Firstly AOL will tell you that you need to be on the gold package or above to use WiFi, this is rhubarb! You can get WiFi working on the Silver package and after a few nights of desperation we finally got their using a Linksys router.

AOL state that only 4 Broadband routers are compatible with AOL these being, Speed Touch 510, 546, 576 and 580 routers, and the Netgear DG834 and DG834G, but you can use almost any WiFi router from brands like Linksys, D-Link, Belkin and many more.

As a plus point you will also be able to use your own choice of router without having to log on to AOL at all, this is because your router will log onto the AOL account and then share the connection. Of course should you want to still use AOL then you can, but on the sliver package you have only one screen name meaning only one PC can log into AOL at a time, you may need to move up to the gold package should you need more screen names.

Anyhow onto how we managed to get a Linksys router working with AOL broadband UK.

Firstly check your encapsulation type is set to PPPoA, you will find many sites (using Google) saying PPPoE, this is the American setting the UK uses PPPoA.

Under your PPPoA settings you will need to enter your screen names as your user ID or username, this needs to be in the form of username@aol.com and then enter the password for your screen name in the password box.

The next setting to get correct is the VCI or virtual circuit settings for AOL broadband in the UK this should be 0, 38 and leave the auto detect setting enabled, you may have to disable auto detect type in the numbers and then re enable auto detect. This was the bit of info we were missing.

You may have also read some other rhubarb while googling this subject regarding MTU (minimum transmission units). Do not change your MTU to any manual settings leave in auto, unless your surfing speed is very slow, we mean takes minutes to load a page then the MTU will have been correctly detected.

If you have already been suckered into going for the gold or higher packages to get WiFi, you do have a 7 day cooling off period, so once you have WiFi working ok you can revert back to the Silver package.

Published - 03/02/2006

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