OT: Any AOL experts out there

[Roger Mills]

I usually have to wash my mouth out after saying "AOL" - but needs must in this case!

I'm trying to help an old (both in age and long-standing) friend of mine whose phone line is currently dead and who, consequently, has no internet connection.

His internet service is provided by AOL and he *believes* that they also supply his phone service. [It appears that he only pays one bill each month covering everything, by continuous credit card authority].

The phone line is *definitely* dead - I've checked it myself with a known good phone in the test socket. There's no dial tone, and no voltage between pins 2 and 5. [Openreach were doing something at a neighbouring house yesterday, and my hunch is that they inadvertently disconnected my friend at the same time.]

The problem is, how to report the fault . . . Clearly, to get OR to do anything, it has to be reported to my friend's phone provider - but he's not *absolutely* sure who that is. When you Google for reporting AOL phone faults, you get pointed at TalkTalk. Is it likely that AOL subcontracts the phone line part to TalkTalk - or do they manage it themselves?

Sadly, my friend has done everything on-line and can't find any printed evidence - with account numbers, etc - which will likely be required to report the fault. It seems likely to me that he will have received monthly bills by email which contain this information. But, as far as I can see, there are no emails stored locally on his PC - so I assume that they remain on the AOL server - which he can't access without being able to get on-line!!

This is where the AOL expertise come in. In order to look for emails containing the relevant information, is there any way in which I could access his AOL account from my PC, using my internet connection? What information would I need? Would I need to load any AOL software (which I would be very reluctant to do)? Failing that, if he brought his laptop to my house and if I connected it to my WiFi, would he be able to access his AOL account over my internet connection - or is it tied to his connection?

[Why the hell do people get themselves into this mess - having everything on-line with no off-line backup?!!]

[Adrian]

AOL UK _are_ TalkTalk, and have been for damn near a decade.

[Belperite]

Yes. Call TalkTalk, give them the telephone number of the dead line and the subscriber's name, and take it from there. There should be security questions that your friend should be able to answer. Have fun...

[tigger]

Belperite writted thus

ha ha, I can't wait to hear the results of this one...

[Robin]

If the line is patently faulty when you dial it then it used to be that you could report that to *your* operator who checked the line and if necessary reported the fault. I've no idea if that works now but might be worth a shot if you have a landline.

[Roger Mills]

Well, surprisingly perhaps, I think we've made *some* progress!

If you try to report a fault on-line, it insists on a TalkTalk account number - which I don't have, of course, and which my friend doesn't know where to find! But it also gives a phone number to ring, which gets you to an automated fault reporting system which is satisfied with just the telephone number of the failed line. So I managed to report the fault and, when I phoned again an hour later, an automated voice accepted that there was fault and gave me a fault reference number. I also managed to provide a mobile number (mine in this case) to receive text updates - so we'll see what happens.

So I may not need to access my friend's AOL account in this case. But, as he gets older and less capable, I fear that I may need to do so at some point in the future. I would still welcome comments from anyone who knows about account portability, and AOL setup issues, etc. Particularly:

• with the right userID and password, can you log onto an AOL account from *any* internet connection, or is it tied to a specific connection?

• On a Windows PC, do you need any AOL-specific software?

• Is there a way of downloading emails and storing them on your own computer for off-line access?

[Adrian]

Yes, you can. They call the user ID the "screen name".

No, you don't. They push you towards it, but you don't need it.

Absolutely - they provide a bog-standard POP/IMAP feed.

[Flowerpotgirl]

If the line is patently faulty when you dial it then it used to be that you could report that to *your* operator who checked the line and if necessary reported the fault. I've no idea if that works now but might be worth a shot if you have a landline.

[Wibble]

Is there a known problem in his area?

[Fredxxx]

I would suggest you look up and download Mozilla Thunderbird.

If he knows the login credentials for his email account, then there's a fighting chance Thunderbird will automatically find the POP3 and SMTP server names for him.

If he wants to leave emails for access through a web browser it's essential he ensures the "Leave messages on server" in server settings is ticked.

[polygonum]

As it happens, I had a similar issue today for the first time. Setting up a W8.1 PC for someone who uses talktalk. Had to use their webmail to gain access to the email they sent when I tried to connect to them using Windows mail. But, provided you look up the server, port, etc., details on talktalk's web site it works fine on any random internet connection. Absolutely no software other than what comes with W8.1 was needed.

[Brian Gaff]

Like so many brands aol are just a name now.. I still have an email free account with lineone, which became tiscali which became talk talk etc. The whole thing is just a big illusion. Brian

[Roger Mills]

No.

[Roger Mills]

Openreach came out this afternoon, detected and fixed a discontinuity about 100 metres from my friend's house - and both his telephone and internet connection are now working again.

[Dave Liquorice]

IIRC you only managed to report it yesterday (Friday) didn't you? That fault repair response is better than BT Residential which for a before 1800(?) Friday fault report would have been by then end of Tuesday...

[Roger Mills]

I reported it at about 12:30 Friday, and they arrived to fix it at about

15:30 on Saturday - so that's about 27 hours. The recorded messages said to allow up to 72 hours for a response - so my friend was probably just lucky.

[Dave Baker]

Doh! All his old emails will be stored in his AOL PFC (Personal Filing Cabinet) which you don't even have to be online to access. Just fire up the AOL software into whichever screen name is applicable and go into Email.

To access his AOL account emails from any other pc just sign into Email on aol.co.uk with the same username and password as he uses on his own pc.

Even if he leaves AOL as I did he will still retain a free email account with the same screen names and passwords, be able to delete names and set up new names and from then on every email will be stored on AOL's servers.

[Roger Mills]

That's interesting - thanks. I didn't see an AOL application on his PC, and got the impression that he did everything on-line, using IE. I shall have to investigate further when I get the opportunity.