traffic.
I am happy with the speed, cost and reliability from my current ISP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2016
Estonia and Iceland are tied for the top spot in the latter ranking. Though it also has US near the top, so I assume the score only reflects actual censorship, not surveillance.
Simple GRE tunnel would help to overcome this issue, especially if supported on your router. In that case VPS will be the cheapest route for you.
Seems to work pretty well, but bear in mind it's unencrypted so your existing ISP could still snoop if they DPI the traffic.
Used to be an AAISP Broadband customer (FTTC) and moved somewhere where my option was Virgin or ADSL so went with Virgin and then L2TP into AAISP to keep the static IP and IPv6 (Have Vivid 200 gamer for the extra upload)
Actually have 2 tunnels into AAISP at the moment for 200Mbit although I may drop one of them since most of my machines are on a powerline network that can't do that anyway ;-)
It's a rather expensive way to Tunnel to be honest I just Did it because I wanted to keep the IP I had before, then I did 2 tunnels just because I can (I.e I wanted to see if you could "bond" them like you can their broadband lines)
someone like @Clouvider with decent connectivity can probably do it cheaper although I suppose the advantage if AAISP as they are also a DSL ISP their IP's tend to work for netflix.etc.
@Clouvider wouldn't L2TP be easier than GRE if one endpoint has a dynamic IP?
@AnthonySmith do you have any VPSes available in the UK at the moment that would suit?
Thanks
Paying more for a service such as aaisp doesn't guarantee a decent service, I currently pay £16.75p/m for 80mbps from Plusnet and can max out the connection 24/7 and have done on a lot of occasions.
Last month we did 2.1TB of transfer, we use a lot of online services and never have any issues.
Not had issues with support either, via Twitter and phone I've always got things sorted quickly.
(I pay my line rental in advance)
Funnily enough I'm with plus net too. The fibre unlimited product is brilliant
But they put some YouTube proxy in and they are now blocking some torrent sites... And they are owned BT and we all remember the BT phorm fuckup.
Yeah, google has this kit they can Colo at a large ISP that serves as a local cache to their bandwidth hungry services. It's really cool and I suppose saves quite a bit of money at scale.
I am with Zen and find their service pretty good. They are not as outspoken as AAISP but my impression is that their management is pretty pro-privacy.
Don't know their stances about privacy but I use them too and they are pretty good. Been with Enta before as needed IPv6 enabled ISP. They went downhill, but Zen continues to be great!
I used to resell Enta years ago, they used to have a 2Mb leased line product they could roll out anywhere at a really good price. Then it started getting a bit odd until Jason Tsai ended up in court.