Help with using free UK ISPs

These are the most often asked questions about our free ISP services.

Q. Is the Aardvaak / SmartEmail service totally FREE ?
A. We do not charge any setup or monthly subscription charges and we do not charge you for time online. The only cost to you is the cost of the telephone call charged at cheap rates from anywhere within the UK which will be charged to you by your telephone service provider - rates start at 1p per minute or less - check with your telephone provider for their exact charges.. Remember that you can get extra discount from most Telephone Companies by including the number in your list of favorite numbers. You can access the service from ANY telephone line at ANY time (including mobiles).

Q. Will I receive the same type of Internet access as other ISP's who charge me a monthly fee ?
A. Yes indeed - our Internet access and other services such as email, webmail and web hosting are the same if not better than other ISPs and will allow you to browse the World Wide Web and connect to your Mail, News, IRC and other Servers (such as VPNs) in the same way as any other Internet Service Provider. We believe that we also offer faster speeds than some 'pay monthly' ISPs too - well at least that's what our customers tell us !

Q. What about support ?
A. We believe that we offer the best email support service of any UK ISP - try emailing your existing ISP with a query and see how long it takes to get a reply. We answer 90% of all support emails within 2 hours and a lot within 15 minutes or so. It only takes longer if we need to involve an Engineer to fix a problem.
The only thing we don't offer is 'rip-off' Premium Rate telephone support. Who wants to pay 50p or £1 per minute for help?

Q. OK, there's no such thing as a 'free lunch' so where is the catch?
A. Of course, we are a business and have to make money to survive. Through the arrangements between the new Telephone Companies and BT, we can make a small amount of money (fractions of a penny) from each minute that you are connected to the phone. Of course we have to make guarantees for the amount of call minutes that will be used. That is why we need as many people as possible to use the service so don't forget to tell EVERYONE about us !!

Q. Can I access my company VPN (Virtual Private Network)?
A. Yes you can. We have quite a number of customers who use Aardvaak / SmartEmail to access their corporate VPN and we are fully compatible with it (unlike certain other 'big brand' ISPs!
We also support remote control software such as VNC, PCanywhere etc if you need to remotely access computers.

Q. Can I use Aardvaak from abroad?
A. We don't have local telephone numbers abroad however if you are OK dialing an international number back to the UK then you can dial into your Aardvaak account.

From Europe dial: 0044 845 662 1409
From USA dial: 011 44 845 662 1409

Q. Is there any banner advertising displayed on my screen when using the service and will I receive unsolicited mails or spam ?
A. There is NO banner advertising whatsoever and the only email you will receive from us will be connected with the use of the service. The information you provide us is confidential and will not be sold or distributed to third parties. We don't agree with spamming!

Q. What connection speeds do you offer, and can I connect if I have a Apple Mac ?
A. Aardvaak offers connection at 33.6kbps, 56K Flex, X2, V90 and ISDN (64k and 128k), and the services is totally compatible with Windows 3.11, 95, 98, ME, NT, XP and W2K (Windows 2000) and Apple Mac including OSX.

For those people with ISDN we also support 64k, 128k and BOD - Bandwidth on Demand. This only raises the second channel when it is needed so check your Terminal Adaptor documentation to see how to enable it.

Q. Can Aardvaak offer a guaranteed first time connect every time ?
A. Aardvaak can guarantee first time connect every time because we always aim to have 30% more capacity then we ever need. We are frequently praised for our very fast connections which many 'pay monthly' services simply fail to achieve. And we don't disconnect you every 2 hours like some ISPs do!

Q. Is there any technical support ?
A. Some ISPs will charge up to £1 per minute for technical support but we think that's a rip-off. We provide FREE technical support via Email and aim to answer all emails within an hour or so.

Q. Can I connect all my users to your service?
A. Yes you can and if you contact us we will arrange for special signup procedures that will make your life as easy as possible when configuring multiple computers to access us. Use the Contact Us page.

Q. This sounds to good to be true, what is the catch ?
A. There is no catch so why not just try us and see for yourself. There is nothing to lose. There is no commitment and you don't even need to signup.

Even if you have an existing Internet account with another ISP, you may wish to use our service for example when you cannot connect or you are experiencing problems with your other ISP.

Q. What extras do I get with my Aardvaak Account?
A. Obviously you get your free Internet access, but we will also give you 5 free POP3 mailboxes as well as up to 5 email addresses which can be individual mailboxes or aliases that send email to the same mailbox..

We also give you free Email redirects and free auto-responders.

We then give you 25MB of free Web Space and 30 day trial of our superb online web site builder.

To access and setup these extra services click on the Admin button on the navigation bar above and enter your username (full email address) and password to gain access.

Remember that you MUST be connected to Aardvaak to use these extra services.